Huckleberry Finn, the American classic written by Mark Twain and staple of high school English class everywhere, has always been controversial for its use of the "N-word." (I mean, I even remember my own high school English class debate on the appropriateness of using such word - as I'm sure every class before and after mine had as well)
Now, Twain scholar Alan Gribben plans to do something about it: he's going to replace the word with something less racially offensive.
Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a classic by most any measure—T.S. Eliot called it a masterpiece, and Ernest Hemingway pronounced it the source of "all modern American literature." Yet, for decades, it has been disappearing from grade school curricula across the country, relegated to optional reading lists, or banned outright, appearing again and again on lists of the nation's most challenged books, and all for its repeated use of a single, singularly offensive word: "nigger."
Twain himself defined a "classic" as "a book which people praise and don't read." Rather than see Twain's most important work succumb to that fate, Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave."
"This is not an effort to render Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn colorblind," said Gribben, speaking from his office at Auburn University at Montgomery, where he's spent most of the past 20 years heading the English department. "Race matters in these books. It's a matter of how you express that in the 21st century."
A classic case of cencorship by the politically correct or the appropriately sensitive approach to racial injustice of the past? What do you think?
Comments (55)
But as long as both versions are available, it's not really censorship.
Damn, I wish I had kids to discuss this kind of thing with around the dinner table. My parents washed my mouth out with soap the one time I used it, but we never, ever talked about it.
This same issue has happened almost too many times to count.
Several years ago, an African American "scholar" published his version: "The adventures of Huck Finn, Adapted." I doubt it stayed in print. He "adapted" the book so everyone could read about Huck and Tom's "silly adventures" without getting offended.
This, too shall pass. And Twain will continue to be the most banned American author in the United States.
The word has a definition and a context, and it was used correctly in each instance by Twain, satirizing a society that existed 20 years before the book was published.
It's like we've forgotten that it was offensive even in Twain's time. Do you think he didn't know the baggage it carried when he wrote it?
What has changed since Twain's time is our sensitivity to the word, not the meaning, offensiveness, or use of it. We have the problem. Not the book.
The reader or listener hears the actual word in their head, so it has a similar effect to saying the actual word. But, at the same time, you're not really saying it, so you get a "free pass" to repeat it several times without getting any flak for it.
Say "nigger" and accept responsibility for the shock and offense that choosing to say it creates, or don't say it at all.
Are we going to take out the "thought crime" sections of 1984 so that we don't get uncomfortable that it's sounding much too similar to what's going on now?
1984, at last.
If this is the case, why not add computers and spaceships in the story to make it more relevant to reflect today's social.
N-----, would be better. I know what the word is. You known what the word is. But the people who object to it would have to see it.
And the Conversation would remain unchanged.
Thanks!
That being said, it's disgusting.
Also, honkey, yellow, wetback.
These words only have power behind them because people give them the power. The words have no intrinsic evilness or offense. I can say the word "nigger" in front of black friends because it's obvious to them that I have no intent of harm and they give it no power in receiving it. Altering a piece of American historical literature due to a certain word is giving that word way too much power. If we could all shrug and let the word roll off our back, this wouldn't be an issue.
Now, if we could only rid the world of Aussies. (I kid... though a quick search through Wikipedia showed that there were no derogatory terms for someone from Australia (other than Aborigines)).
When you change the word you don't just 'change the word' unless you change the word to a word that associates a similar meaning. He has, actually redefined the purposes of the negative connotations associated with black people in the book, and changed the definition of the words used for that reason it makes no sense.
You can throw around your fucking useless pity on the racial slurs used PUBLICLY that are AIMED at black people all you want but the fact of the matter is it doesn't insult ANYBODY unless the book (or the slur) objectively depicts a character that is of this real world and calls him or her something wretched along the lines of a 'stinking niggering cunt'.
You may take offence to such 'use of language', but not all people do, and frankly I don't give a crap since the above term does NOT refer to 'all black people', nor does it refer to the context of any black person in existence... As a matter of fact it refers to an imaginary character that I have fathomed for the purposes of the example that is beyond your possible characterisation. Racism itself is merely a form of subjectivism. Political correctness indeed, a proposition that has been overextended for far too long and needs to stop.
Quick grammar lesson kids...
If I call someone a pathetic black man. I associate his skin tone to the fact that he is a man and that he is pathetic. I have not associated the fact that a 'black man' is indeed pathetic, for that specific reason.
Now if I call a man pathetic because he is black, that is the generalisation in effect.
Racism and discrimination are two different things that when become confused produce some sort of imaginary criterion that many people often choose to believe because it feels somehow 'intuitive' to them, never mind if the 'racial slur' lacks any sort of objective connotations that are associated with it.
If anything you have merely removed Mark Twains rights to his own property, using the cruel world that is the consensual umpire (his rights to his own property are reduced by the editor having the ability to edit his work).
Jesus I'm 17 and I can figure this out. You people seriously need to grow up, and if anybody takes offence to anything I have said, I do not apologize, rather it would be a faculty in my own logic and my way of explaining various grammatical concepts to you, in which case I am open to criticism in the form of firm debate.
I will not accept any rhetoric shit. Just because something says an offensive word does not make that word offensive to any particular person by the context that it is used...
Oh and I understand that I tacitly consent to this being edited and all, but if you REALLY don't like what I say then I kindly ask you to delete it (although I do keep record of what was once said whenever I enter into debates on the internet). I wouldn't want anybody to wipe smut over a rational argument, that is open to debate. But frankly I've had enough of these M***** snakes on this M***** plane. ¬_¬
Ultimately, I have to side against censorship, but I can understand the motivation. Then again, well-meaning people do all kinds of lousy stuff every day...
Eliminating that word is violation of American life and literature. Twain wrote the truth, but it seems that NewSouthBooks are not interested in truth in fiction. If the title of that company truly represents the south (and I live there) then it is time for us to move to the north.
It's hard for me to believe that the American people will allow censorship in this day and age.
I denigrated Germany's censorship and Italy's, when I was old enough. I learned, in school, of the evils of any kind of censorship and to what it can lead.
In order to be free, America must fight any and all censorship. Otherwise, friends, we are simply slaves of those people who are in power. History shows us that any past nation that allowed censorship sooner, not later, became a dictatorship and eventually became a nation that could not and would not protect its own citizens.
Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, again and again.
Those who stand for censorship are negating Abraham Lincoln's remark about our being a nation of freedom.
Beware of those who want thought police.
http://www.newsouthbooks.com/pages/2011/01/04/a-word-about-the-newsouth-edition-of-mark-twains-tom-sawyer-and-huckleberry-finn/comment-page-1/#comment-74673
The book has its racist implements without the word and there are just some sick people out there who don't care so much for the fact that a classic is edited and it is an offensive word as they do as just seeing the word in print and being able to read/see it without being deemed a racist.
As a black person growing up in the south it doesn't sit too well to have heard this word read a loud. if any of you rejecting the censored version would stop and think about why someone would take the time to entertain the thought of editing this, maybe you'd be willing to see the other side of the argument and make up your own minds rather than going off of what the news is telling you.
Flip on MSNBC visit huffington post(if you can do so without puking) People seem to be more up in arms about ppl using the word 'fag' to describe a homosexual person..and will go as far to make stupid PSAs against it..but when it comes to removing a derogatory and offensive word towards blacks...history is being 're-written' things that make you go hmm...
Mark Twain's use of the N word in HUCK FINN is a negative recognition of overt racism not an acceptance of it. If you racists like seeing the 'n' word just buy the original.
Fantastic comments. ArmouredGRIFFON and JP, you guys should yell your thoughts from mountain-tops.
Thanks for this.
I have to agree with all of the intelligent comments prior.
I think if hearing or reading the word nigger makes you cringe, that is probably a good thing! We can't bleach out all of the bad things in the world. Reading about the holocaust makes me incredibly uncomfortable...ensuring that similar atrocities won't happen again. By reading/hearing, then cringing when we see offensive words, we can learn from that!
Lastly, to Krystalx, how do you know the races of the people who are up in arms about this? As commenter Catherine implies, editing one book to remove offensive things will only create the snowball effect. And yes, it will just ensure that I read only the originals and not someones edited version of the past.
Thanks anyway though.
That being said, I agree with other comments here. Leaving the word in the book will give rise to discussions on its meaning and why it is no longer used. Then understanding and acceptance will begin. Editing, censoring, or banning the word only leads to people seeking it even more. This can be evidenced with any item or thing that was changed, censored, or banned.
If read aloud, it would be uncomfortable for some (including myself) to actually say the word. An alternate could be used that wouldn't change the meaning. Negro would be one such word. This again could be discussed by the class as to why the word is no longer used.
I'm not in favour of removing the word, but softening it to "Negro" (plus a footnote at its first use) would have close to the same impact, if taught correctly.
Book of all languages have always been altered for use in schools. I think Twain's portrayal of the man shows more dignity to black people than the name given him - considering the era and location it was written.
For a society that tries to avoid labels, it's ironic that we can't see the value in a book showing a man who rises above his label.
The fact that it is a 'better word' to use than Nigger is merely the product of cultural subjectivism, how we associate the 'harshness' with the terms and uses of language.
It's just a word folks.
What I'm curious about is what they're going to replace 'injun' with.
That was the question Lenny Bruce asked a shocked audience one night in 1960. His point - right or wrong - was that "the suppression of the word gives it the power of violence and viciousness." I was thinking about Lenny this morning when I read on the website AlterNet that someone took it upon themselves to remove the "N" word from a new edition of Huckleberry Finn and replaced it with the word "slave".
We cannot start pretending that THAT WORD never existed. It is not only futile, it's kind of silly, don'cha think? Are we expected to burn all copies of Dick Gregory's excellent 1964 autobiography which was called (by the way) "Nigger"? Gregory knew damned well the literary sledgehammer effect of the "N" word. It's a horrible word, no doubt about it. But it's a damned powerful word, too. There are certain places in American literature where not only does it work, it's essential - in Huckleberry Finn for instance. Old Huck was an illiterate, ignorant kid. That's how illiterate, ignorant kids talked in those days. In fact, that's how some of them talk still. To pretend he had the vocabulary of David Copperfield doesn't make any sense.
And, please, let's not forget that Mark Twain is not some re-visioned, nasty old southern bigot. Next to Frederick Douglas, he was the most enlightened human being of his age on the subject of race - and I would include Abraham Lincoln in that assessment.
It's a word; a terrible word, yes, but it's only a word.
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Tom Degan