A Florida high school production of a play based on Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer prize-winning novel about racial conflict, To Kill a Mockingbird, has been canceled.
At the center of the controversy that prompted the cancellation was the historically necessary use of the word “nigger”.
The reason “nigger” is a word that carries such painful weight, of course, is due to a history of racism, to which books like To Kill a Mockingbird testify. That history is evoked every time the word is used, even today. But history will not be erased even if we delete the word from every play, novel or historical document about racism.
A play like To Kill a Mockingbird will help a younger generation understand the brutalities of racism and the hatred that accumulates in words. Indeed, we cringe at the use of the “n-word” today – as well we should – precisely because we are aware of its history and of the degradation and tragedy racism has caused.
“Protecting” children from history will only keep them ignorant.
We have come a long way since the events described in To Kill a Mockingbird thanks to an open and often heated debate on civil rights issues, a debate made possible by our national commitment to the free circulation of ideas.
It’s a lesson that we forget at our peril.
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