“A Narrow Fellow in the Grass” is one of the few poems by Emily Dickinson that was published during her lifetime. Without her permission, the poem was first published in The Springfield Daily Republican on February 14, 1866 as “The Snake,” which gave away the riddle that the poem posed to its readers. Now, published under its intended title, this poem is a mainstay of High School literature classes across the country.

A narrow fellow in the grass
Occasionally rides;
You may have met him,–did you not,
His notice sudden is.

The grass divides as with a comb,
A spotted shaft is seen;
And then it closes at your feet
And opens further on.

He likes a boggy acre,
A floor too cool for corn.
Yet when a child, and barefoot,
I more than once, at morn,

Have passed, I thought, a whip-lash
Unbraiding in the sun,–
When, stooping to secure it,
It wrinkled, and was gone.

Several of nature’s people
I know, and they know me;
I feel for them a transport
Of cordiality;

But never met this fellow,
Attended or alone,
Without a tighter breathing,
And zero at the bone.

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Can naming your child be a form of child abuse? In December 2008, a ShopRite located in Holland Town, New Jersey garnered national media coverage by refusing to provide a neo-Nazi family with a birthday cake inscribed with, “Happy Birthday Adolf Hitler.” The family ordered the cake in celebration of the birthday of their middle child, three year-old Adolf Hitler Campbell.

Outraged father Heath Campbell complained, “Other kids get their cake.” I get a hard time. It’s not fair to my children. How can a name be offensive?”
Soon thereafter, New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) removed the children from their home after a neighbor made allegations that the children were being abused. The circumstances of the removal are a bit vague, because DYFS claims it cannot comment on the matter because of confidentiality laws- it won’t even confirm that the Campbell children were involved. However, other law enforcement officials have indicated the removal was not the result of the children’s names. A representative for children’s services denied that the children had been removed from their parents custody based on their controversial names, stating that,

“The decision to remove a child is based on the safety and well being of the child and the risk to that child, and that decision is made in conjunction with the courts and the county family court judge.”

Although each state defines these criteria somewhat differently, generally a child can be removed if the child is abused or neglected by a parent, and if removal is necessary to avoid immediate risk to the child’s life or health. Also, a child protective agency does not need to prove that the child suffered an actual injury. Instead, the courts will often ask probing questions to determine if a child’s physical, mental or emotional health is at risk due to parental abuse or neglect.

Prominent forensic psychologist N.G. Berrill claims that naming a boy “Hitler” could be considered child abuse, stating,

“Part of it is the infantile nature of the parents’ behavior. You can name your dog something weird, but they think they’re making some kind of bold statement with the children, not appreciating that the children will have separate lives and will be looked at in a negative light until they’re able to change their name. It is abuse.”

Little Adolf’s father, Heath Campbell, told the Easton-Express Times last year that he named his son after Adolf Hitler because he liked it and “no one else in the world would have that name.” However, this explanation seems a bit disingenuous in light of the fact that his two other children sport white supremacist names: Little Adolf has an older sister named JoyceLynn Aryan Nation and a younger sister, Honszlynn Hinler Jeannie (named after Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler).

This case raises thorny issues about the appropriate balance between parental autonomy and the state’s interest in protecting the physical and emotional well being of children. On one hand, Little Adolf and his siblings will surely suffer the sting of social censure for bearing names that they never asked for in the first place. On the other hand, if the children are permanently removed from their parents, are we in effect permitting the state to dictate whom has the right to parent based on their beliefs? A conundrum indeed….

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To the generation that came of age in the 1980s, Bill Cosby is best remembered as the beloved paterfamilias of the Huxtable family on The Cosby Show, which ran for eight seasons on NBC. With his permanently bemused expression, deadpan one-liners and signature bright patterned sweaters, Cliff Huxtable became America’s iconic TV dad for almost a decade. The Cosby Show, which featured an upper-middle class African-American family living in Brooklyn, New York, was TV’s biggest hit in the 1980’s. It is one of only three TV shows that have been rated #1 in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons (along with All in the Family and American Idol). Despite generally avoiding the issue of race directly, the Huxtable’s were a portrayed as an unashamedly black family, with strong extended family ties and a penchant for Ray Charles.

In recent years however, Bill Cosby has elicited his fair share of controversy, most famously with his “Pound Cake Speech” at the NAACP’s 50th anniversary celebration of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision which ended race-based segregation in public schools. Instead of following in the footsteps of the feel-good speeches which proceeded him, Bill Cosby took the opportunity to inveigh against perceived social ills within the African-American community, including the prevalence of single-parent families, materialism, lack of responsibility and the use of black vernacular speech instead of proper English.

Cosby also contrasted the bravery and hard work accomplished by African-American’s during the Civil Right’s Movement, to his perception of the current trend towards apathy and aimlessness within the community. It is referred to as the “Pound Cake” speech because of the following memorable lines:

“But these people, the ones up here in the balcony fought so hard. Looking at the incarcerated, these are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake! And then we all run out and are outraged, ‘The cops shouldn’t have shot him.’ What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand? I wanted a piece of pound cake just as bad as anybody else and I looked at it and I had no money. And something called parenting said, ‘if you get caught with it you’re going to embarrass your mother.’ Not ‘you’re going to get your butt kicked.’ No. ‘You’re going to embarrass your family.’

After this speech, many members of the African-American community criticized Cosby for betraying his race, cultural elitism and fuelling anti-black sentiment amongst Conservative whites. Others defended him for his candor and willingness to address controversial truths and flout political correctness.

Cosby remained unmoved by the hail storm of criticism, and made the following statement in defense of his speech:

” I think it is time for concerned African-Americans to march, galvanize, and raise awareness about the epidemic, to transform our helplessness, frustration, and righteous indignation into a sense of shared responsibility and action.”

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