I’ve been thinking, again, about the troubling, persistent problem of race and gender prejudice in art, literature and life. It arose, for me, in the context of a novel by mid-Victorian Anthony Trollope, whose dark comedy of greed and corruption –“The Way We Live Now” (For Trollopians manqués click here for a Project Guttenberg etext; if you don’t know about Project Guttenberg click there anyway and find out) I am now reading.

Like Imus’ characterizations, Trollope’s anti-Semitic asides, character assaults and slurs, appear gratuitous. A hated man or woman is called a “Jew” with loathing by a leading loved character. A frumpy, overweight, character who “waddles” is a “Bohemian Jewess,” a swindling financier is “of the Hebrew persuasion” (although the persuasions of none of the other characters is told.) While the examples that come to mind are of slurs about Jews, Trollope is perhaps even more scornful of feminists; although women characters who know their places are better treated by him. While the actual streets of London were filled with people of dark-colored skins, Trollope’s darker “others” are Italian or Jewish and, generally, up to no good.

The question, for me, is: “What are we to do with all this?” I was brought up to abhor derogative racial and gender epithets and characterizations. The words “nigger” “kike” “bitch” “ho” grate on my ear. The first time a co-worker said I was “jewing him down” I blushed from head to toe. But abhorring how people actually speak or write doesn’t make it go away. Indeed, should we be trying to clean up dirty language – even when racist or sexist?

Banishing bad words like fuck and shit, of course, has never kept them from art and literature or, of late from The New Yorker. The world hasn’t ended. The Irish-Chicago-Irish, religious-romance novels of sociologist-priest Andrew Greeley are similarly scattered with fucking and shtting; not to any of their detriment. We make fun of school principals who cannot tolerate the word Vagina among their students. Indeed, translating “nappy-headed hos” into more politically correct “African-American sex workers” makes clear how powerful such words are and how pallid their cleaned-up cousins.

Banning words of power and racial/gender stereotypes doesn’t make the content of racism and sexism disappear from society – it hides it. The gender gap in pay is not increased by rap or Imus’ references to “hos”, the black/white pay gap is not decreased by use of “nappy headed.”

As a result, even though I feel I unable to join in name-calling, I think the anti-bad words campaign in lyrics, radio, television, stand-up and literature is ill founded. Falstaff without farts, The Merchant of Venice without a Jew would be sorry and pale imitations. Sorry, Tipper, but I’m on-board with hip-hopper Russell Simmons who tells NY Times’ Deborah Solomon : that rather than cleanse rap lyrics “(w)hat we need to reform is the conditions that create these lyrics” We should not try to ban bad words or evil ideas such as Trollope’s anti-Jewish, anti-feminist slurs, We should meet them and greet them for what they are: expressions of the way we live now. Fight the oppression, undermine the power of the oppressor but let freedom ring. The result, of course, will include Nazis marching, hurt feelings and zingier language. A steep price to pay, but a bargain when you consider the alternative.

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