I have never been shy about sharing that I don’t appreciate hearing the N-word in my workplace, which includes classrooms and conferences in which texts that liberally use the word will be examined. Besides writing an essay that touches on the issue (2012, details below), I have addressed this by presenting on a “syllabus roundtable” for SSAWW, the Society for the Study of American Women Writers (2015) and by presenting at an Ohio State University English department event about Teaching Tough Topics (2014). For that occasion, I titled my remarks: “The N-word: A Not-So-Tough Topic in the Classroom.”
Below, you’ll find my “Class Covenant,” which is typically on the last page of the course policies for every class I teach, especially those that don’t focus on authors in dominant identity categories. Please feel free to adopt or adapt to suit your purposes. I’m happy to help as many people as possible with effective tools. A gesture like *Adopted/Adapted from Koritha Mitchell would be appreciated. Below the covenant, you’ll find additional explanations and resources.
CLASS COVENANT
Dr. Koritha Mitchell
To ensure that our time together is enriching, students will abide by the terms of this agreement. Anyone in our intellectual community can suggest an addition; the group will decide to accept, reject, or revise it.
1) The majority of our thinking about the literature will be done outside of class. An hour and twenty minutes is not enough time to appreciate the richness of this material. Remaining enrolled in this course means that you are ready to devote the time, effort, and energy to reading and thinking about this literature that it deserves.
2) In this course, we are studying literature. Although we are committed to considering these texts within their historical contexts, we must remain aware that they are creative works and are therefore CRAFTED. We will look at not only the message but also the craft—the artistic elements—that shape the delivery of that message.
3) This class will be free of hate speech regarding sexual orientation, gender expression, race, and socio-economic status or background. Inflammatory remarks will not go unchecked and will not be tolerated. Each member of this class is responsible for fostering an environment in which people and their ideas are respected. For the same reasons, students will strive to make remarks that are informed by our material and the history that surrounds it.
4) The N-word won’t be used in this class by a person of any race, even if it consistently appears in our texts. The same goes for the “F” word, regardless of a person’s (perceived) sexual orientation or gender expression. And, this is simply not a space in which we call people “trash.”
5) Profanity will not be common currency in this class.
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The N-word is not uttered in my classes, even if it appears in the reading. We simply say N or N’s when reading passages aloud. It easily becomes part of how we do things. It doesn’t take a PhD for my students to understand that we are literary critics, not re-enactors, so we need not let the text dictate what we give life to in the classroom. Just as their papers won’t generally refer to African Americans as “Negroes,” why must we operate as if the text leaves us no choice but to enact discursive violence? Is anything taken away because the word isn’t uttered while everyone is looking at it? Has learning been compromised? Might learning actually be enhanced because students aren’t having to work around the gut-punch some of them feel when they hear that word? The following help explain why I have adopted this practice:
UPDATE: as of March 4, 2019, The N-word in the Classroom: Just Say NO is available. It’s a 45-minute audio recording about how to handle racial and other slurs responsibly and with intellectual rigor. C19 Podcast: Official Publication of the Society for Nineteenth-Century Americanists. http://bit.ly/2TAkuU5
“Belief and Performance, Morrison and Me.” The Clearing, 1970-2010: Forty Years with Toni Morrison. Ed. Carmen Gillespie. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell UP, 2012. 245 – 261. [downloadable from the Intellectual Autobiography section of http://www.korithamitchell.com/books-articles/]
“I’m a professor. My colleagues who let their students dictate what they teach are cowards.” Vox. June 10, 2015.
Also see: “An Open Letter to White People From Two Professors of Color: Step Up!” (co-authored with anthropologist Alex E. Chávez). The Huffington Post. March 21, 2017.
Also see: “In America, White Women Can Get Away With Almost Anything.” The Huffington Post. March 16, 2018.
Connected to all these issues: “Responsible Teaching in a Violent Culture” http://www.korithamitchell.com/workshops/
This is an issue that serves as one of many “elephants in the room” when I teach my students topics such as the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, chattel slavery, Hip-Hop Culture, etc. I have found the use of the “N-Word” to be a troubling situation as one who teaches history. On the one hand, I do not want to “sanitize” history, yet, I don’t want to leave any of my students open to being offended. I vacillate on this matter and have yet to definitively decide for myself the correct path.
Thanks for this! I think the covenant is a great idea. Just a question, I was wondering if you had also considered giving guidelines on the way disabled people/disability should be referred to in your classroom?
Thank you for posing this important question. It has certainly come up in the classroom, and we address it as we do other concerns. My approach thus far has been to avoid creating a long list of terms we want to avoid because my goal is to lay the foundation. With a foundation in place, students are *empowered* to build on it throughout our time together. I don’t want to give any impression that all the thinking and responsibility taking has been done. We want to work together as an intellectual community.
However, getting this question here and on Twitter while I was recording a podcast episode about my Class Covenant made me hear my policy differently. These questions made me realize that I don’t need to add a slur to guideline #4, but I should make physical and mental ability part of guideline #3. I won’t change it on this blog post because the podcast episode will be out soon, and I want to keep things aligned with what I talk through on that recording. My next syllabus certainly will reflect this change, though.
While I’m writing, let me also note that ableism is part of how I understand and explain what I call “know-your-place aggression.” If you have any feedback on that concept as articulated in my article “Identifying White Mediocrity and Know-Your-Place Aggression: A Form of Self-Care,” I’d be happy to hear it. (It’s in issue 51.4 of the scholarly journal AFRICAN AMERICAN REVIEW, and I can provide it if access through your library is an issue.)
Many thanks for engaging the ideas and for reaching out!
I’ve found this covenant very helpful in my American lit classes; thank you. What are your thoughts on the word “negro”? Last semester I had two students ask me not to use the word in any context. One said that in her family they, “stay away from that word.” I wanted to honor these requests completely. Ultimately, I did the best I could, speaking the word as little as possible. However, this was difficult because I was teaching poems and essays from the New Negro Movement. The word, “negro” is not the same as the N-word; It has a different history and had a different connotation. If I speak the title of Hughes’ poem as, “The N- Speaks of Rivers” or “The [silence] Speaks of Rivers” I feel I’m not conveying Hughes’ intention or ideas. I look forward to your thoughts on this.
I’m so glad it’s helpful! I’ve actually gotten this question before and answered it by sending a brief audio recording because it’s easier to talk through than to type, but let me do my best. The idea that “Negro” is similar to the N-word seems to be an opportunity for educating. That student is doing some equating that doesn’t actually honor the history of those words. Equating them is a mistake. In fact, within African American circles, we will often joke by harkening back to that word. When someone does something annoying, I might say, “Girl, then this Negro …” Of course, “Negro” can land differently when the person saying it is white because there’s a way in which it can be about mis-recognition, like taking Black people back to an earlier, more oppressive time, but that’s not at all what this situation in the classroom is about, so I really think this is about educating the student. I would be inclined to say to a student like that something like: let’s consider the history of “Negro” vs. the history of the N-word. Do you think we should treat them the same based on those histories?
I hope that helps. Certainly feel free to reach out again if I can help more.
I just discovered the C-19 podcast and deeply appreciate the work you’ve done. I have been following similar guidelines for quite a while, but your class covenant is so much more clear and concise than my attempts to articulate these principles. Thank you!