If I were in a book club, I might say this

 The running question for the past three days has been about what we can and can’t discuss in book clubs.

Sometimes, I hold contradictory thoughts:

• William Faulkner played a role in a culture that was violently racist.

• All of us who grew up in this culture — especially those of us who grew up in the South — played a role, great or small, in this tragedy. If you are trying blame, you’ll find that it doesn’t focus on any one person. 

• Faulkner’s writing about people of African descent is painful to read. But the fact that something is painful doesn’t necessarily count as a pass to ignore it.

• Knowledge about our shared history is better than ignorance. I think it’s especially important to look for information about casual attitudes, attitudes about which there was no trace of anguish or moral doubt. Some racists had to be reassured that it was morally OK to separate parents from children when selling human beings. By contrast, the use of racial slurs usually needed no reassurance. That was casual — unquestioned, almost unnoticed. Historians like primary sources — diaries, letters, speeches, newspaper articles — when they look for information about those kinds of attitudes. But it seems to me that fiction often throws better light on how individuals came to accept the unacceptable.

• We Americans still live with racism, and we’ve got to get beyond just being bewildered by it. A lot of what passes for American politics is overtly racist, and many of us — including me — sometimes throw up our hands and claim to be bewildered. We just can’t comprehend how we got to this place. But if you look at the historical records, you will be a little less bewildered. If you read newspaper advertisements offering human beings for sale, you will be less bewildered. If you see the casual use of racial slurs in public speeches and newspaper articles you will be less bewildered. And if you look at our literature you also will be less bewildered. Knowledge is better.

• It seems to me that part of the difficulty in having discussions about literature is that so much of the writing about American life is still painful and that this pain is not evenly shared. It’s not fair to make a person of African descent go through the pain of discussing a Faulkner story for the enlightenment of a white person. It’s also not fair to make two students — one who is wounded by the racism in a Faulkner story and one who is delighted to see the racism exposed — discuss the story. It doesn’t matter whether both those students are of African descent. Or whether they are not.

• Consent seems to be crucial. I don't think you can have a productive discussion with unwilling participants. Yet I'm an excellent counterexample. Time and again, good teachers kindled a passion for learning about an unlikely subject in an unwilling, uncooperative student.

At this point, I just don't know. I think there is something of value to learn in our painful history and literature. But I don’t know how to teach that. (I admire those who do.)

I also think this: The world constantly changes. There are writers today who can reach today's readers  in a way that Faulkner’s stories cannot. A lot of the writers I read are from my generation and those before. I need to catch up. Maybe if I did, my imaginary book club would too.