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Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:46 pm
by kyuuketsuki
I'm not sure if you all have heard, but they are censoring a classic among classics! They are removing the word "injun," and changing "nigger" to "slave."
Personally I think they need to remove Twain's name from the book, since it is no longer his words. That and he knew full well what he was doing. His book was anti-racism, and strong words like "nigger" are necessary to convey his ideas. This is a huge mistake, and I hope they realize that soon, and restore it to its original glory.
PS: I don't use that word often, and I only use it in the context of discussing books, I believe in using the words of the author. I hope I have not offended anyone.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:50 pm
by Vylash
Ridiculous, his book reflected the times, nothing wrong with that

Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:53 pm
by Sherlock3
WOW, that's crazy, i agree, if the change those words, then its not the story, we know so well, i mean those words are pretty serious in their own way, but for this novel, you can NOT change them!!
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:56 pm
by Commi-Ninja
Leave Twain's words alone!

Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 10:57 pm
by Sherlock3
Commi-Ninja wrote:
Leave Twain's words alone!
AMEN!!!
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:09 pm
by Tanner-kun
Thats stupid! If I remember correctly "Niggar" just means a black person. So its a word to describe people. Do they plan to remove "Caucasian" and "Hispanic" as well!? I can slightly remember reading things where black people refer to themselves as niggars.(I might me wrong though) They shouldn't change the words just because they feel it shouldn't be used, IT WAS USED so why not let people know it? I think its better to keep the words how they are so the readers understand how the word was used back then. Makes as little since as destroying fossils because we don't like the way a species was those thousands of years ago.
Edit: please ignore this, I wrote it in the middle of the night and wasn't thinking.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:14 pm
by Vylash
Xcommando wrote:
Thats stupid! If I remember correctly "Niggar" just means a black person. So its a word to describe people. Do they plan to remove "Caucasian" and "Hispanic" as well!? I can slightly remember reading things where black people refer to themselves as niggars.(I might me wrong though) They shouldn't change the words just because they feel it shouldn't be used, IT WAS USED so why not let people know it? I think its better to keep the words how they are so the readers understand how the word was used back then. Makes as little since as destroying fossils because we don't like the way a species was those thousands of years ago.
Sorry If I am not making much since, its the middle of the night.

Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:25 pm
by Commi-Ninja
Xcommando wrote:
Thats stupid! If I remember correctly "Niggar" just means a black person. So its a word to describe people. Do they plan to remove "Caucasian" and "Hispanic" as well!? I can slightly remember reading things where black people refer to themselves as niggars.(I might me wrong though) They shouldn't change the words just because they feel it shouldn't be used, IT WAS USED so why not let people know it? I think its better to keep the words how they are so the readers understand how the word was used back then. Makes as little since as destroying fossils because we don't like the way a species was those thousands of years ago.
Sorry If I am not making much since, its the middle of the night.
The connotation is very, very, very bad. It is considered a racist term.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:28 pm
by Akonyl
Xcommando wrote:
Thats stupid! If I remember correctly "Niggar" just means a black person. So its a word to describe people. Do they plan to remove "Caucasian" and "Hispanic" as well!? I can slightly remember reading things where black people refer to themselves as niggars.(I might me wrong though) They shouldn't change the words just because they feel it shouldn't be used, IT WAS USED so why not let people know it? I think its better to keep the words how they are so the readers understand how the word was used back then. Makes as little since as destroying fossils because we don't like the way a species was those thousands of years ago.
Sorry If I am not making much since, its the middle of the night.
I would say that
in the times that the book is trying to reflect, that may have been the case, that it "just described people", because whites for the most part were racist towards blacks anyway. However, a comparison to the words Caucasian or Hispanic is hugely wrong, as those are still in politically correct usage today.
As for the "groups call themselves derogatory words" part of your post, that's not related to the story, so... let's not go there. :-X
-
But anyway, yeah I think the censorship is bad. The one side of the censorship argument that makes sense is that by changing the word, you can get the book into the hands of children whose parents may otherwise oppose the book, but in that case I think it's the parents jobs to stop being stupid and just let their kids read the book anyway.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:30 pm
by ranger
Xcommando wrote:
Thats stupid! If I remember correctly "Niggar" just means a black person. So its a word to describe people. Do they plan to remove "Caucasian" and "Hispanic" as well!? I can slightly remember reading things where black people refer to themselves as niggars.(I might me wrong though) They shouldn't change the words just because they feel it shouldn't be used, IT WAS USED so why not let people know it? I think its better to keep the words how they are so the readers understand how the word was used back then. Makes as little since as destroying fossils because we don't like the way a species was those thousands of years ago.
Sorry If I am not making much since, its the middle of the night.
cocaine is a hell of a drug people.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 6th, 2011, 11:33 pm
by kkslider5552000
Is anyone really surprised that "anti-racists" are trying to stop racism by censoring a book that is anti-racist?
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 7th, 2011, 12:08 am
by Akonyl
kkslider5552000 wrote:
Is anyone really surprised that "anti-racists" are trying to stop racism by censoring a book that is anti-racist?
that's because the word itself is evil, and should never be spoken... like Voldemort.
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 7th, 2011, 12:14 am
by Walbuls
Akonyl wrote:
kkslider5552000 wrote:
Is anyone really surprised that "anti-racists" are trying to stop racism by censoring a book that is anti-racist?
that's because the word itself is evil, and should never be spoken... like Voldemort.
Fear of a word, is fear of the thing itse.....wait that doesn't work here.....
Its all how the words are used. Its clear the use of the word in Twain's book was not to be a racial slur at black people, it was used as the word itself was in its current time to describe any black person as was politically correct. The book should not be changed. Whats next? Should we go back and censor books involving Hitler because it offends some people of the Jewish faith?
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 7th, 2011, 1:05 am
by Feb914
Literature works are not only made for the sake of reading interesting story, but as well as studying society culture and mindset at given time and location. By changing the words means that changing original time and location culture to be modern culture. If this thing keep going on, we'll lose literature experts and we can't study history from literature..
Re: Huckleberry Finn Censorship
Posted: January 7th, 2011, 3:41 am
by RubberStamp
Truly silly. I'm against the mucking up of Huckleberry Finn. I'm generally against censorship of books.