If I were black, and if I had anything against the classic “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and if I were against people reading the book — and those are a lot of ifs — the N-word, used frequently in the book, would not be high on my list of objections.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t the N-word should be part of anyone’s vocabulary.

But I can understand its use, as with curse words, in literature and art. Certain words convey things that need to be conveyed better than any other word.

So like you, I see the N-word in a book or hear it occasionally coming from a car booming down the streets of Muskogee.

And at times, that’s the realistic word to use, as it’s used in “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

Muskogee Little Theatre is putting on the play version of the book. I’m in the play, and I and other players use the N-word a few times.

I’ve discussed with other players whether many blacks in Muskogee will come to see the play and if they come, what they’ll think of it. We have four black actors in the play, so their families and friends will come.

But in 2001 — and I hate to bring this up again — Muskogee High School took “To Kill a Mockingbird” off the freshman required reading list. Administrators said they had received “many” complaints over the years of the use of the N-word in the book.

But here’s what I would object to in “To Kill a Mockingbird” if I were black and objecting:

• The blacks in the book are pretty much stereotyped.

• The blacks in the book defer to whites in everything.

• The book doesn’t have any black heroes. The heroes are white.

Blacks in Muskogee, if they come to the play, will have to leave their comfort zone to appreciate what the play has to say, and older blacks will have to tolerate some unpleasant memories.

So if few blacks show up for the play, I won’t blame them, and I commend the ones who come.

I don’t like leaving my comfort zone.

The black writers I’ve read, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neal Hurston, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison, are pretty much the black writers I had to read in college.

The only play written by a black I’ve read is “A Raisin in the Sun.”

And I don’t know the reasons why, and I doubt they’re intentional, but Muskogee Little Theatre has produced only one play with an all-black cast, “Ain't Misbehavin.'” But it’s time for more racial diversity, just as the theater presents musicals, comedies and dramatic pieces.

If we want to understand what it means to be human, then we need to see life through the eyes of all people.

Many Oklahomans will deny it, but this state’s push to punish illegal aliens and pass an English-only law originates mostly in fear of others and a superiority complex. We make our high school students read “The Tortilla Curtain” to expose our prejudices, but our politics teaches students something else all together.

We need less politics, more understanding, and that’s what good literature presents, whether it comes from a black, white or Hispanic perspective.

“To Kill a Mockingbird” may have been written by a white writer, and some blacks in Muskogee may not like the book, but a lot of the incidents and people in the book aren’t pleasant for whites either.

The author exposes the old white South in all its pettiness, prejudice and violence, and the gains in humanity at the conclusion of the book are small.

You can’t fault the author or book for that. You appreciate them for the story they tell and the truth they convey even if they use a word that offends.



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