The minute she said it, the temperature in my classroom dropped. My students are usually laser-focused on me, but they shifted in their seats and looked away.
她說出這個字的那一刻, 全班的氣氛瞬間凝結了。 我的學生通常都會 完全專注在我身上, 但他們把椅子轉向,看向別處。
I'm a black woman who teaches the histories of race and US slavery. I'm aware that my social identity is always on display. And my students are vulnerable too, so I'm careful. I try to anticipate what part of my lesson might go wrong. But honestly, I didn't even see this one coming. None of my years of graduate school prepared me for what to do when the N-word entered my classroom.
我是一位黑人女性, 教的是種族歷史 和美國的奴隸制度。 我知道我的社會身分 也會受到注意。 我的學生也很容易受到傷害, 所以我很小心。 我會試著設想我的課程 有哪一部分可能會出問題。 但,坦白說, 我完全沒有預料到這件事。 我讀研究所時都沒有學到 當 N 開頭的那個字(黑鬼) 發生在我的教室時該怎麼處理。
I was in my first year of teaching when the student said the N-word in my class. She was not calling anyone a name. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. She came to class with her readings done, she sat in the front row and she was always on my team. When she said it, she was actually making a point about my lecture, by quoting a line from a 1970s movie, a comedy, that had two racist slurs. One for people of Chinese descent and the other the N-word. As soon as she said it, I held up my hands, said, "Whoa, whoa." But she assured me, "It's a joke from 'Blazing Saddles,'" and then she repeated it.
學生在我的課堂上說出 「N 開頭的那個字」, 是在我教書的第一年。 她並不是在取別人綽號。 她非常開朗活潑。 她來上課時功課都做完了, 她坐在前排, 且她總是站在我這一邊。 她說出這個字時, 她其實是在對課程內容闡述論點, 她引用了一句一部 七○年代的喜劇電影的台詞, 電影中有兩種對種族主義的毀謗。 一種是針對擁有中國血統的人, 另一種是針對 N 開頭的那個字。 她一說出這個字, 我便舉起雙手,說:「嘿,嘿!」 但,她向我保證, 「那是《閃亮的馬鞍》 裡面的笑話」, 接著她又重覆了一遍。
This all happened 10 years ago, and how I handled it haunted me for a long time. It wasn't the first time I thought about the word in an academic setting. I'm a professor of US history, it's in a lot of the documents that I teach. So I had to make a choice. After consulting with someone I trusted, I decided to never say it. Not even to quote it. But instead to use the euphemistic phrase, "the N-word." Even this decision was complicated. I didn't have tenure yet, and I worried that senior colleagues would think that by using the phrase I wasn't a serious scholar. But saying the actual word still felt worse.
這是十年前的事, 而我的處理方式讓我 有很長一段時間都無法忘懷。 那並不是我第一次在學術方面中 想到這個字。 我是一位美國歷史教授, 我有許多教學用的文件 都會出現這個字。 所以,我得做出選擇。 在諮詢過一位我信賴的人之後, 我決定永遠不要說這個字。 連引述中用到都不行。 我要改用委婉的說法 「N 開頭的那個字」來取代。 就連做這個決定也很複雜。 我還不是終身教授, 我會擔心如果我使用那種說法, 資深的同事會認為 我不是認真的學者。 但如果直接說出黑鬼這個詞,感覺更糟。
The incident in my classroom forced me to publicly reckon with the word. The history, the violence, but also -- The history, the violence, but also any time it was hurled at me, spoken casually in front of me, any time it rested on the tip of someone's tongue, it all came flooding up in that moment, right in front of my students. And I had no idea what to do.
我教室中發生的事,迫使我 必須要公開考量這個字。 這歷史,這暴力, 還有—— 這歷史,這暴力,還有別人 對我罵這個字的任何時候, 隨意的在我面前說出這個字的時候, 這個字掛在某人嘴邊的時候, 這一切,全都在那一刻湧現, 就在我的學生面前。 我完全不知道該怎麼辦。
So I've come to call stories like mine points of encounter. A point of encounter describes the moment you came face-to-face with the N-word. If you've even been stumped or provoked by the word, whether as the result of an awkward social situation, an uncomfortable academic conversation, something you heard in pop culture, or if you've been called the slur, or witnessed someone getting called the slur, you have experienced a point of encounter. And depending on who you are and how that moment goes down, you might have a range of responses. Could throw you off a little bit, or it could be incredibly painful and humiliating. I've had lots of these points of encounter in my life, but one thing is true. There's not a lot of space to talk about them.
我漸漸把像我這樣的 故事稱為遭遇點。 遭遇點指的就是你要面對 N 開頭的那個字的時刻。 如果你曾經被那個字為難或挑釁, 不論是因為尷尬的 社會情境所造成、 讓人不舒服的學術對談、 你在流行文化中聽到的, 或有人用這個字來罵你, 或看到別人被用這個字辱罵, 你就是經歷到了遭遇點。 要看你的身分 及那個時刻如何發展, 你可能會有不同的反應。 可能會讓你有點分心, 或可能會感到非常痛苦、羞辱。 我人生中經歷過許多遭遇點, 但,有件事是肯定的。 我沒有太多空間 可以談論這些遭遇點。
That day in my classroom was pretty much like all of those times I had an uninvited run-in with the N-word. I froze. Because the N-word is hard to talk about. Part of the reason the N-word is so hard to talk about, it's usually only discussed in one way, as a figure of speech, we hear this all the time, right? It's just a word. The burning question that cycles through social media is who can and cannot say it. Black intellectual Ta-Nehisi Coates does a groundbreaking job of defending the African American use of the word. On the other hand, Wendy Kaminer, a white freedom of speech advocate, argues that if we don't all just come and say it, we give the word power. And a lot of people feel that way. The Pew Center recently entered the debate. In a survey called "Race in America 2019," researchers asked US adults if they thought is was OK for a white person to say the N-word. Seventy percent of all adults surveyed said "never."
那天我教室中的情況, 就很像我過去 未預期時遇到 N 開頭的 那個字時的情況。 我呆住了。 因為要談論 N 開頭的 那個字是很困難的。 很難談論 N 開頭的那個字, 有部分原因是因為 通常討論它的方式只有一種, 就是一種比喻, 我們常常聽見,對吧? 它只是一個字。 在社群媒體上一陣子 就會出現的棘手問題 就是誰能說這個字、誰不能。 黑人知識分子塔尼西斯科茲 有一項開創性之舉, 就是為非裔美國人 使用這個字做辯護。 另一方面,溫蒂卡米納 是提倡言論自由的白人, 她主張,如果無法 讓所有人都把它說出來, 就會賦予這個字力量。 很多人都有同感。 皮尤研究中心近期也加入了辯論。 在「2019 年美國的 種族」這項調查中, 研究者詢問美國成人,他們能否 接受白人說 N 開頭的那個字。 七成的受訪成人 都說「絕對不能」。
And these debates are important. But they really obscure something else. They keep us from getting underneath to the real conversation. Which is that the N-word is not just a word. It's not neatly contained in a racist past, a relic of slavery. Fundamentally, the N-word is an idea disguised as a word: that black people are intellectually, biologically and immutably inferior to white people. And -- and I think this is the most important part -- that that inferiority means that the injustice we suffer and inequality we endure is essentially our own fault. So, yes, it is ...
這些辯論很重要。 但這背後其實還藏了其他東西。 這些辯論讓我們無法 深入去進行真正的對談: N 開頭的那個字並不只是一個字。 它並沒有被好好放在 種族主義的過去當中, 是奴隸制度的遺物。 基本上,N 開頭的那個字, 是一個想法偽裝成一個字, 這個想法就是:黑人在智力上、 生物機能上, 及免疫系統永遠都比白人差。 且——我認為 最重要的部分是—— 被視為次等,就表示 我們所受到的不公、 我們所忍受的不平, 基本上都是我們自己的錯。 所以,是的,的確是……
Speaking of the word only as racist spew or as an obscenity in hip hop music makes it sounds as if it's a disease located in the American vocal cords that can be snipped right out. It's not, and it can't. And I learned this from talking to my students.
若只把這個字的使用 當作是傾吐種族主義 或者嘻哈音樂的憎惡言語, 會讓這個字聽起來像是 一種美國人的聲帶疾病, 可以一刀剪掉。 並不是這樣,也不能一刀就剪掉。 我是從跟學生的交談學到這些的。
So next time class met, I apologized, and I made an announcement. I would have a new policy. Students would see the word in my PowerPoints, in film, in essays they read, but we would never ever say the word out loud in class. Nobody ever said it again. But they didn't learn much either. Afterwards, what bothered me most was that I didn't even explain to students why, of all the vile, problematic words in American English, why this particular word had its own buffer, the surrogate phrase "the N-word."
所以,下一次全班見面時, 我道歉了, 並做了一項聲明。 我要訂一條新規定。 學生會在我的投影片、影片、 他們閱讀的論文中看到這個字, 但我們永遠不能在班上 大聲說出那個字。 之後就沒有人再說過。 但他們也沒有學到很多。 事後,最讓我心煩的 就是我當時沒有向學生解釋 在美國英語的各種骯髒、 有問題的字詞中, 為什麼就只有這個字 有它自己的緩衝用 例如它的替代說法: 「N 開頭的那個字」。
Most of my students, many of them born in the late 1990s and afterwards, didn't even know that the phrase "the N-word" is a relatively new invention in American English. When I was growing up, it didn't exist. But in the late 1980s, black college students, writers, intellectuals, more and more started to talk about racist attacks against them. But increasingly, when they told these stories, they stopped using the word. Instead, they reduced it to the initial N and called it "the N-word." They felt that every time the word was uttered it opened up old wounds, so they refused to say it. They knew their listeners would hear the actual word in their heads. That wasn't the point. The point was they didn't want to put the word in their own mouths or into the air. By doing this, they made an entire nation start to second-guess themselves about saying it. This was such a radical move that people are still mad about it. Critics accuse those of us who use the phrase "the N-word," or people who become outraged, you know, just because the word is said, of being overprincipled, politically correct or, as I just read a couple of weeks ago in The New York Times, "insufferably woke." Right?
我大部分的學生 他們多半是在 一九九○年代末以後出生的, 他們甚至不知道 「N 開頭的那個字」 是美國英語中相對比較新發明的詞。 而在我成長過程中並不存在。 但在一九八○年代末, 黑人大學生、作家、知識分子, 越來越多人開始談論 他們遭受的種族主義攻擊。 但,當他們在說這些故事時, 他們漸漸不再使用這個字。 他們用字首「N」來代替它, 並稱它為「N 開頭的那個字」。 他們覺得每當那個字被說出來時, 就會揭開舊傷,因此 他們拒絕說出這個字。 他們知道他們的聽眾 會在腦海中聽到原本的字。 那不是重點。 重點是,他們不想要 從自己的口中說出這個字, 或讓它被說出來。 透過這個做法, 他們讓全國人在說了這個字之後 開始評論自己是否該說。 這個動作相當極端, 至今大家還對此感到氣憤。 評論家會指控我們這些 用「N 開頭的那個字」的人 或者只因為有人說這個字 就發怒的那些人, 指控我們過度講求原則、 政治正確, 或我在幾週前才在 《紐約時報》讀到的說法: 「對種族敏感到讓人反感」。 是吧?
So I bought into this a little bit too, which is why the next time I taught the course I proposed a freedom of speech debate. The N-word in academic spaces, for or against? I was certain students would be eager to debate who gets to say it and who doesn't. But they weren't. Instead ... my students started confessing. A white student from New Jersey talked about standing by as a black kid at her school got bullied by this word. She did nothing and years later still carried the guilt. Another from Connecticut talked about the pain of severing a very close relationship with a family member, because that family member refused to stop saying the word.
我也有點買帳了, 這就是為什麼下一次我教課時, 我便提議要做言論自由的辯論。 在學術空間中用「N 開頭的 那個字」,贊成或反對? 我肯定學生會很想要 辯論誰能說這個字、誰不能。 但他們並不想。 反而…… 我的學生開始坦白。 一位來自新澤西州的白人學生談到, 當她學校中有個黑人孩子 被用這個字霸凌時,她只是旁觀。 她袖手旁觀,數年後, 她仍然帶著罪惡感。 另一位來自康乃迪克州的學生 談到切斷和一位家人很親密的關係 所造成的痛苦, 他切斷關係是因為 這位家人堅持要說那個字。
One of the most memorable stories came from a very quiet black student from South Carolina. She didn't understand all the fuss. She said everyone at her school said the word. She wasn't talking about kids calling each other names in the hall. She explained that at her school when teachers and administrators became frustrated with an African American student, they called that student the actual N-word. She said it didn't bother her at all. But then a couple of days later, she came to visit me in my office hours and wept. She thought she was immune. She realized that she wasn't.
最讓人印象深刻的故事之一, 是一位來自南加州 很安靜的黑人學生所說的故事。 她不了解有什麼好大驚小怪。 她說在她的學校, 人人都會說那個字。 她指的並不是孩子們 在大廳中互相罵彼此。 她解釋說,在她的學校, 當老師和行政人員 被一名非裔美國學生 弄到很有挫敗感時, 他們就用真正 N 開頭的那個字 來稱呼那位學生。 她說她完全不覺得困擾。 但,幾天後, 她在我的開放諮詢時間 來找我,且她哭了。 她以為她已經對那個詞免疫了。 她發現她還不是。
Over the last 10 years, I have literally heard hundreds of these stories from all kinds of people from all ages. People in their 50s remembering stories from the second grade and when they were six, either calling people the word or being called the word, but carrying that all these years around this word, you know. And as I listened to people talk about their points of encounter, the pattern that emerged for me as a teacher that I found most upsetting is the single most fraught site for these points of encounter is the classroom.
在過去十年間, 我聽過各種年齡的各種人 跟我說了數百個像這樣的故事。 五十多歲的人會憶起 他們二年級的故事 及六歲時的故事, 若不是用那個字罵人, 就是被別人用那個字罵, 但這些年間都一直帶著 關於那個字的那些記憶。 當我聽大家訴說他們的遭遇點時, 我發現了一個模式, 身為老師,我感到相當沮喪, 那就是,最常發生 這些遭遇點的地方, 就是教室。
Most US kids are going to meet the N-word in class. One of the most assigned books in US high schools is Mark Twain’s "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in which the word appears over 200 times. And this isn't an indictment of "Huck Finn." The word is in lots of US literature and history. It's all over African American literature. Yet I hear from students that when the word is said during a lesson without discussion and context, it poisons the entire classroom environment. The trust between student and teacher is broken. Even so, many teachers, often with the very best of intentions, still say the N-word in class. They want to show and emphasize the horrors of US racism, so they rely on it for shock value. Invoking it brings into stark relief the ugliness of our nation's past. But they forget the ideas are alive and well in our cultural fabric.
大部分的美國孩子會在課堂上 遇到 N 開頭的那個字。 美國高中最常指定學生 閱讀的其中一本書 就是馬克吐溫的《頑童歷險記》, 在書中,這個字 出現了超過兩百次。 這並不是在控訴「哈克費恩」。 這個字出現在許多 美國文學和歷史中, 在非裔美國文學中處處可見。 但,學生跟我說, 若在上課時說到這個字, 但沒有討論也不知道情境時, 它就會毒害整個教室的環境。 學生和老師之間的信任會破裂。 儘管如此,許多老師 通常是出於最大的善意, 在課堂上仍會說 N 開頭的那個字。 他們想要展現及強調 美國種族主義的恐怖, 所以他們要仰賴 這個字的價值震撼。 使用它,能讓我們國家 過往的醜陋大大減輕。 但,他們忘了, 這個想法在我們的文化架構中 仍然活得好好的。
The six-letter word is like a capsule of accumulated hurt. Every time it is said, every time, it releases into the atmosphere the hateful notion that black people are less. My black students tell me that when the word is quoted or spoken in class, they feel like a giant spotlight is shining on them. One of my students told me that his classmates were like bobbleheads, turning to gauge his reaction. A white student told me that in the eighth grade, when they were learning "To Kill a Mockingbird" and reading it out loud in class, the student was stressed out at the idea of having to read the word, which the teacher insisted all students do, that the student ended up spending most of the unit hiding out in the bathroom.
這個六字母的字就像是 累積傷害的膠囊。 每一次它被說出來,每一次, 它就會在大氣中 釋放出仇恨的想法: 黑人比較差。 我的黑人學生告訴我, 課堂上有人說出或引述這個字時, 他們就會感覺到有個巨型 聚光燈打在他們身上。 我的一位學生告訴我, 他的同學就像搖頭娃娃, 不斷在評判他的反應。 一位白人學生告訴我,八年級時, 當他們在學《梅岡城故事》, 並在課堂上大聲朗讀它, 這位學生只要想到必須要 讀出這個字,就會倍感壓力, 而老師卻堅持學生要讀出來, 最後,在教這個單元的期間, 那名學生幾乎都躲在廁所中。
This is serious. Students across the country talk about switching majors and dropping classes because of poor teaching around the N-word. The issue of faculty carelessly speaking the word has reached such a fevered pitch, it's led to protests at Princeton, Emory, The New School, Smith College, where I teach, and Williams College, where just recently students have boycotted the entire English Department over it and other issues. And these were just the cases that make the news. This is a crisis. And while student reaction looks like an attack on freedom of speech, I promise this is an issue of teaching.
那很嚴重。 全國各地的學生 都提到因為關於 N 開頭的那個字 沒有被好好教導而導致 他們要換主修或退 課。 教職員不謹慎使用這個字的議題 已經達到了一個高點, 造成抗議出現在 普林斯頓大學、埃默里大學、 新學院大學、 史密斯學院,我教書的地方, 以及威廉士學院, 最近,那裡的學生才為了 這個議題和其他議題 而聯合抵制整個英文系。 這些只是有上新聞的案例。 這是個危機。 雖然學生的反應 看起來像是在攻擊言論自由, 我向各位保證,這是教學的議題。
My students are not afraid of materials that have the N-word in it. They want to learn about James Baldwin and William Faulkner and about the civil rights movement. In fact, their stories show that this word is a central feature of their lives as young people in the United States. It's in the music they love. And in the popular culture they emulate, the comedy they watch, it's in TV and movies and memorialized in museums. They hear it in locker rooms, on Instagram, in the hallways at school, in the chat rooms of the video games they play. It is all over the world they navigate. But they don't know how to think about it or even really what the word means.
我的學生並不會害怕內容 有 N 開頭的那個字的教材。 他們想要了解詹姆斯鮑德溫 和威廉福克納, 以及民權運動。 事實上,根據他們的故事, 他們年輕時期在美國的生活 主要的特色就是這個字。 它會出現在他們喜歡的音樂中、 他們效法的流行文化中、 他們看的喜劇中、 電視節目和電影中, 且以紀念的方式出現在博物館中。 他們到哪都會聽到它,在更衣間、 在 IG 上、 在學校走廊上、 在他們玩的電玩遊戲的聊天室中。 他們生活的世界中 到處都有這個字。 但,他們不知道該如何看待它, 甚至不知道那個字的意思。
I didn't even really understand what the word meant until I did some research. I was astonished to learn that black people first incorporated the N-word into the vocabulary as political protest, not in the 1970s or 1980s but as far back as the 1770s. And I wish I had more time to talk about the long, subversive history of the black use of the N-word. But I will say this: Many times, my students will come up to me and say, "I understand the virulent roots of this word, it's slavery." They are only partially right. This word, which existed before it became a slur, but it becomes a slur at a very distinct moment in US history, and that's as large numbers of black people begin to become free, starting in the North in the 1820s. In other words, this word is fundamentally an assault on black freedom, black mobility, and black aspiration.
在我做一些研究之前, 我其實也不了解那個字的意義。 讓我很驚訝的發現是, 黑人最初把 N 開頭的 那個字納入到字彙中 是為了政治抗議的目的, 並不是七○或八○年代的事, 而是早在 1770 年代就有了。 真希望我有更多時間可以談 黑人使用 N 開頭的那個字的 煽動性漫長歷史。 但,讓我這樣說: 我的學生常會來找我,說: 「我了解這個字充滿敵意的 根源,是奴隸制度。」 他們只對了一部分。 這個字在它變成 辱罵用字之前就存在了, 但,他在美國歷史上一個非常 獨特的時刻變成了辱罵用字, 那就是許多黑人 開始獲得自由的時刻, 也就是 1820 年代從北方開始。 換言之, 基本上,這個字 是在攻擊黑人的自由、 黑人的流動性, 以及黑人的熱望。
Even now, nothing so swiftly unleashes an N-word tirade as a black person asserting their rights or going where they please or prospering. Think of the attacks on Colin Kaepernick when he kneeled. Or Barack Obama when he became president. My students want to know this history. But when they ask questions, they're shushed and shamed. By shying away from talking about the N-word, we have turned this word into the ultimate taboo, crafting it into something so tantalizing, that for all US kids, no matter their racial background, part of their coming of age is figuring out how to negotiate this word. We treat conversations about it like sex before sex education. We're squeamish, we silence them. So they learn about it from misinformed friends and in whispers.
即使現在, 最會迅速釋放出用 N 開頭的 那個字的長篇激烈言論的, 就是黑人主張他們的權利, 或去他們想去或變得富有成功。 想想當科林卡佩尼克 跪下時所受到的攻擊。 或者歐巴馬變成總統時。 我的學生想要了解這些歷史。 但當他們問問題時, 他們會感到被禁聲和被羞辱。 透過躲避談論 N 開頭的那個字, 我們已經將這個字 轉變成了終極的禁忌, 把它打造成了相當折磨人的東西, 讓全美國的孩子, 不論種族背景, 在成長的過程中都必須要 想辦法處理這個字。 我們談論到這個字,就像 在性教育之前談論性一樣。 我們會很易怒,會要他們閉嘴。 所以,他們只能在背後 從資訊不正確的朋友那邊學習。
I wish I could go back to the classroom that day and push through my fear to talk about the fact that something actually happened. Not just to me or to my black students. But to all of us. You know, I think we're all connected by our inability to talk about this word. But what if we explored our points of encounter and did start to talk about it?
我真希望我能回到那天的教室裡, 克服我的恐懼, 跟孩子們談真正發生的狀況。 這些事不只是發生在我 或我的黑人學生身上。 是所有人身上。 我認為, 我們都無法去談論這個字, 因而讓我們連結在一起。 但,如果我們去探討 我們的遭遇點, 並開始談論它,會如何?
Today, I try to create the conditions in my classroom to have open and honest conversations about it. One of those conditions -- not saying the word. We're able to talk about it because it doesn't come into the classroom. Another important condition is I don't make my black students responsible for teaching their classmates about this. That is my job. So I come prepared. I hold the conversation with a tight rein, and I'm armed with knowledge of the history. I always ask students the same question: Why is talking about the N-word hard? Their answers are amazing. They're amazing. More than anything though, I have become deeply acquainted with my own points of encounter, my personal history around this word. Because when the N-word comes to school, or really anywhere, it brings with it all of the complicated history of US racism. The nation's history and my own, right here, right now. There's no avoiding it.
現今,我在教室中 試圖創造出一些條件, 讓大家能開放、誠實談論它。 其中一個條件—— 不要說出那個字。 我們能夠談論它, 因為它不會進到教室裡來。 另一個重要的條件 是我不會要求我的黑人學生要負責 教導他們的同學這些。 那是我的工作。 所以,我有備而來。 我會把對談控制好, 我也備有關於這段歷史的知識。 我總是會問學生同樣的問題: 為什麼談論 N 開頭的 那個字會如此困難? 他們的答案很驚人。 很驚人。 不過,最重要的是, 我已經深深熟悉了 我自己的遭遇點, 我個人和這個字有關的歷史。 因為,當 N 開頭的那個字進到學校 或任何地方, 它也會同時帶著美國 種族主義的複雜歷史。 美國的歷史 和我自己, 現在,就在這裡。 無法避開。
(Applause)
(掌聲)