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American Imago 59.2 (2002) 117-139



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The Secret Joys of Antiracist Pedagogy:
Huckleberry Finn in the Classroom

Phillip Barrish

"Never say 'nigger' again. Never have I heard this word spoken by a white person—or a black one, for that matter—without feeling terribly angry and uncomfortable. Too much history and hostility are conjured up by this word. . . . I don't care how you use it. I don't care if you're quoting some horrible white racist you abhor— do not say it, and confront those white people who do."

—M. Garlinda Burton, Never Say Nigger Again!

"Before change is possible, that is, we need to recognize how we get our enjoyment."

—Dennis Foster, Sublime Enjoyment

This essay explores what I believe to be an unavoidable paradox encountered by white liberal professors who set out to practice antiracist pedagogy in mostly, but not entirely, white classrooms. The paradox derives from the inevitability of the professors' (and, often, their students') citing, and thus in a sense performing, the blatantly racist past—most emblematically, the racist past compressed within the word "nigger"—even while trying to move beyond its influence. This performative citing of the past occurs within a purportedly antiracist psychic and socioinstitutional "present," but one that retains its identity as antiracist by turning away from its own dependence upon racial hierarchies and exclusions.

Among other aims, I hope here to offer a new purchase on certain oft-recognized dilemmas involved in teaching Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), a brilliant and seminal American novel in which the word "nigger" appears over 200 times. To do so, I investigate several implications of a rupture between the nonracist space usually presumed within Huck Finn classrooms and the realities that both undergird and [End Page 117] permeate that educational space. At moments, this break comes perilously close to dissolving the presumed reasons for being of a liberal arts classroom. I will suggest, however, that the moments in which such a dissolution most immediately impends—often when the word "nigger" is spoken by a white person—can also produce an inarticulate, even unconscious excitement, at least for the professor who is supposed to guarantee the meaning and validity of the educational process. Drawing on the Lacanian concept of jouissance, I argue that this excitement is experienced by the psyche as overwhelming and unmanageable. In the latter portions of this essay, I analyze some of my own "symptomatic" experiences teaching Huck Finn, as well as other evidence, to suggest that one way this excitement can be channeled is through fantasied scenarios of domination and victimization.

Impossible Antiracism

I will begin exploring the paradoxical inevitability of white liberal teachers' citing the racist past even while trying to move beyond it through a consideration of M. Garlinda Burton's Never Say Nigger Again! An Antiracism Guide for White Liberals (1994). Burton, who is regional director of the United Methodist News Service, identifies herself as an African-American working in a very liberal but predominantly white environment. Characterizing her text as a "handbook, a question-and-answer book, a guidebook," Burton addresses an audience of "white people who think they don't need a book on racism" (2). She offers many cogent insights about liberal white racism, but I will focus here on her title as well as the genre of her work.

First, how is Burton's title, with its exclamation point, to be understood? Should it be construed as an injunction? "Never say nigger again!" Or should it, rather, be taken as a promise of self-help? "Buy this book, follow its guided steps, and you will never say nigger again—guaranteed!" The latter reading would cast saying "nigger" as an unfortunate addiction or compulsion, parallel to, say, overeating or falling in love [End Page 118] with unsuitable partners. In this therapeutic paradigm, the addictive practices in question may provide acute enjoyment in response to a deeply felt need in the short term, but they can never lead to satisfaction. Reading the title as a Franklinesque promise of the self-improvement...

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