Reflections on Censorship: Lawrence Hill in Conversation with Debra Thompson

How banning books from classrooms because of racial slurs hurts the very students our schools are trying to protect

Last Wednesday, I had the opportunity to watch a live, online conversation about censorship between two prominent Black Canadian authors. The webinar was called “We can’t teach a book with that word in it”: Reflections on the role of literature in society. The authors in question were award-winning novelist Lawrence Hill, and McGill University Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies, Debra Thompson.

The event was hosted by the Centre for Free Expression of the Toronto Metropolitan University and co-sponsored by Edmonton Public Library, PEN Canada, The Writers’ Union of Canada, Toronto Public Library, and Vancouver Public Library.

Sparked by the banning of Hill’s novel The Book of Negroes by the London District Catholic School Board because of its use of the N-word, it was probably the most educating discussion about censorship I’ve ever witnessed.

WATCH IT HERE FOR FREE.

My Biggest Takeaway

For many of us, censorship evokes images of religious zealots and political extremists mindlessly tossing books into a roaring fire. We think about Fascist dictators with sinister motives who target teachers and education in order to quash future uprisings against them. Or, as in the case of the United States at the moment, a leader with a political agenda meant to minimize the reality of racism in his country by, as Hill mentions during the discussion, banning books from schools “because they explore issues of race or racial history or racial identity.”

But what about when that’s not it at all? What about when it’s the teacher, the parent or, as in the case of Hill’s novel, the Board of Education, who sees the removal of a particular book as a means of protecting racially marginalized students from a racial slur?

This flip side, as Hill calls it, is equally dangerous, because “the effect is the same, which is to eliminate Black writers and other racialized writers from the classroom.”

He warns us that,

[I]t takes us back 50 years in time, when students will only be able to read White writers because if you’re Indigenous or South Asian or Black and you’re writing authentically about your lived experience, fictionally or not fictionally, you’re likely to use that word or another word that is a racial slur, that is part of your lived experience.”

As he explains, “kids hear the word 15 times a day going to school or coming back from school or college, or while listening to hip hop music, watching movies, watching TV, and suddenly we’re protecting them in the 45 minutes to an hour and a half during [class].”

Why All High School Lit Teachers Need to Watch this Webinar

As a former high school English teacher, I wish I’d heard Lawrence Hill and Debra Thompson’s reflections while I was still in the classroom. To be able to hear Black perspectives on teaching “a book with that word in it ,” to quote the title of the webinar, is exactly what I, as a White teacher, would have needed.

“The harm,” Hill states, “is in not discussing the word and its history and its place in the English language and its place in literature. The harm is avoiding the conversation, and so abdicating our educational obligations as teachers.”

What these speakers, both teachers themselves, have done by discussing the N-word in a public forum is to effectively open the doors of the (White) echo chamber of the past and air it out. They let teachers and Boards of Education know the word need not be feared.

They assure us that there are ways educators can become confident and empathetic facilitators who create safe spaces in which to have difficult yet rewarding conversations. They even provide a free resource list which I’ve included below.

Thank you for reading. ❤️

By the way, I do not use affiliate links.

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Related Readings & Resources

Teaching Resources for The Book of Negroes

• Black History Education Guide for The Book of Negroes
• About the British naval ledger known as the Book of Negroes (the ledger gave rise to the title of the novel)
• About the American publisher WW Norton & Co changing the title of The Book of Negroes to Someone Knows My Name
• About adapting The Book of Negroes to screenplays for a TV miniseries

Lawrence Hill, Blood: The Stuff of Life. House of Anansi Press, 2013, (a meditation on blood as a marker of racial identity, gender, citizenship, etc

Lawrence Hill, Dear Sir: I Intend to Burn Your Book. University of Alberta Press, 2013.

Book by Debra Thompson

Debra Thompson, The Long Road Home: On Blackness and Belonging. Simon and Schuster, 2022.

Articles

Brian Bethune, “Blood and Belonging in the Book of Negroes”, Maclean’s, January 4, 2015. 

Jefferson Cowie, “Is Freedom White ?” Boston Review, September 23, 2020.

Supriya Dwivedi, “Our National Silence on Bill 21 ” The Walrus, October 18, 2019.

Michelle Good, “‘Play Indians’ inflict real harm on Indigenous people,” Globe and Mail, May 21, 2021. 

Geena Hardy, “Depreciating Black Dramas for ‘Black Joy’ ,” Medium, December 18, 2019.

Tobi Haslett, “Magic Actions ,” n+1 magazine, issue 40, 2021.

Lawrence Hill, “Good Riddance to Aunt Jemima, and Goodbye to Uncle Ben Too,” The Globe and Mail, June 18, 2020.

Lawrence Hill, “How Harper Lee helped Canadians ignore racism in our own backyard,” The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2016.

Lawrence Hill, “Is Africa’s Pain Black America’s Burden?“, The Walrus, November 14, 2023.

Lawrence Hill, “Meet You at the Door,” The Walrus, January/February, 2011.

Lawrence Hill, “Review: Removed from immediacy of childhood, Go Set a Watchman less powerful than Mockingbird,” The Globe and Mail, July 14, 2015.

Darryl Leroux, “Self-Made Métis ,” Maisonneuve, November 1, 2018.

Randall L. Kennedy and Eugene Volokh, The New Taboo: Quoting Epithets in the Classroom and Beyond. Capital University Law Review, Vol. 49, No. 1, 2021.

Sarah Viren, “The Native Scholar Who Wasn’t ,” New York Times, May 25, 2021.

Discussion Papers

Canadian Human Rights Commission Discussion Paper on Systemic Racism. 2023.

Films & Videos

Everybody’s Children, National Film Board of Canada (2008; 52 mins).

Lawrence Hill in conversation with Chantal Gibson, Dean’s Lecture on Information + Society, 2018.

Podcasts

Don’t Call Me Resilient podcast, “Model Minority Blues ,” October 20, 2021.

In/equality from the Policy Options podcast, “Inequality and Criminal Justice, with Akwasi Owusu-Bempah ,” April 5, 2023.

In/equality from the Policy Options podcast, “Inequality and Settler Colonialism with Pamela Palmater ,” May 10, 2023.

It’s Been a Minute podcast: “Hasan Minhaj and the limits of representation,” September 29, 2023. 

Scam Goddess podcast: “Fraud Fridays: The Shaun King Episode, with Ashley Ray-Harris,” August 25, 2020.

Statistics Canada’s Eh Sayers podcast: “Created Equal,” March 16, 2022.

The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge podcast: “What we should know about Black History Month ” February 6, 2023 (start at 6 mins)

The Ezra Klein Show podcast: “I build a world with fantasy master N.K. Jemisin ,” August 2018. 

The Secret Life of Canada podcast: “The Indian Act ,” June 25, 2019.

The Secret Life of Canada podcast, “The Mounties Always Get Their Land, part 1 ,” September 15, 2020. 

The Secret Life of Canada podcast, “The Mounties Always Get Their Land, part 2 ,” October 11, 2020.  

The Secret Life of Canada podcast: “What’s the deal with blackface? ” June 10, 2020. 

Exhibits

Freedom Seeker: The Life and Times of Daniel G. Hill, Archives of Ontario.