N: My Encounter With Racism and the Forbidden Word in an American Classic - Couverture souple

Harris, James Henry

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1506479162 ISBN 13 : 9781506479163

Editeur : Fortress Press,U.S., 2021

Synopsis

This book is about a Black man\x27s experience of reading Mark Twain\x27s classic Adventures of Huckleberry Finn <\/i>for the first time while in graduate school. The story captures the author\x27s emotional struggle with Twain\x27s use of the racial epithet <\/i>more than two hundred times in the text. Author James Henry Harris reports being relieved to come to the end of the semester of \x26#34;encountering Twain\x27s use of [the forbidden word] every week. . . . I was teetering on the brink of falling apart. . . . For the first time the class seemed to understand my painful struggle, and my plight as a Black man in class was a metaphor, a symbol of the past, present, and postmodern condition of American society.\x26#34;<\/p>\n

This is a courageous memoir that wrestles with the historic stain of racism and the ongoing impact of racist language in postmodern society. The book is about Harris\x27s flashbacks, conversations, and dilemmas spawned by use of the epithet in a classroom setting where the author was the only Black person. His diary\-like reflections reveal his skill as a keen reader of culture and literature. In these pages, Harris challenges his instructor and classmates and inspires readers to redress the long history of American racism and white supremacy bound up with the N\-word. He reflects on how current Black artists and others use the word in a different way with the intention of empowering or claiming the term. But Harris is not convinced that even this usage does not further feed the word\x27s racist roots.<\/p>\n

Healing racial division begins with understanding the deep impact our words can have to tear down or to heal. This book invites the reader into this important conversation.<\/p>

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

James Henry Harris is Distinguished Professor of Homiletics and Pastoral Theology and a research scholar in religion and humanities at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor School of Theology, Virginia Union University. He also serves as chair of the theology faculty and pastor of Second Baptist Church, Richmond, Virginia. He is a former president of the Academy of Homiletics and recipient of the Henry Luce Fellowship in Theology. He is the author of numerous books, including Beyond the Tyranny of the Text and Black Suffering: Silent Pain, Hidden Hope (Fortress Press, 2020).

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Fortress Press,U.S.
• Date d'édition: 2021
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1506479162
• ISBN 13: 9781506479163
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 181
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible