The Power of Language, Hurtful History (What to do with racist terminology in American Literature?)

[snip]

Professor Gerald Wetlaufer read aloud two passages, one from Robert Caro's biography of former President Lyndon Johnson and another a 1964 speech by a black sharecropper named Fannie Lou Hamer. He apologized for not warning the students, but said the words were appropriate in the context.

"These were not words I used to oppress anyone in the class or promote anyone else's agenda," he said. "This word appears 49 times in 'To Kill a Mockingbird.' I don't think I have crossed some line here."

.........

African-Americans in New York are complaining that a reading comprehension question on the state's Regent Exam which asks about the benefits of European imperialism to Africa are racially insensitive, according to the New York Daily News.

A student who took the test says she was outraged by a reading-and-question section that detailed how English colonizers of Uganda built irrigation system and wells. She was also upset by a passage that reads how Europeans were "endeavoring ... to teach the native races to conduct their own affairs with justice and humanity, and to educate them alike in letters and in industry.

[snip]

Ah, yes, what to do, what to do...