Do "N"ot say the n word...

If I were an American English literature teacher and I were teaching The adventures of Huckleberry Finn I really don´t know if I would say the n-word or not. But according to the videos, as this is an important book for the American literature maybe I would think about it carefully. First of all, I think the students need to know what the n-word means. In spite of, that word is offensive and more if in my class there are African American students I would take care at the moment of talking about it.

As the History tells us that the n-word means slavery, I would explain to my students what the n-word means because they are in their rights to know why the word isn’t correct to say in the USA. Another point I consider it´s important, is the fact of being in the other´s shoes and think about I can feel if I listen that word, taking into account that this word represents so much for my race and its History. Maybe I would make a kind of warning to the white students, of course I know they know what that word means; but even they know it I think it´s important to be respectful with the African American students. What I possibly do is to change that offensive word to another.

Another important thing is the role of myself in the class, of course I’m the teacher and I suppose that I must show respect and keep the position, I mean if I really don’t want to create a heavy environment I would say to my students: Hey, the n-word is forbidden. And there could happen two different things, the first one is that the African American students don’t care about the use of this word or that they were grateful of the forbidding of that word. But maybe the situation could be different if the students are easy-going people, I mean it depends in the context, because any group could think different and could understand what really happens with that word and maybe they couldn’t be disrespectful.

But what I really would do is leave out that word, I think even the environment of the group is relaxed and no troublemaker, is thinking the fact of the equality for everyone regardless of the skin color of the students. Though some African American people say that anyone can say that word because for them it doesn’t mean racism; I really feel more comfortable without saying it, it’s a kind of respect and ethical behavior.