I’m back! I’ve been busy preparing for my first MFA residency, which begins this week. And in the process, two stories from the media have been swirling around in my belly like a badly digested meal.

The first, a follow-up from two blog posts last week, about the “A Gay Girl in Damascus” blogger who allegedly disappeared. It turns out I was wrong on all counts – Amina Abdallah does not exist, nor was her blog written by somebody whose story is similar to Amina’s. The entire blog was made up and written by Tom MacMaster, a married white guy who decided to take on the role of the oppressed and call it a favor to those who really are. He issued an “apology” for this, one that reads to me more as “I’m sorry you all took me so seriously” than “I’m sorry for what I did.” I’m sorry, too. The blog seems to have been taken down, but on its latest post MacMaster stood by what he did: “I do not believe that I have harmed anyone — I feel that I have created an important voice for issues that I feel strongly about.” Those who are actually being affected by those issues may disagree.

The other story is about comedian Tracy Morgan’s rant, the one about how gay people should stop whining about something as “insignificant” as bullying, and how he would stab his own son to death if he were gay. Morgan has also apologized, but still the debate follows – should he be allowed to say such things for the sake of comedy? At least one comedian says no.

This all has me thinking about the possibility of setting the truth aside. For each of these men’s actions to be considered justifiable, we would have to suspend reality. To temporarily forget one man’s privilege, as he tries to identify with the oppressed. To temporarily forget that we live in a world where our words have tragic consequences, so that we can all laugh and have a good time.

I don’t think it’s possible for me to set my truth aside. And I’m kind of fed up with the idea that I should try. Why can’t we hold both our truths, and the possibility for change? Why can’t we have a good time, and keep our truths in mind?

Here’s my pledge, as I begin this grad school residency, and offer my work to be judged on somebody else’s terms: I will not set aside my truth. I may set aside the media, and its idea that social responsibility can take a back seat to entertainment. I may set aside my preconceptions about what I can or should write, and how I can or should write it. I may set aside those occasional desires to be or write like someone else, in favor of the acceptance of the fact that I can be nobody but myself.

But I will not set aside my truth. What rings true to me will not be buried beneath popular opinion or proper technique, nor will it be brushed away by potential prestige or the perceived value of entertainment. My truth, that ever present, always living truth, will always be mine. And I will not set it aside.

And now, I’m off to begin my residency. I’ll update about it as soon as I get a chance. Thanks for sticking around!

I don't have a TV. Most of the time this works out perfectly well for me -- after all, as far as media goes I do have the Internet if I want to feel connected to the rest of the world.

Should I still be so dependent on technology, though? All weekend I've been glued to Youtube, watching videos of what's happening in Egypt. I considered this yesterday while attending a Free University meeting. One of the points that came up was a resistance to depending on technology, at least technology that would outright replace human connection. Would providing Youtube videos of course lectures take away from the face-to-face element of our vision for reaching people?

In the case of Egypt, there are videos that have been created for the people, by the people, and they wouldn't have reached anyone if it meant relying on the government or mainstream media to show us what's happening. So this is a case of technology being used by the people to claim their own rights.

Then again, maybe there are some drawbacks. Maybe if I didn't have the ease of watching Youtube from the comfort of my home, I might actually be out connecting with people to learn more about the situation. At the meeting yesterday, Alan Kaufman made the point that those who sought to learn used to travel the globe to reach a teacher they wished to study with. Now, we're hardly willing to leave our couches to find the information we seek.

So technology certainly has the potential to reach more people, in ways that were never before possible. But let's be sure it doesn't just make us more comfortable in our complacency. The folks in the videos know that change comes from movement.

Let's move.

I suppose I should comment on the Huck Finn / n-word controversy. If you’re not familiar with the latest race-related storm over publishing, here’s the story: Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben has adapted Twain’s classic novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” for New South Books. The change he’s made that’s gotten the most attention is to use the word “slave” in every instance where Twain used “nigger.” Now, much of the media is paying just as much attention to the original story itself as they are to the bonus flap, critic Roger Ebert’s tweet that he’d “rather be called a nigger than a slave.”

I’m commenting on this in part because it’s an important issue, of course, though not because I’m particularly invested in the preserving the book as it is each time it’s published. I have to admit, too, that I’m joining this conversation here partly because I’m a black writer and so I’ve been getting those looks.

You know the ones. The looks you get from someone in a position of privilege, who wants you to give permission to speak on an issue by speaking up about it first. Those looks I complain about now, but that maybe Roger Ebert could have used with a person of color before he went and spoke up about an issue that has nothing to do with him. The issue of the tweet is simple enough – as a white man, Ebert wasn’t in any position to state his opinion on which term he’d prefer, when he’d never have to worry about being called either. He knows this now.

But the question remains about the use of the word itself, about censorship we’re demanding for not only modern spaces like Twitter, but for literature published as far back as 1884. I think it’s one thing to discuss what the n-word means to us today – to question whether modern hip-hop artists who popularize the term, for example, should be criticized for disregarding its history or praised for reclaiming the word. Personally, I believe that the word’s long, ugly history is enough that we should put it behind us for good.

I think of my position as a writer, however, and I know if I’d used the n-word as much as Twain had in a work of my own, I would feel it was excessive, I’d be uncomfortable with it, and I’d certainly try to avoid it. If I were writing a historical work in which the word has a role, however, to censor myself would be to deny historical truth. Avoiding the use of a word with a violent history simply to allow readers to stay in their places of comfort is dangerous, and not in a good way. Rather than attempt to rewrite history in terms we can all find on a page without spilling our morning coffee, we must face the truth of our past, even those uncomfortable truths we’d rather avoid.

The important part of this whole controversy is that it’s led to a discussion. We can ask ourselves and each other why these words feel so awful to us, so we remember their history and understand how we should move forward. These conversations should happen all the time, though – it shouldn’t take censorship to threaten to take away our words for us to realize their significance. But Mark Twain has already made his statement – I say let that remain as is, and let’s keep the conversation going between you and I.