Censoring Ourselves

As all Exonians know, there is much more behind a piece of writing than just its words. But do we say all of what we see?In many of the readings in our English classes, there are sexual or racist references, and with classes full of kids from diverse backgrounds and teachers who you have only known for a term, it can be awkward to bring up such issues from the text.Winter term my prep year, my English class read American Dervish. It was a novel about a Muslim boy growing into adolescence. Naturally, there was a masturbation scene, and naturally, we preps completely ignored that night’s reading and continued to discuss past chapters.Because the author deliberately put in the scene about the boy’s first experience of a wet dream, there must have been some significance to it. The subject matter of the boy’s dream could have added some useful discussion about his character and feelings toward religion and other characters. Instead, we ignored it and pretended it did not happen as if we were awkward middle schoolers in sex-ed.Even when someone at the table is able to muster up the courage to bring up such a topic, the students become uncomfortable, looking at the teacher for approval. Why is it this way? If we can Harkness deep issues like existential crises, I think we should be able to simply talk about sex and masturbation.Racism and racial stereotypes also come up a lot in the English stories we read. There was one poem we read aloud in class, and the word “nigger” was in it. You could see the discomfort on every white kid’s face as he or she was counting around the table to see which unlucky one would be faced with the task of reading “the word.” When it was someone’s turn to read it, they swallowed it in a half syllable, rather than enunciating the word with the two syllables it needs.Another time, the word appeared in a chapter in a book. The dialogue in which it was written seemed to be a key sentence that helped readers understand the nature of the speaker’s character. Instead of reading the quote aloud, the student referred to it as something along the lines of “the thing that the guy said on page X.” Although in this case, the quote was addressed, the connotations around the word, which could have aided the conversation, were not.Does this awkwardness prevent us from digging deeper into the text and perhaps learning to our fullest potential? Probably. So why are students still so hesitant to bring such topics to the table?Some students, of course, are completely comfortable with such topics, which is helpful, but how do we include everyone in the conversation when some people still feel highly uncomfortable with it? The discomfort helps no one and simply hurts the conversation, by perpetuating the stigma given to topics such as sex and race around the table. When we hinder an otherwise open conversation about ideas and concepts, we also hinder progress and compound more insecurity regarding these topics.