A Restless Night and the Difficult History and Literature I Cannot (Safely) Teach

Ever have one of those nights (I bet you have) when you go to bed at a proper time, you are duly tired, and then...the brain won't shut up. For hours. 

So, what precisely was keeping my noggin engaged til well after 11:30 last night? Among other things, etymology. The word "troll" as both verb and noun. I started out with trolling/trawling, and I think we can safely assume it's just a pronunciation variation. Patrolling. Trolls. Trolls patrolling... and that led to another pronunciation variation: pattyrollers.

Ah. Now that's sketchy. My brain images went from creatures under bridges or on shipboard to those horrible humans who, for money and social approbation, hunted escaped slaves and brought them back for further abuses or death. So, logically (!!) my mind wandered off to Olivia Butler's novel, Kindred, which is an oddly effective amalgam of time travel and slave narratives. I'm not sure I liked the book, really, but I found it interesting in how Butler constructed the story. The interrupted relationships that had to be renewed in different times/contexts were sometimes a little hard to believe (and yes, I know that when we read stories like this we have to suspend disbelief). However, the carefully constructed historical markers and situations were riveting. If you haven't had a chance to give it a read-through, I'd recommend it. Mentally, I made some connections to Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin, which is another book I have some reader-difficulties with; in that one, the narrator annoys me, mainly because of the incipient level of condescending privilege that informs the diction. Yes, I know the historical relevance of the text, and I understand that Stowe was reaching out to a particular demographic, and it was effective in its reach. That all said, I still find the narrator, and the character of Little Eva, grating. I am likely in the minority with this opinion, but there it is. My blog, my opinion. (hm!)

The film Harriet, starring Cynthia Erivo, was really awesome, though. The characters and situations, as rooted in history and cultural mythos as they are, were believable, mainly due to some stellar acting. The same goes for Twelve Years a Slave, which really upset me. I know, it's supposed to. But it was really hard to watch, which is what makes it so damned good. 

I find it very difficult to feel at all competent to teach about this part of our cultural history and literature. In some ways, I don't think I've earned the right to do so. And in our current social/political climate, I feel very uncomfortable wandering into this field-- it's become a mine-field, and I wish it were not so. Today's students need to know this part of history, to understand why people of color are often so angry, so hurt, so fed up with the way things are. Our shared history is literally white-washed, and teachers are not allowed to wade into the murky parts of this without having to watch our backs. That makes me angry; I would much rather be a co-learner with my students, and I'd really rather engage with the difficulties than ignore them. But here we are. I will be teaching American Lit for dual credit again in just a couple weeks, and I have embedded as much Black history and literature, LatinX and Indigenous People's literature as I can (which is not a lot, unfortunately)-- I can only safely point the way toward true learning and compassionate understanding. I hope that it's enough.

Have a good day-- 

C