Huckleberry Finn Censorship

[CarpetCrawler]

Is anyone really surprised that "anti-racists" are trying to stop racism by censoring a book that is anti-racist?

This.

You know what would be a really good idea? If a parent would do their damn job and TELL their kid that the words are wrong, and that you shouldn't use them to describe anyone.

But, of course, that would involve a parent actually getting involved in the life of their child, and there's a new episode of Million Dollar Money Drop on the TV, so they don't have time for minor things like teaching their kid the difference between right and wrong. Besides, when their kid gets in trouble, it's the media's fault!! Definitely not your lazy and shitty parenting. Not in the slightest.

[RubberStamp]

This sort of thing makes me angry. I do agree that racial slurs are hurtful. But Huck Finn was written like 100 years ago and that's how they spoke. They need to stop looking at the literal use of the words and look at the idea and the intent behind the book itself; which is anti-racism.

I can't help but feel like people are being a bit too sensitive and butt-hurt about this. Just sort of seems really silly to me. OHNOES RACIAL SLUR AUTOMATICALLY BAD, BAN@#@$#%^. Allow people to think for themselves for once. Gosh.

Perhaps they should print two versions. "The Original" and "For the political correct (babies)".

[Kleene Onigiri]

What's this? So, instead of "nigger" they want the racists to use "slave" instead? Isn't that... O.o"


I also find such censorship silly. I guess the purpose is, that the kids don't get to know that word... duh. I bet a parent saw that word in the book his lovely child was reading and was all like: "Oh noes! There is that bad word in this book! Censor it even tho I don't know what book my child is actually reading anyway!"

And that is still just a word. It originated from the Latin word "niger" which means black.
Yes, of course that word is used as an insult. But you can turn every word into an insult if you want to. It's not the word that's bad, but instead the intend to hurt someone with words.
And what will censorship help? Or do they think, once they censor that one word completely, people will stop insulting each other?

Racist 1: "Damn.... they took away our word to insult them!"
Racist 2: "What now? We can't insult them anymore! Better we stop insulting them altogether now"

[ProfParanoia]

And that is still just a word. It originated from the Latin word "niger" which means black.
Yes, of course that word is used as an insult. But you can turn every word into an insult if you want to. It's not the word that's bad, but instead the intend to hurt someone with words.

Oh, well if it came from something not offensive then it's okay. That's a worse excuse then "dike's a kind of plant, so saying it's okay." Yes, and It's intent has been changed to something inherently hateful. Heck even if you're not meaning harm it's an awful thing to say, and it's not like a kid who's so young he doesn't know it's a bad word is going to read the book.

Now the book shouldn't be changed, obviously. Censoring this book will go as well as when they tried censoring The Book of Genesis. But I think just ignoring the word's impact is a bad reason.

[Kleene Onigiri]

Oh, well if it came from something not offensive then it's okay.

I never said you should ignore the usage of the word. I said that just censoring it doesn't help at all. An in this case it's even silly.

I also just meant you can turn every word into a insult.

Here german racists are using the word "Polak" to insult polish people.... but the word "Polak" just means Pole in the polish language anyway


I also like how you just quote a part of my post, and make it look different that way *cough*

[Dus]

Oh, well if it came from something not offensive then it's okay. That's a worse excuse then "dike's a kind of plant, so saying it's okay." Yes, and It's intent has been changed to something inherently hateful. Heck even if you're not meaning harm it's an awful thing to say, and it's not like a kid who's so young he doesn't know it's a bad word is going to read the book.

Its intent has been changed because the word was replaced.
The word was connotation-free, but people thought of 'niggers' as inferior. But then there was the civil war and people were not supposed to think of them as inferior any more. So the obvious thing to do is changing the nomenclature. The people who didn't agree with the social changes continued to use the old term. Surprisingly enough, although there was a new term around there was still discrimination against blacks.  So obviously, a new term had to be introduced. And so the euphemism treadmill got started...Had they just kept 'nigger' and redefined the term then it wouldn't be used as an insult today. The word 'gay' got reclaimed as well.

Cleansing Twain's works would be the historical revisionism. Children should now about the history of discrimination against blacks.

[ranger]

I feel like the word "nigger" doesn't even have the negative racial connotation anymore as it once did.  The fact that African Americans use it as a term of respect between one another but I find it offensive when other people call them that is...well...pretty stupid.  If it's offensive, don't say it.  Period. 
I definitely don't see Mexicans calling each other wetbacks.  Pretty much all races now use "nigger" due to the culture styles that are now considered popular.  How many times have you heard a non-African American use that term as a name of respect?  I have, multiple times.  None of them are racists.  It's not that big of a deal.  Kids will probably already hear the word said before they even read Huck Finn.

About the censorship itself, I voted the "meh" option, as I have no really strong feelings for the book itself, I could probably care less; I am no English scholar and it's rare to find me reading a book besides Lord of the Rings.

But, really, censoring a novel is really on the top of their priority?  We live in an age where information is streamed through digital means that is hardly regulated -  If Dave Chappelle can say nigger on television and get away with it, Mark Twain should be allowed to for educational purposes.

[Commi-Ninja]

You know what would be a really good idea? If a parent would do their damn job and TELL their kid that the words are wrong, and that you shouldn't use them to describe anyone.

But, of course, that would involve a parent actually getting involved in the life of their child, and there's a new episode of Million Dollar Money Drop on the TV, so they don't have time for minor things like teaching their kid the difference between right and wrong. Besides, when their kid gets in trouble, it's the media's fault!! Definitely not your lazy and shitty parenting. Not in the slightest.

I feel exactly the same way.

Allow people to think for themselves for once. Gosh.

But, RubberStamp, what would be the fun in that?

But, really, censoring a novel is really on the top of their priority?  We live in an age where information is streamed through digital means that is hardly regulated -  If Dave Chappelle can say nigger on television and get away with it, Mark Twain should be allowed to for educational purposes.

Ah, logic.  How it eludes so many!

[ranger]

Ah, logic.  How it eludes so many!

Are you talking about yourself...or...?

[Commi-Ninja]

No. The general population of the world.  I'm sorry if that was unclear.

[dilbertschalter]

I feel like the word "nigger" doesn't even have the negative racial connotation anymore as it once did.  The fact that African Americans use it as a term of respect between one another but I find it offensive when other people call them that is...well...pretty stupid.  If it's offensive, don't say it.  Period. 
I definitely don't see Mexicans calling each other wetbacks.  Pretty much all races now use "nigger" due to the culture styles that are now considered popular.  How many times have you heard a non-African American use that term as a name of respect?  I have, multiple times.  None of them are racists.  It's not that big of a deal.  Kids will probably already hear the word said before they even read Huck Finn.

About the censorship itself, I voted the "meh" option, as I have no really strong feelings for the book itself, I could probably care less; I am no English scholar and it's rare to find me reading a book besides Lord of the Rings.

But, really, censoring a novel is really on the top of their priority?  We live in an age where information is streamed through digital means that is hardly regulated -  If Dave Chappelle can say nigger on television and get away with it, Mark Twain should be allowed to for educational purposes.

he actually doesn't say that. you are conflating two very related, but not identical terms.

as for this, i dunno. huckleberry finn is a really excellent book that is often very unpleasant and difficult to teach because of the language. that is not to say that the censorship is valid, but i don't think it is at all (pardon the pun) black and white.

[pofa]

Huck Finn was banned at first anyway, and it just made it more popular.

What CarpetCrawler said, added to the fact that a naked look at racism--even the over-reaching perspective of more subtle, unintentional racism that I think Twain is writing from--is often one of the only ways to wake high schoolers up to it. :l

Edited to note that I've never taught this book to a class that contained African-American students, and I admit that I don't know how uncomfortable they would be with it. But my solution to that would be to find another book to teach that accomplishes the goal another way, not to teach Huck Finn with all the bad words changed.

[Tanner-kun]

My history teacher was complaining about this last week.