After all, racial linguistics have more directly useful terms to run up the pole of righteous stupidity like the time a few years ago when some really idiotic and racially-enflamed morons rendered objection to the use of the word “niggardly” as though it meant “to be as though niggar”. I do not make these things up, they occur with a regularity that, unfortunately… is the opposite of niggardly.

I do think, though, that with Julius Lester’s versions (and he is black), and the Jump! series which has terrific illustrations, that the books are selling and being read privately. How often a librarian reads them at school is another matter; here and there, but not everywhere. That shouldn’t matter–we shouldn’t be dependent on school for our childhood reading–but of course so many kids only get the electronic babysitter at home.

Florida State University has a very good article online from 1998 which, among other things, includes an interview with an African American storyteller who has had all kinds of trouble trying to tell Remus tales to black audiences. (I can’t remember how to add a hyperlink tonight. But google Harris and FSU.) She persists, though.

I thought I was right about college students, Mark; I’ve heard similar stories here. Next time you teach Ellison I think you should, in charity, assign some Remus tales, and if the college’s endowment is still way down I’ll pay for the xeroxing. But you’d better be careful about teaching one son to look to Brer Rabbit for ideas on how to deal with another. When he asks you if he can boil some water, watch out.

Local dialect is the picture window of great literature. Expressing it well demonstrates a love for the speaker. As an example of it’s fundamental equal rights, I offer the following:

My mother in law Marion and her second husband Seymour (“Seeeemwwwwoooor”) were on a trip in Alabama in a rented RV with their friends Bernie and Rose and after they had yakety yakked for a while and ordered their food in their proud Brooklyn and Bronx accents , the Black waitress delivered their dinners and said :

“I jess looooove yur cute lil ole aiiccents”

Shut my mouth.

A few years ago when I taught Ellison’s Invisible Man, I realized how helpful it would have been if my students knew these stories. Ellison’s protagonist, in trying to wrench his self-image out of its tidy spot in the progressive narrative of the liberal white northeastern establishment, finds one of his best psychic resources in Brer Rabbit and Brer Bear, which belong to his black and southern heritage. Like the authentic blues, which presents a whole tragicomic vision of life, these stories encapsulate for Ellison a view that regards human nature with a combination of sly realism and boundless good humor.

What we refer to as my “unfortunate gnenetic proclivity as a result of being born in Utah:Republicanism….or as we now call it, Recovering Republican”…… must surely be from the early readings of Remus along with orders at around age ten or eleven to go off with the Salt Lake Tribune and a dictionary, read William F. Buckley and report back to her what was said.

These are the roots of the creation of a monster. Throw me in the briar patch indeed.

A fine post, Katherine; thank you for it. I’ve never read the original Harris stories–only know about them through various reprints and excerpts. It’s time I exposed myself to them in full! A goal for the summer, perhaps.