I must have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a long time ago, back when I was a teenager or something like that. Never finished it. Figured there wasn’t much to it. A bunch of ignorant white folks saying “nigger” over and over. If I wanted to hear someone say ‘nigger’ 219 times in a row, I’d go down to the corner of any Martin Luther King Boulevard and, sure ‘nuff, after an hour or so, I’d have heard “nigger” enough to be satisfied.
Hadn’t even thought about Mr. Twain’s novel since I was 16 or so and would have probably been content to keep not thinking of it, except I read about how they planned to publish the book without the nigger-word. Instead, they’ll substitute the word “slave” each time. And I thought. “That’s strange.” You know how many “niggers” are in that book? Seems like a lot of work to take out all the “niggers” and replace them with “slaves.”
But I just shrugged my shoulders. I don’t really see any benefit in it. Publisher, NewSouth Books over in Montgomery, Alabama say now students can discuss the book in class, but seems to me they could do that before.
I put the whole thing out of my thoughts and tended to my life, but the nigger-word popped into my head at random times. When I was with my woman. Brushing my teeth. Sitting on the toilet. You know what kind of weird feeling it is to think about the nigger-word while your bowels move?
Anyway, I kept trying to make sense of it. Turned it over and over in my mind and couldn’t get any perspective. Went to my old copy of Huck Finn, but that damn publisher ruined it for me. Had me replacing “nigger” with “slave” every time I saw it.
Maybe it’s just me, but some of it just don’t make any sense. Like when Huck’s father says, “‘There was a free slave there from Ohio—a mulatter, most as white as a white man.’” Well, is he free or is he a slave? The boy Mark Twain got some logical problems there. And my mind’s turning round and round and I’m all confused. But then I blinked hard twice and realized that I was playing tricks on myself. It never said “slave” in the first place.
I already had problems reading this book, like I said before, but now, because of that crazy publisher it didn’t even make any goddamn sense.
Since reading was getting me nowhere, I put down the book and went to the closest Martin Luther King Boulevard. Figure, if I can’t get some understanding of what the publisher is trying to do, I’ll stand on MLK and I’ll hear the nigger-word so much that I’ll be sick and tired of it and I’ll be free to get back to serious thinking instead of studying Mark Twain so much.
But don’t you know that I’m out there for three hours and I don’t hear one “nigger.” Not even a “negro.” Did hear one “niggardly;” perked my ears till I looked it up in my pocket dictionary. Don’t got nothing to do with the nigger-word.
Just when I turn to leave, I see James, my old buddy from high school. He greets me with a broad smile and we shake hands and hug.
“What’s up, my nigger,” I say, matching his smile. But now I can see I’ve offended him. His grin takes a sharp downturn.
“Excuse me, but we don’t say that anymore.”
“Say what?”
“Nigger.”
“We don’t?”
“No,” he says. “Ever since NewSouth put out that new Huck Finn we’ve said good riddance to that awful word. Whenever we get the urge to say “nigger,” we replace it with “slave.” Where’ve you been? Everyone’s doing it.”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone, my slave. Think about it, slave, have you heard it in, say, the last month?”
I think about it and astonished, I can’t recall a single instance. Walking down the street’s like discovering a new world. All the people refer to each other as “slaves.” “What’s up, my slave.” “This slave here….” “That’s the goddamn problem with slaves today…” “Slave, please.”
We walk to James’s car and he starts blasting his radio. Even the music’s changed. Here is the rapper DMX chanting: “All my slaves get down like what/ Get down like what/ Get down like what…” Method Man expressing devotion to his significant other: “I got mad love to give/ you my slave…” The chorus to a popular Jay-Z song becomes: “Ain’t no slave like the one I got….” DMX again: “Just ‘cause I loves my slaves/ I shed blood for my slaves/ Let a slave holler/ Where my slaves?/ All I’ma hear is ‘Right here, my slave!’”
A whole world had evolved while I was looking the other way. James, already smiling, chuckles and claps to his music. Then he jumps up and down and becomes even more animated.
“Aww man, slave, I didn’t even tell you the best part,” James says. “Remember how white folks would try to use ‘nigger’ as a term of endearment and it would be awkward at best, or cause a fight at worst? Well, that’s no more.”
“Really?”
“Of course. ‘Slave’ is multicultural. Anyone can be a ‘slave.’ Just the other day, my best friend, a white guy, was like, ‘You’re like a brother to me, man; I love you, my slave.’ I didn’t get offended. He sounded just like Thomas Jefferson.”
This piece originally appeared on the Pank Blog and posted to Free Black Space 19 August 2014.
Rion Amilcar Scott is the author of Insurrections: Stories published by University of Kentucky Press. Scott has contributed to PANK, Fiction International and Confrontation, among others. Raised in Silver Spring, Maryland, he earned an MFA at George Mason University and presently teaches English at Bowie State University.
