Racist terms in old books - should they be removed?

[LunaNorth]

I’m a big fan of books from the 1930s and 1940s, but I’m not a fan of being confronted by the n-word, or terms like ‘working like a black’ within an otherwise totally innocuous crime novel, such as the Josephine Tey I’m reading right now.

On the one hand, I fully understand the need to show society as it really was, and not try to whitewash the past. There’s no way I’d suggest removing such language from something like To Kill A Mockingbird, or Of Mice and Men.

But on the other, nobody picks up an old crime novel in the hopes of being educated about race relations in the 1930s, do they? So you end up being yanked out of the narrative and feeling a bit guilty for even reading it in the first place.

I dunno. I’m probably massively wrong, and I’m happy to be told so, but leaving phrases like ‘n*** brown’ in a book, with no disclaimer or warning anywhere, smacks a bit of condoning it. And how the hell do you recommend or lend the book to anyone without looking like a massive racist? ‘Here, read this, it’s a cracking little crime novel, but of the old racist language in it, but don’t let that bother you.’ No, can’t do it.

I picked up the book after hearing a podcast about it, and nothing at all was said about the language. Should it have been?

I’m normally the last person to recommend censorship, but I don’t see the point in letting such language hang about in light fiction books, really. It’s like finding a razor blade in your sandwich.

Or am I completely wrong?

and while I did enjoy Enid Blyton as a kid, the books aren’t that good. It wouldn’t exactly be a massive stretch to update them, to make them more inclusive. They’re not exactly Shakespeare. And I think it’s right that we should do so. If we want things to become better, we need to do something about it

Then write new books, don't mess with the old ones. EB was shit in her own time, and now shes offensive and shit. So don't read that crap to your kids. Read something better.
Don't go and dig up the corpse of old books and change them to make them modern and new, what's the point? You get a zombie nightmare that nobody needs.

Making ancient childrens books more inclusive is pointless busywork. Make society more inclusive and write books about that!

It would be a never ending task as attitudes are ever changing. Part of reading is understanding that. Books are of their time and our culture will be a lot poorer if we start to constantly edit the past.
Lots of classics will have elements of casual racism from the time they were written. I have encouraged my children to read a range of books and we have discussed some of the language.
The idea that books are there to promote equality and diversity to children is deeply depressing. They are really not. Books are so much more.

No, because it's important not to change history. If we start down that route we'll end up like in 1984.

Why is the use of language in to kill a mockingbird more worthy than these 1920s crime drama books? Why should we leave to kill a mockingbird alone if talking about changing the language of books? What makes it special?

Books are a reflection of the time they were written. You can't sanitise history.

How far back do you want to go? I expect some touchy person could find problems with Jane Austen if they searched hard enough. This blame game is monotonous and childish. Surely, if we make sure these words don't appear in new books it is enough. What namby-pambies (someone will object, I am sure!) this world is becoming.

I wonder how many commenting on this thread are white? The phrase "working like a black" isn't going to hit us in the same way that it might hurt a black person. While I think examining racist attitudes of the past (and today - let's not pretend that history isn't sanitized and modern racist attitudes swept under the carpet) is important, I don't think my learning about this in a book is more important than the hurt a black person might feel. There are other ways for me to learn.

@SionnachRua

I wonder how many commenting on this thread are white? The phrase "working like a black" isn't going to hit us in the same way that it might hurt a black person. While I think examining racist attitudes of the past (and today - let's not pretend that history isn't sanitized and modern racist attitudes swept under the carpet) is important, I don't think my learning about this in a book is more important than the hurt a black person might feel. There are other ways for me to learn.

That’s what I meant upthread, but I came across a bit patronising.

It is patronising.

That’s what I meant upthread, but I came across a bit patronising.

And I don't even mean that all the books should be automatically censored either. Just that as a white woman, I can't know how seeing those phrases might feel for a black woman - it's not going to hit home for me in the same way. Is it right that the black woman should have to feel hurt by the unnecessary racism just so that I can sit back and think "ooh racism, that's bad" or whatever? The black woman knows good and goddamn well that racism existed and hasn't gone away, it's intertwined in our society.

I can’t speak for all, obviously but I find it really patronising. And dangerous.

Please don’t try to make this about protecting black people. That is insulting and infantilising.
My children read widely and understand the terminology. I am more concerned that they read.
There are lots of issues to worry about but this isn’t one.

I also think there is a danger that by cleaning up the language you give the impression that the attitudes no longer exist because the language has changed. I think we may one day look back at the level of sexual violence against women in modern literature with horror.

I’m not white, and I do not believe that fiction should be altered at all.

The time they were written in is context to the whole of the text. It is part of the fibre of the story.

How can we possibly learn from the past if have if the past is redacted!!

@Blackberrycream it’s honestly not only about that, but I completely take your point and apologise for any offence caused.

We shouldn't change it. A disclaimer is a good compromise. Many years ago, as a teen, I was watching Reach for the Sky and was horrified that the black labrador in it was called N. It actually opened up a conversation with my mum and she told me all about growing up as a docker's daughter in Liverpool and how there was a very clear divide between "them and us" which had always confused mum (we're white, but the racism was commonplace and deemed acceptable), I don't know if that conversation would have happened otherwise. This would have been mid 90s so there was still an awful lot of racist terminology around but definitely the N word was thankfully unacceptable.

I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to explain myself but I will try...

If we change everything then one day future generations may not fully understand the impact these words had or how commonly used they were.

If we delete scenes from films or overdub them, how can we then make future generations understand the struggle of the oppressed and victimised, and what led to social change (or the call for social change and drive toward achieving it).

Just because it is uncomfortable to see or hear etc, it should never be censored. We risk wiping out the recorded evidence that proves WHY change was needed.

@HilaryThorpe

I also think there is a danger that by cleaning up the language you give the impression that the attitudes no longer exist because the language has changed. I think we may one day look back at the level of sexual violence against women in modern literature with horror.

That's actually a great point - all of those crime novels that sell by the bucketload. Maybe that'll be seen as a problem with our society?

For me, I'm not saying that we should censor these books. I just feel I'm not the right person to ask because that language isn't directed at me.

@AliceSprings123

"one of my favourite books has a ghastly anti Semitic section about a Jewish moneylender." Sounds like The Merchant of Venice

My understanding is that by law Jewish people in the UK were not allowed to join trades or professions, so money lending was one of the few economic opportunities open to them. We can't change books to show Jewish people doing jobs they were barred from. People hated money lenders for the same reasons they hate tax collectors and bankers, multiplied by anti-Semitism. So we are left with books with anti-Semitic portrayals. We don't want to ban books. We don't want to change books. A disclaimer seems the way ahead, but it seems too little, too tokenistic. I think we should study and read books with viewpoints we don't agree with, but I'm not sure how I can justify reading a bigoted book and maintain that I'm not a bigot. So, I'm on the fence!

Have you read Our Mutual Friend? Apparently Dickens created the oh so sympathetic Jewish character in that to show he wasn’t anti Semitic following the reaction he got to Fagin. Yet somehow, it doesn’t work - he lays it on so thick with this character it comes across as more anti Semitic than even Fagin, and really nauseating - well, to me, anyway.

I was going to mention Our Mutual Friend and Mr Riah being a money lender.

There's also that Barney character in Oliver Twist that is competely ridiculed.

@LunaNorth
I appreciate it’s well meaning. I’m not offended. I really like reading though and this sounds like a bit of a nightmare scenario!
Funnily enough, I love Josephine Tey going back to the original post.

For me, I'm not saying that we should censor these books. I just feel I'm not the right person to ask because that language isn't directed at me.

Good point. My previous comment isn't about me, a white woman who hasn't lived with racism, trying to dictate what must happen and wanting to be patronising. I just think it does a huge disservice to those who have lived with racism (and continue to) to almost delete the evidence of just how endemic it was throughout society in years gone by.

viewpoints we don't agree with, but I'm not sure how I can justify reading a bigoted book and maintain that I'm not a bigot. So, I'm on the fence!

Reading a book with racism / sexism/ agism will not make you a bigot.... only your actions can do that.

I’m reading a detective story at the moment but it won’t make me a murderer any more than reading jilly Cooper would improve my sex life!

It’s a quandary, isn’t it?

The reason I read the 1930s books is purely for entertainment, so I feel a bit like I’m condoning the language by buying the books and disregarding the racism.

But I also take the point that there’s plenty of misogyny, homophobia, you name it, in lots of older forms of entertainment. Jesus, even Friends doesn’t play that well nowadays.

I think the example that led me to start this thread was so jarring because it just seemed totally out of place and hadn’t been mentioned at all in the one-hour podcast I’d listened to about it.

There’s been some real food for thought on this thread. I’m glad I started it.

OP - out of interest, have you read Josephine Tey’s “The Franchise Affair”?

I ask because the snobbery that suffuses that book made me wince, rather than any explicitly racist phrases - yet the snobbery is integral to the storyline. Would that make you as uncomfortable?

Not getting at you or anything by the way - I’m genuinely interested. This thread has got me thinking about the topic generally and I like Josephine Tey.

Plus what was the podcast in question?

[quote Blackberrycream]@LunaNorth
I appreciate it’s well meaning. I’m not offended. I really like reading though and this sounds like a bit of a nightmare scenario!
Funnily enough, I love Josephine Tey going back to the original post.[/quote]
I’ve never read her before, and apart from the issues outlined, I loved her writing.

I love that cutting humour that runs through early 20th Century women’s writing.

Josephine Tey wrote that book about the Princes in the Tower, didn't she? Amazing read.