“Who could be offended at the Adventures of Huckleberry Turtle and Nigger Rabbit?”
Last night, The Daily Show took on the Huck Finn controversy, and the whitewashing of our history which, as I mentioned last week in connection with the failed reading of the Constitution, is merely an attempt to make white folks comfortable with the nasty bits in our history. Rather than learning from our mistakes, we just ignore them. In some cases, we completely erase history from the textbooks being read in classrooms across America. (I’m looking at you, Texas.)
Now a publisher has attempted to whitewash Huck Finn by replacing the word “nigger” with “slave.” Why? Because slave is way less offensive and it’s easier for white people to say, obvs; and above all else, we must make white people feel comfortable about the history of this country. (The publisher has also replaced the term “Injun Joe” with “Indian Joe” — thus transforming the Trail of Tears into the Trail of Tears of Joy.)
The whole notion is impossibly stupid and cowardly, for all of the reasons explained by Jamelle Bouie in his post on the subject at The Atlantic:
But erasing “nigger” from Huckleberry Finn—or ignoring our failures—doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t provide racial enlightenment, or justice, and it won’t shield anyone from the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there’s anything great about this country, it’s in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect.
“Nigger” really makes our white brothers and sisters uncomfortable. I had a friend who was so uncomfortable saying the word “nigger” that he wouldn’t even say it when it came up in a hip hop jam. I bet some of you are a bit envious that I “get to say” nigger without running the risk of being stabbed. Poor white people. It must be hard to suffer under the yoke of such lingual oppression. (I joke, of course. I know most of you know that, but some of you are prone to pearl clutching, so just stop it.)
My take on saying “n word” or nigger is this: If you’re going to say it, say it. (If you’re going to say it and it’s directed at me, you better be wearing flame retardant clothes.)
Essentially, (as I’ve said in the past) I subscribe to the Louis C.K. school of thought:
Anyway, if you missed it, here’s The Daily Show‘s take. It’s hilarious. (Yeah I said it, Louis! Get off my back!)
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Mark Twain Controversy | ||||
|
We turn now, as we do every Tuesday, to literary news. By the way, thank you so much for your letters last week on symbols of death in Anna Karenina. This week, we turn to Mark Twain’s beloved Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It’s a story about a young Southern boy who befriends an escaped slave named Jim. We’ve all read the book. I’m sure there will be some questions concerning the story. Yes, CBS News?
CBS NEWS (1/5/2011): On one page of Huck Finn, Twain wrote the n-word 6 times.
I feel like that may be a trick question. I feel like really any answer I give is going to get me in trouble. But the publisher of this new book says, “yes”. New South, their new edition of Huckleberry Finn aims to appease the sensitivities of modern readers by replacing all 219 instances of said word with the word “slave”. Here with his perspective, Senior Black Correspondent, Larry Wilmore. Larry.
LARRY WILMORE: Thank you, Jon. Well, congratulations on the promotion Jim. Wow, this is a huge upgrade, from nigger to slave. Yeah, that’s like a show going from the WB to UPN.
JON STEWART: Well, the editors of this new version are trying to make the book more accessible, they say, so that it can be taught without making students in the classroom, who may be uncomfortable, repeat the word nrnrnnrnrnrnr….
WILMORE: I’m sorry?
STEWART: Just so that the children don’t have to say, in the class, say nnrnrnrnernnnrr….
WILMORE: I’m sorry, what word were you…
STEWART: Nnnnnuuuuuuu….
WILMORE: Say it, Jon!
STEWART: Nnnnniiiuuuuuuu…. It’s uncomfortable!
WILMORE: And it should be! Look, Mark Twain put that word in for a reason. The n-word speaks to a society that casually dehumanized black people; “slave” is just a job description. And, it’s not even accurate! In the book, Jim is no longer a slave. He ran away! Twain’s point is he can’t run away from being a nigger.
STEWART: Yeah, for that you’d have to be pretty fast, I would….
WILMORE: Nice one, Jon. Nice.
STEWART: But you know, a lot of high schools, though, were refusing to teach the book at all because of the words. And isn’t this minor change a way to expose more kids to good literature?
WILMORE: Yeah, but it’s bad history. Look, as long as you’re changing things, why stop there? What about the illustrations? They’re offensive.
Huck and Jim look so poor.
Aw, that’s better. Yeah, there you go! Now get them out of those dirty clothes.
Naw, you know, a man and a boy alone, kinda creepy. Hey, make Huck a hot girl!
Close…
Perfect! Look, Jon! See, Jim’s not a slave, he’s the king of the world! You know, fuck it, just turn them both into talking animals.
There you go! Now who could be offended by the Adventures of Huckleberry Turtle and Nigger Rabbit? Nobody!
STEWART: How… in what… how do you, just out of simple curiosity for me, how do you decide which animal is….
WILMORE: You’re missing the point, Jon.
STEWART: All right, all right.
WILMORE: Look, using that word doesn’t make the book offensive to today’s kids. They’re very accustomed to it. In fact, if you want kids to pick up the book, emphasize that word! Hey, pimp the cover!
Yeah! See, lookit, he’s got a grill. Say it’s written by Lil’ Twain. Jon, that will be a young adult bestseller. Just leave Jim alone.
STEWART: You know what, you’re very passionate in your defense of the character Jim.
WILMORE: I have to be, Jon, otherwise they’d take the brother out of the book completely.
STEWART: Well, I don’t think they’d take him out….
WILMORE: No, believe me, they already tried. They made a TV movie version in the 1950s that did away with the Jim character completely!
Look, that’s just Dennis the Menace on a raft! What the fuck, 1950s?
STEWART: Larry, when do you think we’ll get over this urge to whitewash our history?
WILMORE: Well, not as long as this Congress is in session, Jon. Remember last week when they read the Constitution out loud for us? They chose to leave out the clause designating slaves as 3/5s of a person. Hey, it’s our history. Just because you’re embarrassed to be caught on C-SPAN reading it doesn’t mean we can’t handle it. This country’s had plenty of blemishes, but it’s OK to be seen without your makeup on, America. People still want to fuck you, you’re rich!
STEWART: Larry Wilmore, we’ll be right back.
You’re welcome.
[TDS images via Bruin Kid]
[Seriously, WP? Fuck off. All the way off. (You too, Lorna.) Kisses -ABL]
kwAwk
It seems to me they’re removing the ‘n-word’ from Huckleberry Finn because it is thought that it is offensive to black people, thus teachers won’t assign to book to read for fear of offending said black people or offending white people who proactively want to stand up and make sure their black bretheren aren’t offended. Or something like that.
scav
Wasn’t there also a comedy skit about liberal white folks getting all flighty about even using the descriptor “black” when it was clearly indicated as the natural word to use? “So, which B-J poster uses a lot of emphasis in her strong-minded heavily-emphacized front page posts?” “ummmmm . . . . . you know. . . . . the one that has short ha-ir . . . “
NonyNony
@kwAwk:
From what I can tell the controversy mostly comes from the suburbs, where white suburbanites don’t want their kids exposed in school to anything remotely resembling history.
At least, that’s what I got about the controversy from what I heard on NPR last week.
ETA: Not to give anyone the wrong idea – that isn’t how NPR phrased the controversy, that’s just how I inferred it given the way they’re covering the story. Perhaps this is a big deal for black families, but you wouldn’t be able to tell from the reports I heard on NPR last week.
Tonal Crow
Ya. This whitewashing is stupid, revisionist, counterproductive, warps the author’s intent, and violates the publisher’s implicit obligation to bring the author’s actual words to the reader.
We really need to get over our aversion to
facing our historyfacing any significant issue honestly.Southern Beale
Saw The Daily Show last night and totally loved “Senior Black Correspondent” Larry Wilmore’s take on it. He was so right on. I assume he also writes these pieces, correct? 100% on target.
BGinCHI
Can’t wait for Palin’s video on the Huck Finn stuff. She’s really suffered because of that book and it’s blood libellicosity.
Brachiator
Sorry. Many of the people who are most up in arms over Huck Finn are black people, and some liberals who are always looking for something trivial to be angry about. Not too long ago there was an attempt to demote Huck Finn in favor of Uncle Tom’s Cabin as great American literature. This kind of pointless exercise greatly excited those who have room in their minds for only one book at a time that have anything to do with black people, along with those itching to promote a woman writer and to demote a dead white male.
I am a near First Amendment absolutist. I think that everyone gets to say the word, though I don’t think that anyone should. And I think that black people who believe that they have somehow reclaimed the N word are delusional.
BGinCHI
On a more serious note, what does it say about this country — at least the white, ignorant part — that “slave” is acceptable but “nigger” is not.
“Oh, we’re sorry we called you names, but slavery is just an abstract concept.”
Twain would be kicking people’s discursive asses over this. He was pretty damn liberal, btw.
Jules
My love for Louis C.K. and “Senior Black Correspondent” Larry Wilmore knows no bounds.
sam
The Gospel according to Saint Lenny:
“Are there any niggers here tonight? Could you turn on the house lights, please, and could the waiters and waitresses just stop serving, just for a second? And turn off this spot. Now what did he say? “Are there any niggers here tonight?” I know there’s one nigger, because I see him back there working. Let’s see, there’s two niggers. And between those two niggers sits a kyke. And there’s another kyke— that’s two kykes and three niggers. And there’s a spic. Right? Hmm? There’s another spic. Ooh, there’s a wop; there’s a polack; and, oh, a couple of greaseballs. And there’s three lace-curtain Irish micks. And there’s one, hip, thick, hunky, funky, boogie. Boogie boogie. Mm-hmm. I got three kykes here, do I hear five kykes? I got five kykes, do I hear six spics, I got six spics, do I hear seven niggers? I got seven niggers. Sold American. I pass with seven niggers, six spics, five micks, four kykes, three guineas, and one wop. Well, I was just trying to make a point, and that is that it’s the suppression of the word that gives it the power, the violence, the viciousness. Dig: if President Kennedy would just go on television, and say, “I would like to introduce you to all the niggers in my cabinet,” and if he’d just say “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” to every nigger he saw, “boogie boogie boogie boogie boogie,” “nigger nigger nigger nigger nigger” ’til nigger didn’t mean anything anymore, then you could never make some six-year-old black kid cry because somebody called him a nigger at school.”
guster
@kwAwk: The fact is that schools won’t teach Huckleberry Finn as written. That’s a sad fact, but it’s a fact. This is a way to get the book read in schools. A sad way to get the book read in schools, but a way to get the book read in schools.
General Stuck
The unholy tea tard purification process is now entering an even whiter shade of pale stage in AZ 20.
If they are going to have a race war across the line in S. AZ, the first stray bullet toward Enchantmentville, NM, is going to call for some serious chanting and karmaFu from earth mother. Consider that a threat of peace.
kindness
I agree with you ABL but Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer weren’t being listed by schools because of the wording.
Now I know Mark Twain meant it to teach people. But today, school systems aren’t going to go out on a limb for anything. So, what do you do? Drop a ‘classic’ from curriculum or stick in a ‘whitewashed’ version?
Ash Can
I’m declaring this post my own personal Intertubes Highlight of the Day.
Legalize
“White people can say ‘n-gger’ when black people get to raise interest rates.”
– Chris Rock
RSR
Thought I has seen a similarly titled post somewhere, and then I recall it–(and yes, youg is a misspelling in the url and Ebert’s post)
Roger Ebert: The Young [sic] Turks, the N-word, and me
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/politics/the-youg-turks-the-n-word-and.html
cmorenc
Actually, the Huck Finn dilemma in schools and classrooms I can sort of understand from the perspective of nervous educators.
– A white person saying “nigger” in the classroom for just about any reason is being intolerably racist, and it’s probably career-ending for a teacher.
– A white teacher not allowing “nigger” said in the classroom when reading some works, but not others, is being intolerably narrow-minded, and stunting students’ education, white and black.
Um, sure, context is everything. But people, both black and white, cannot be trusted to be reasonable, fair judges of context where words that have racially incendiary meaning are concerned. Attempt to teach Darwinian evolution with black kids in the room, and someone will take it you said black people are directly descended from monkeys.
numbskull
Maybe your white friends who have trouble saying “nigger” just don’t want to put up with your shit? ‘Cause this is a pretty disjointed, self-conflicting rant. I mean, I _think_ I agree with what you’re trying to say, but I’m not sure.
Or maybe they don’t want to get fired? ‘Cause if I say “nigger” at work, even as part of an intellectual exercise, I run the risk of getting fired. Others have been. I certainly would be spending quality time with HR.
Or maybe your white friends don’t say “nigger” around you because they feel it would be rude. ‘Cause it would be.
Or maybe they just don’t feel the need to say “nigger” period.
My bet is on the first and the last possibilities.
licensed to kill time
It seems to me that schools would be missing a great ‘teachable moment’ by removing those words. Let the kids talk about how it makes them feel to read and hear those words, give some historical context, talk about changing mores, and etc etc.
But I guess that would be too difficult and fraught with peril these days. Kids aren’t such delicate flowers, really. I think they could handle it. Parents? Teachers? Administrators? Not so much. Gah.
BGinCHI
@sam: I assume this is where one of my favorite old bands, Souled American, got its name. I hope so.
Mike E
Colbert, to me, is our modern version of Twain, with language. Need moar fearlessness, especially in the face of such brazen and twisty demagoguery. Make them bastards squirm
Jude
Oh for fuck’s sakes.
You don’t go fucking with literature because you don’t like what it says.
I’m sorry that there’s some shit that makes people uncomfortable. Actually, no. Fuck that. I’m not. Guess what, fucknuggets? The world doesn’t give a fuck about your tender sensibilities. It is and always has been full of horrible shit, and ignoring it doesn’t make it go away or mean that bad shit never happened.
Fuck all these dimwits, no matter what their motivation, who want this change. Sweet christ. It’s no different than painting fig leaves over the pink bits in Michaelangelo’s frescoes, or complaining about the sacreligious nature of certain art pieces. It’s stupid, and it doesn’t change the reality of the world around us.
geg6
Well, I am not a Daily Show or Jon Stewart fan, so I’ll just skip their take on it.
And I am one of those white people who will not use the word (I was brought up that way; when mom goes on civil rights marches, one does not use that word) and won’t tolerate it among my white friends. And, yes, I’m even uncomfortable when my black friends use it (don’t like or listen to much hip-hop, so that’s moot).
But this is a travesty. I am so glad I got my niece both Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer before these barbarians took their red pens to them.
BGinCHI
@guster: It says more about schools than it does about the book or anything else. I work with (and teach) a lot of teachers, and there is tremendous room for courage and consciousness-raising in the high school classroom and curriculum.
This Bowdlerization crap is not a way to do it.
guster
@Jude: Twain wrote multiple versions of Huck Finn, and there’s an entire chunk of Chapter 3 missing from most editions because his publisher had trouble ‘fitting’ it in (though it’s been restored in some later editions). So the question of what counts as ‘Huckleberry Finn’ is a bit more complex than it first seems.
ed drone
It seems to me that the modern high school student has no more been taught to think for him/herself than he/she has been taught to be responsible, to handle money, or to drive safely, so the “discussion” of “nigger” would not be a “teachable moment,” simply because kids today are not nearly teachable.
Their parents aren’t either. Nor their grandparents. I doubt there are “teachable” people enough in the US population to make it worth printing the damned books.
And don’t get me started on the younger kids, like fifth graders. Discussion? You must be joking.
Ed
guster
@BGinCHI: Sure, but that doesn’t change the fact that, barring these changes, the book won’t be taught in many schools.
My personal solution is to publish an edition of the book called something like, “Huckleberry Finn for Cowards and Revisionists” and teach _that_, with the full explanation of what’s been changed.
But my personal solutions always involve sliding down chocolate-covered rainbows.
BGinCHI
@cmorenc: At the university level, at least, in literature classes, this happens regularly. Of course no one who knows what they’re doing just has their students read Flannery O’Connor’s “The Artificial Nigger” without preparing the class for it with plenty of context and discussion.
When the word comes up in a text we use it and talk about it, including why it’s offensive and what it’s doing in the text, etc. Same with other words like it. Teaching isn’t teaching if you just ignore this kind of stuff. And I wish more of our general discourse contained teachable moments that didn’t get fucked up by the lowest common denominator thinkers/commenters.
I’m looking at you, righties.
Adrienne
@Brachiator:
Who are these phantom black folks of whom you speak? I’ve never met one.
@kindness:
I’d rather them drop a classic. Don’t teach the damn book if you’re not going to actually, well, teach the damn book. Don’t whitewash it. It does the book, the author and the students who read it a grave disservice.
thomas Levenson
True story: Long, long ago, I had a summer internship w. a Brooklyn congressman (Fred Richmond, for those of you keeping score at home, and yes he got out of jail before he died), who was friends with one of the funniest men that America ever found too hard to take, Dick Gregory. I got to talk with Gregory a few times — he dropped by the office once or twice, and he’d hang out while Freddy got his stuff together.
He was a sweet and gentle man, with an unrelenting core of hardened steel; social justice all the way, and I was in awe of him.
I told him that I loved his autobiography — and I asked him if he really titled that thinking of his mother.
He said yes: He called it Nigger so that whenever his mom heard the word (and I can’t remember if she had died at that time, in which case we were talking hearing it in heaven), she’d know someone was advertising his book.
Funny man. Great one too. Took words very seriously indeed.
Randy P
I’m one of those (approximately) white people who can’t say the N-word. If I were acting, I suppose I would. And if I were reading it aloud, I guess I would feel I should be faithful to the text. But I’d probably put a disclaimer up front.
The whole point of the Jim character is that he’s smarter than anyone else in the book, and people can’t see it for their prejudices. I’ve heard more than once about black actors who at first refused to play a 19th-century black character (afraid of “Gone with the Wind” stereotypes), then actually read it, then said “Hell yes”.
It would definitely be tricky to teach it in school, particularly high-school, because teachers can be fired using a wrong word and for somebody perceiving it as a racial slur.
What am I trying to say with this ramble? I guess 1. Teach it 2. As written.
BGinCHI
@ed drone: Enjoy your dinner at Old Country Buffet.
joe from Lowell
I hate that word. I think it’s only acceptable to use it the way Twain used it – to draw attention to the shocking dehumanization behind it, and the evil of talking and thinking about black people that way.
And speaking of “It’s supposed to be shocking,” that’s exactly why I object to black people using “nigga” to mean “homie.” A nigger is something – not a nice thing, either, a lazy, shiftless, oversexed stereotype of black people – and using the word as a non-offensive term means that it’s not offensive to depict your black friend as that thing. It doesn’t “take the power away” from the word. It’s still a term of dehumanization. It just makes that dehumanization acceptable…and that is why so many racist white people love to point to the use of “nigga” among black people as an excuse for them to use it, too.
eemom
some random linkless info:
1. There’s a case pending somewhere about whether it’s ok for a black person to use the n-word in the workplace. I read about it recently, can’t remember where.
2. In one of Richard Pryor’s classic shows — may have been Live on the Sunset Strip — he did a riff about never wanting to say “nigger” again after visiting Africa.
IMO, art should never be censored, ever, for any reason. But I do think there’s some confusion about what the true motive was behind the “whitewashing” of Huck Finn, i.e., whether it really was motivated by some miguided attempt at racial sensitivity. I don’t have enough facts to draw a conclusion.
Martin
I think I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the best classes I took in college was a creating writing course that focused on how to deal with taboo words. Forcing 17 year olds to write cunt and nigger and then critique and discuss their use in appropriate ways was very enlightening. The first day we addressed the topic basically consisted of everyone going around the room, coming up with the 3 most offensive words they could think of, and then using them in context out loud in front of the class. It was painful all the way through. Nobody had an easy time of it.
Ed Marshall
For what it’s worth, I remember this being taught in 10th grade English and it ended in a brawl when someone decided to tell everyone in the class (which was fairly mixed racially) about how there are “niggers” and “black people” and blah, blah, blah….
jocar
ABL
My take…
1. Removing the word nigger from Aventures of Huckleberry Finn is revisionist, censorship, and wrong.
2. Even using the word nigger in (e.g. reading aloud a section of the text from Huck Finn) by persons who are not black is a certain to bring opprobrium by some.
Therefore reading the book in highschool english (or any other forum) becomes problematic. Someone is always going to insulted, and raise an issue. The teacher (and that is where this is mainly coming from) looks to remove this contention that is obscuring the reading of the book. I can’t blame them for wanting to do that.
BGinCHI
@guster:
This is not a profile in courage for education, guster. Come on, we can do better. When I talk to HS teachers and ask why, if they’ve taught Julius Caesar for 10 or 15 years straight and are bored to death with it, they don’t change it up, they never really have been forced to do it. Or if that’s been the “norm,” they’ve never fought for something different. The group-think in these places is amazing.
It needs to change.
I’ll tell you something. One of the most underrated ways of making teachers better is to empower them to like what they’re teaching and to own it.
The Moar You Know
@guster:
@kindness:
Since you both framed essentially the same question, I thought I’d include both of you in the reply.
Much as it pains me, as I love Twain’s work, you drop it. If it can’t be read because some black folk get legitimately offended by the language, or some white GOP parents have a pearl-clutching fit because the language is ugly and makes their racist party look bad (do you think Twain used those words by accident? C’mon!) then it can’t be read, period.
To throw out a bowdlerized version that changes the entire nature of the book is just wrong. Kids won’t learn anything from a neutered version of Twain. They can wait until they’re adults and buy the book themselves, and discover the sometimes ugly truth of 19th century America.
As an artist, also, I gotta say that if you “cleaned up” the lyrical content of my music, you would be getting slapped with a lawsuit the next day. If I said something ugly, I damn well meant to, and you have no right to change it without asking me first. And since it’s never been a moneymaker for me, the answer will always be “no”.
joe from Lowell
@BGinCHI: I hope my kids have a teacher like you.
morzer
I might be wrong about this, but I believe Jamelle Bouie is male, which makes talk of “her” post a bit puzzling.
RSR
I concur that it should be taught as originally written or not at all.
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2011/01/regarding-de-niggering-of-huck-finn.html
…let’s put literary analysis aside. How about this: don’t fuck with works of art. Don’t cover the tits or dicks on statues. Don’t put out DVDs with the naughty bits cut out of a film. If you can’t handle it or are offended by it, move on. The Rude Pundit can’t abide intense violence against women in movies, so there’s a few allegedly great flicks he’s missed. But he wouldn’t ask to see Irreversible with the notorious rape scene cut out.
You can’t take the word “nigger”? Then, sorry, you don’t get to enjoy the rest of Twain’s satire of human degradation and idiocy (and you should probably avoid Pudd’nhead Wilson, too). You don’t get to watch Pulp Fiction. You don’t get to watch unedited episodes of The Jeffersons and Sanford and Son. You don’t get to hear Archie Bunker explain about how he got his ass kicked when he was a kid by a black boy because he used the word: “That’s what all them people was called in them days. I mean everybody we knew called them people ‘niggers.’ That’s all my old man ever called them, there.” No, we’re just not that mature anymore. (Yeah, yeah, you can say we’ve gotten more “sensitive” or some such shit. All that’s happened is that we’ve made the word more powerful by its false invisibility.)
BGinCHI
@joe from Lowell:
Let’s see, limo to and from Lowell, couple hours tutoring, dinner at a nice local Italian place (the best in the city, please), shouldn’t come to more than a couple of grand per.
gene108
Slave isn’t exactly a complimentary term…
In terms of revision, I think if it allows the book to be taught, I don’t have a problem with it.
You aren’t substituting an offensive term with an unoffensive term.
Slave Jim sends a pretty clear message about where Jim is in the grand scheme of American history, maybe even more clearly, than Nigger Jim, since it’s pretty clear slaves are about as low on the social hierarchy as you can get.
WyldPirate
@numbskull:
Yep. This. The double standard on this is pretty–well—standard in our society.
To wit, this Dewayne Wickham column in USA today on the subject of ABL’s post:
Schools and others shy away from using the word because of fear more often than not. It’s political correctness run amuck when Twain’s whole point behind The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a not of subtle stab at the degradation of slavery and racism in America through the eyes of a child who came to accept someone his culture had taught him was less than a man as a man and a human being the equal of him.
The word is obviously part of our history and that history shouldn’t be forgotten. It shouldn’t be used pejoratively, but some do and people always will. But it’s a fact that in our society the use of “nigger” will, in many cases, earn a white person a trip to the HR office and a pink slip in a heartbeat.
joe from Lowell
@RSR:
Not really, no. It got people’s blood boiling in the 30s and 60s, too.
Warren Terra
I’m with Joe From Lowell on this one. I get really uncomfortable when people use the word other than its original meaning, which is to convey a message of total inferiority. Obviously, conveying a message of total inferiority is also very wrong – but pretending that people didn’t convey such a message with incredible frequency would also be wrong. A big part of The Adventures Of Huck Finn is about the injustices society loads onto Jim, and bowdlerizing part of these injustices – including the various ways that his seeming best friend Huck dehumanizes him – would rob the book of a big part of its meaning. Willmore’s not wrong – it’s the first step towards pretending they’re two well-dressed social equals out for a spin in their yacht.
Now, obviously, if a student were to learn from the book that the word can be used casually, or to hand in an essay about the book using the word casually (other than in quotations or a discussion of the word’s significance), I’d want to talk to that kid about the message they were sending. But the book doesn’t teach you that racist words are right; quite the opposite.
PS Did 1950s TV really do a Jimless version of Huck Finn? Or was that just a clip from Dennis The Menace?
guster
@BGinCHI: I think you’re largely right, but I also think that ‘we can do better’ arguments edge toward abstinence-only education arguments.
“Kids are gonna have sex. Let’s teach them how to avoid pregnancy, disease, and emotional trauma.”
“Forget teaching that stuff. We can do better.”
“School aren’t gonna teach HF. Let’s change the text so they can.”
“Forget changing the words. We can do better.”
@The Moar You Know: I’m a novelist, and while I think that changing words is offensive bullshit, I think that mythologizing novels is (inoffensive) bullshit. The version _you_ first read was almost certainly incomplete–and was one version among many. Kids will learn from the version that says ‘slaves’ instead of ‘nigger’ (though I’ll admit that I don’t much like the book, so this is an intellectual question for me, not an emotional one), and might even learn more, in some ways, if teachers, ahem, ‘teach the controversy.’
I just think that this is a problem with two bad solutions (and one good one–but nobody listens to _me_).
Another interesting (well, to me) thing about this question is that we’re already reading a different text than Twain wrote. I don’t mean just the fact that the publisher cut the third chapter and that Twain wrote a bunch of versions, but because the meaning and impact of many words–such as ‘nigger’–have changed over the years.
Would this bowdlerization be less offensive to you if ‘nigger’ was changed to ‘darkie’ or ‘nigra’ or something?
Basilisc
It was only 12 years ago that an aide to the mayor of DC got fired for using the word “niggardly”: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/local/daily/jan99/district27.htm. On the grounds that, well, it sounded like, you know. (I think he later got his job back.) So you can see why we white people are kind of jumpy about this.
asiangrrlMN
I’m for teaching it as written or dropping it completely. Someone over at TNC’s place said, “Sure, teach it, but make it clear you are not teaching Twain’s Huckleberry Finn.” TDS segment is spot-on. Nigger and slave have two completely different meanings. Do. Not. Mess. With. The. Book.
Gravie
How I love Larry Wilmore. And Mark Twain.
BGinCHI
@gene108: Fail.
Tom Hilton
Also (and, IMO, more importantly) ‘slave’ creates a comforting and illusory sense of distance for white readers: ‘slaves’ were freed nearly 150 years ago, while ‘nigger’ was common currency within my lifetime.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Faced with the choice between teaching the bowdlerized version and not teaching it, I’d do a big tease on the kids: tell them there’s this great book, with a fantastic story, incredible insight and humor, biting satire, etc. – one that I looooooved and would love to teach them. But we can’t read that one, because it’s been banned too often and it contains a Very Bad Word that we can’t use in school. Then I’d announce that we’re going to read Little Women or something, because I’m a bitch like that.
I use the word in full when I’m directly quoting someone who used it, whether that’s ABL, Twain, or the racist assholes I encountered as a child in rural Connecticut, and refer to it as “the n-word” when I’m not. It’s not my word, but we need to acknowledge and discuss its role and power in our language.
BGinCHI
@guster: Your sex-ed example IS the doing better. Not doing better would be to try to teach abstinence.
Doing better here means having a big picture conversation about how texts fit into contexts, and how teaching is about bringing (in this case) young people into an understanding of these complexities.
Not doing so is still education (there are other books), but it’s a compromised education.
Plus, young people are smarter than this, for the most part. They’ll get it if we help them. Fear breeds fear.
BGinCHI
@guster: Would you give a link to one of your novels? Understand if you’re reticent, but I’ve been wanting to ask since you mentioned a few months ago. Academic and writer here.
Hogan
@Warren Terra: True story, swear to God.
BGinCHI
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Did you see the South Park where they all read the “previously banned” Catcher in the Rye?
Oh so hilarious.
MonkeyBoy
“casually dehumanizes black people”
Up until the 1960s you could buy a firework called a nigger chaser. That wasn’t a slang term, it often was printed on the firework or its packaging. Today it has been renamed a whistling chaser.
The name “Nigger chaser” within a historical context should be preserved as typifying an attitude that regarded casual terrorism against black people as a harmless way of having fun – e.g. one that you couldn’t get into trouble for.
IrishGirl
I loved this Daily Show segment…..I’m totally with Larry on this. You can’t change the word because Twain’s whole point is that Jim can’t run away from the labels that society has applied to him, whereas Huck can.
Origuy
I don’t object to the bowdlerization, only the word chosen. Language changes over time. You can’t teach Beowulf in high school without translating it; Shakespeare is sometimes translated or abridged to expose students to the ideas without getting bogged down in the 400 year old language. Twain’s choice of words was correct for the time, but is problematic today. I remember in high school taking turns reading aloud from the assignment; do you really want kids getting used to saying the N-word or hearing their teacher say it. As for those who say “drop it”, Huckleberry Finn is one of the most important books in American literature. Dropping it would be like leaving the Civil War out of history class entirely.
However, “slave” is a inaccurate replacement, as HF discusses free blacks as well as slaves. Ignoring the existence of them is a significant distortion.
eemom
@Basilisc:
I remember that “niggardly” episode well, and it infuriates me to this day.
There is NO excuse for not knowing the fucking MEANING of a fucking before complaining about its use — much less firing someone because you don’t know the fucking meaning of a fucking word.
The derivation of “niggardly” has nothing to do with “nigger” — as was belatedly demonstrated to the firing ignoramus and everybody else at the time.
Gus
Hilarious tweet.
orogeny
@The Moar You Know:
I have to agree. If the book can’t be taught as written, then don’t use a watered down version. Put in on a recommended but not required reading list.
Growing up in the 50s and 60s in the south, I never read Huckleberry Finn in school…it just wasn’t done. I read Tom Sawyer on my own when I was around 10 and followed it up with Huck Finn. It was a revelation. I had heard people (including my parents) say “nigger”hundreds of times but until I read Twain’s book and saw how it was used in reference to Jim, it never seemed that offensive. But as I read about Jim I found that he was the character I admired most in the story, the smart guy who got things done. This was in total opposition to what I had been taught blacks were like. I thought about how frustrating it would be to be smart and capable but still be considered “just a nigger,” and it really bothered me. Reading the book didn’t suddenly make me the liberal I am now, but it gave me the initial push in that direction. If Twain hadn’t used “nigger,” if he’d said “slave” instead, it would not have had that impact on me. No one I knew used that word when referring to blacks, it was just an abstract concept to a 10-year-old southern boy.
geg6
@orogeny:
And even as a child, you understood exactly what Twain was getting at. Anyone who supports changing the word either never read the book or didn’t understand a word of it if they did.
DougJarvus Green-Ellis
I think this is true of the vast majority of white people who listen to hip hop, myself included. It’s why I prefer to rap along with the versions that have been edited for radio.
Brachiator
@Adrienne: RE: Many of the people who are most up in arms over Huck Finn are black people,
You’re joking, right? I mean, Logic 101 says that just because you supposedly have never met any black parents who object to the book, this does not mean that they do not exist.
Second, do you really mean to suggest that you have never read a news story of black parents objecting?
Third, do you really mean to suggest that you are incapable of doing a basic google search on parents who object to the book?
But what the hey, meet Calista Phair:
And this was in 2008.
ABL
@numbskull: and what shit is that, exactly?
my friend is a comedy writer who makes jokes about how I lie about never having sat through a Tyler Perry movie because all black people have seen every Tyler Perry movie. He also used to joke that all black people know what club 50 cent was talking about when he said “you can find me in da club.”. I think both of those jokes are hilarious. I have another friend who, when I would complain about anything, like a restaurant screwing up my order, would ask me, “You know why that happened, right?”. I would sigh resignedly and say “It’s because I’m black, I know.”
Point is, I’m an odd person. That should be evident from my writing alone. I tell people I’m glad I’m Jewish because of the jokes (a la Seinfeld). I understand that my sense of humor isn’t for everyone, but dang. Why so quick to get your hackles up? Comments like yours amuse me because they demonstrate how far off-base some of you are in your estimation of me.
It’s cool though. Some of you get me. I write with you in mind.
ABL
@kindness: drop it and teach it in a college literature class.
Dinah
I grew up in the rural South during the Jim Crow era. In 1953, when I was eleven, I realized that black people were human beings. It sounds ridiculous when I say this now, but at the time it was a revolutionary idea. I did not stop being a racist; but I started wanting not to be a racist. It took a long time to change, but I kept trying. (I had some help from black friends who sneered when I was being “noble.”) When I read Huckleberry Finn, I understand exactly what had happened to Huck. He learned to love Jim and he was willing to turn his back on everything he had been taught. It may be presumptuous for a white woman to believe that the word “nigger” should be kept in Huckleberry Finn, but it honestly describes Huck’s world and helps the reader understand his moral awakening.
alwhite
I love Huck Finn, I believe it is one of the greatest novels in American lit. I believe reading it in high school would be a great experience and really open a lot of history to discussion. But I would not want to try to teach it today. First, some number of blacks would be offended, they are the major voice in opposition to Huck Finn. I understand why they would be offended even if I think they are wrong there are a few hundred years of history that make my opinion on this worthless. Second, there are going to be a certain number of kids that will take the book as license to call people nigger. This is of course stupid but the world is full of assholes. Why drag the whole school into this if you don’t have to? I think I could teach the book without the word (although I think ‘slave’ is a poor substitute) and use that as a starting point, bringing in black voices to discuss both the word and why it is not in the book as taught.
I found it sad that the people on TV blasting the edit could not bring themselves to say nigger. If you have to use ‘n-word’ when making your point in an adult world why would you have a problem with people not wanting to use it in an adolescent one?
kindness
@Adrienne: You are reasonable. Most School Boards are not. They cave at the drop of anyone’s hat. And if a teacher brought it up on their own for k-12? Here in California if anyone complained that teacher would be fired.
You gonna put your professional life on the line to teach Huck Finn? I honestly doubt it. I’m not a teacher. My wife is, & she won’t be teaching it or Tom Sawyer. All it takes is one complaint that the teacher said ‘Nigger’ in class. That’s all it would take. The circumstances would not matter one bit.
ABL
@thomas Levenson: holy crap, you met dick Gregory!?
that is impossibly awesome. I read Nigger in 7th grade and wrote a book report about it — thinking back, it’s amazing I was even allowed to do so, but I went to a magnet school and the teachers actually took their jobs seriously. Not one kid in my class, colored or non-, felt uncomfortable (that I can recall.)
[edited for sense.]
BGinCHI
@Dinah: Perfect. Thanks for that comment. It’s a struggle but it’s all we can do. We can’t choose when or where we’re born, but we can damn sure try to do something about it.
Just Some Fuckhead
@ABL:
Thank you. BTW, I love the word nigger and use it all the time.
Sasha
This is a SOUTH PARK episode waiting to happen (probably with Cartman arguing against bowdlerization because reading the unexpurgated text aloud lets him call Token “nigger” in public).
ABL
@alwhite: I take issue with the notion that black people would necessarily be offended. In my experience, when taught the right way, the word in the classroom neither offends black kids nor is perceived by white kids as a license to call black kids nigger.
alwhite
@Warren Terra:
Yes, sadly, there was one done in ’55. I never saw it but read about it once. That would be obscene.
ABL
@geg6: the question becomes, *why* does it make you so uncomfortable?
BGinCHI
@ABL: Yes, this. I can’t argue with folks anymore on this kind of subject who don’t teach people (or at least understand what takes place in classrooms) or have any faith that they are teachable. It’s a failure of the worst kind.
PS
@Warren Terra: I also doubted the reality of the 1955 movie but (also) found it at IMDB, and from there, found a trailer: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001161010/. (Link seems down, perhaps because of the rush, but it worked earlier.) John Carradine, yet.
ABL
@Sasha: it really is! I almost went as Token for Halloween one year.
alwhite
@ABL:
We had the issue raised here over another book about 4 years ago & the people at the school board meeting that were upset & demanding the book be removed were all black. It certainly is not fair to say every African-American would feel that way but, in my admittedly limited experience, it has been.
If the racists were smart they would be the ones demanding Huck be banned but that has not been my experience.
kyle
“I bet some of you are a bit envious that I ‘get to say’ nigger without running the risk of being stabbed.”
Not me, bitch!
PS
And then there is/was the fine old Agatha Christie mystery called
Ten Little NiggersI meanTen Little Indians, that is, And Then There Were None. But that was, ah, no great loss.Slightly more seriously, I once had dinner with a very conservative guy whose wife was a childhood friend of mine. He ranted about this appalling book his daughter had to read in school. I mean, he went on and on about it until finally I just had to ask the title: Catcher in the Rye. Oh, I said. I think I managed to express my disagreement without completely ruining the evening, but it was tricky. This curriculum stuff be hard.
Brachiator
@eemom:
It’s much like the 1996 protest by PETA over the name of the town, Fishkill, NY
Of course, because stupid is forever, these boneheads refused to understand that the word was a combination of English and Dutch, and meant Fish Creek.
Alex
I’ve always thought this:
The reason that white people have power and money in this country and that black people don’t is from years of slavery and oppression. In return, black people have asked for us to avoid saying one word. That sounds reasonable. Heck, they could give us a list of words and I’d still be on board.
bemused
We have family in Raleigh, NC and heard that tea party types and other assorted uber conservatives supported by private school advocatges and no tax groups have finally managed to get a majority on the Wade County School Board and move forward with their plan to dismantle the diversity policy, integration based on income, that has been a model for other school districts around the country. The 5 members hustled in a superintendent candidate, forced a quick 5 to 4 vote. The new super is retired Brig. Adm Anthony Tata who doesn’t have much experience in education but must have looked really good to the 5 members with Tata’s appearances on Fox News and his articles for rightwing outlets such as his glowing review of Palin’s first book for Breitbart. According to Tata, Palin had a keen intellect and would have been a much more qualified president than Obama.
This is what “taking back our country” looks like.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I don’t think the intent is to whitewash history, though that is the practical effect. One of my high school English teachers used to teach a “Bible as Literature” class, one which I would have liked to take as an elective, but he had chosen not to teach it anymore for the simple reason that he was sick of dealing with irate parents. Most likely that was the thinking behind the bowdlerized Huck Finn, that it would make the book less problematic for teachers. That said, the publishers should have thought through all the consequences of their decision.
Observer
No, ABL, the whole notion isn’t stupid or cowardly. First, Jamelle’s argument is totally incorrect. The key argument is:
… and that’s entirely a wrong line of reasoning. Having an entire country read a book that uses a term of disrespect to any entire segment of that country only raises and mainstreams disrepect towards that segment. No one is arguing for enlightnment; just asking to stop institutionalizing blatant disrespect. It’s got nothing to do with “history”, we don’t live in the 1800s.
Not having grown up in America, I had no idea that a so-called “classic” had the word “nigger” in it so widespread but now that I know, it explains a lot of things about America. And not in a good way. Entire English speaking countries manage to educate their young without having to read this so-called “classic” and I have to tell you, yes other Western countries have black racism problems but none, none whatsoever, come close to the level of basic disregard and disrespect casually mainstreamed and directed towards blacks in America by ordinary citizens and government officials.
Disregarding black is so ingrained in American culture and government that no one in power, and I mean absolutely no one, cares about a whole range of issues simply because the issue primarly deals with blacks.
For example, America has an entire city that doesn’t get to vote in federal elections. No one cares because basically “only black people live there anyway”.
Second example, apparently no one cares that the government can steal your house and give it to
white people“investors” if you owe the city of Baltimore $362 in a delinquent water bill. Not sure what not paying any expense has to do with an entity having the right to take your house that has no mortgage on it, but if you owe the city money, apparently that’s ok. No taking you to court and suing you to get the measly $362. Nope. Steal your house and give it away. But it’s no problem because everyone knows this “only happens to blacks” so no one cares.So perhaps having a country read a book that ingrains this basic disrespect would be someplace to start to repeal.
Whatever your views on the above, wanting things like this changed isn’t “impossibly stupid”.
Don
I’m with Louis CK on this as well. “Why do you want to say nigger so bad?”
ABL
@jocar: I understand why teachers are uncomfortable with teaching it, but what I don’t understand is why do they have to teach it at all. If they can’t teach it the way it’s written, then they should find another book.
ABL
@alwhite: I don’t doubt it. What I would ask is how whatever book was being taught. if teachers are doing their jobs and parents are doing their jobs, then it shouldn’t be an issue. And if it is an issue, the solution isn’t a poor attempt to revise literature and the historical context in which Twain used the word.
Warren Terra
@PS:
I remember that story. Chilling, more of a horror story than a mystery. But it’s not about racism, not even against Indians (a topic British literature has sometimes handled very well and sometimes apparently entirely failed to notice). A major theme of the story depends on the reader’s familiarity with the song, or at least their ability to recognize that it is a song when they read it. If the popular version of the song changed its label for the victims, you could make the same change in the book without affecting its message in the slightest. Change the fact that the truly heroic figure of The Adventures of Huck Finn is casually and unthinkingly dehumanized by all and sundry, including his friend Huck, and you lose a big part of the book.
Nutella
For a little comic relief from the serious discussion going on, here’s an illustrated modern version of Huck Finn.
Jrod the Cookie Thief
@Observer: Yes, racism is actually caused by reading Huckleberry Finn! Why didn’t we see it sooner?
You’re an idiot.
BGinCHI
@Nutella: Love the helmets on the raft.
Observer
@Jrod the Cookie Thief:
I normally don’t reply in substance to people who put words in other people’s mouth and who clearly have no reading comprehension.
debbie
I have a real problem with the word and an even bigger one with the edits. I think they should leave it as is and publish a forward to the text that explains the history of the word and why it is so toxic (include that “Injun” too).
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer:
Perhaps the fact that the book does not “ingrain this basic disrespect” escapes you. As noted above, Jim is pretty much the smartest, most upright person in the book. In addition, a huge part of the story is Huck learning that the ingrained racism in his upbringing was wrong and choosing to do something that he believed would imperil his very soul rather than betray Jim. The word and all its history and baggage is important, nay, necessary to the story. HF is a weapon for reducing racism, not evidence of it.
cyntax
@Observer:
It’s pretty hard to criticize something if you don’t acknowledge it exists and if you pretend that the 19th century hasn’t shaped where we are today well… you’re not arguing or thinking very clearly. Please refer to the Southern Strategy as an example of this.
Umm… probably because it doesn’t have the historical relevance that it does here? It seems blaringly obvious that each country probably wants to concentrate or at least start with examples taken from their own histories. That you would even posit this as a criticism displays a deep misunderstanding of the topic in general.
Surley duff
It would also be nice if they changed the character of jim to either denzel w. Or morgan freeman to appease my delicate sensibilities. I am cool with those two black guys.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
To some people your discription and take on it would be how they’d react.
But to a non-trivial percentage of the population the only lesson learned from a book taught in english class is that it’s okay to treat blacks with disrespect and no one in authority is going to say or do anything about it. The secondary lesson is that you can make fun of blacks because they’re not important. In certain parts of the country, this in fact will be the primary lesson.
After all, no one in the South will ever read a book that has casual disrepect to Southerners. Not going to happen. For that matter, no country has “classics” that emply a major insult to the ruling class.
Observer
@cyntax:
My points are: 1) English class is where you go to get better at english. Reading Huckleberry Finn isn’t actually a history lesson; that’s done in history. This whole “it’s a classic and it’s historical” is a red herring. It’s English class. Not history class.
The second point about other countries is that, in fact, Huckleberry Finn, a major American novel, isn’t actually critical to learning how to read and write english lit and other countries have suffered no loss in not having read it.
BGinCHI
@Observer: Everything in this post is demonstrably false.
You ever heard of Zola? Heinrich Boll? Um, Dickens?
Plus, bad teachers are out there and do a poor job with challenging texts. That’s not the text’s fault.
BGinCHI
@Observer: OK, even stupider. Stop digging.
The disciplines are not separable, nor are the subjects.
Jesus, I don’t want to be mean, but you need to read more. Honestly.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: But how important is it to American, not English literature?
Observer
@BGinCHI:
Does Dickens have a novel where there’s casual perjoratives to a significantly large and traditionally oppressed segment of the population? didn’t know that.
English class is where you go to learn english. Has nothing to do with learning about slavery and the perils thereof. that’s history class.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
It’s not that important. It’s just one book and it’s english lit.
It’s not like learning about the American revolution. It’s just a novel. Billions of learned people on the Earth have come and gone without having to read Huckleberry Finn.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: Some rather uncomplimentary references to Fagin and his religion IIRC. Add in the stereotype… and that is just a quick one.
cyntax
@Observer:
You have an oddly static and narrow definition of what is and isn’t to be taught in literature classes. I don’t know how reading Shakespeare doesn’t inform one about Elizabethean society and its politics. Trying to compartmentalize away history from literature from psychology from politics from science seems silly and reductivist to me, so if that’s the eudcational system you prefer, you’re welcome to it. It’s not one I think works well.
Again, this isn’t relevant since these countries don’t share our history; they have their own books to read. No one would argue you have to read any one peice of literature to learn any particular langauge. That’s a silly and illogical point to refute and not what’s being claimed here.
WereBear
I suspect you should have paid a little more attention in English class. It’s about people learning literature.
The fact remains Huckleberry Finn is an extraordinary piece of literature, and is so subversive it’s amazing it’s in as many libraries as it is.
I still remember reading the passage where Huck decides, “Okay. I’ll go to hell,” rather than sell out his friend, and treat him as subhuman; though it goes against his culture, upbringing, and religion. It’s incredibly powerful.
It teaches a lot.
Warren Terra
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m offended by the implication of your comment that children living west of the Rockies should be indoctrinated with the literature of the Mississippi river.
Snark aside, how Observer intends to separate literature from culture (and this history) is quite beyond me. Diagramming sentences and all those other tools towards properly following the mechanics of the English language are important, but they’re not the sum total of English class. I certainly had British literature in my English class; indeed, we read translations of Japanese and Indian literature. Actually, I think someof those were poorly chosen, but the point was to read something, think about it, and learn how to express yourself on the subject in writing.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: Billions have gone without reading War and Peace as well. Name a piece of literature and we can drop it into that sentence. Your argument now seems to be that no literature is important. I am not sure that is where you wanted to go. Also, if it is not important, I would suggest it is not worth bowdlerizing. N’est-ce pas?
Observer
@BGinCHI:
To spell this out for you without slinging insults your way, the job of school is to educate. Part of that is English and part of that is history.
Sure, there’s no rule that says there has to be no crossover, but please do not try and tell me that learning about one of the most significant and historical events in American history (slavery) needs to be done via english class via a novel. That’ job is supposed to be what history class is for. Important events.
“I learned my history of slavery from Huck Finn” is stupid. If that’s really true, it’s a sign of a bad schoold board. If it’s not true, then why the need to read Huck Finn because of the “history” that the students already learned in history class?
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: If I may ask, where are you from?
BGinCHI
@Observer: Yes, they’re called the poor.
And seriously? English class is where you learn English? You should take my Shakespeare class this semester so that you can learn something when we do the history plays.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
You are correct. No specific piece of literature is important that it MUST be in everyone’s curriculum. For english lit there are literally hundreds of great books to choose from.
Some books have negatives as well as positives. For Huck Finn the negatives in my opinion vastly outweigh the positives.
So to say we MUST have Huck Finn and it MUST have the numerous perjoratives to blacks in it is unnecessary and wrong. There are lots of other books to read, all of which are “classics” too.
Like I said, tellingly there are no classics in any country that casually insult the ruling class.
cyntax
Important events shouldn’t be limited to one mode of learning. For some people the hard facts of slavery (the number of people affected) will be what brings the reality home for them. But for many people telling a story is what makes something real, story-telling with all its ability to evoke emotion and fill in the blanks between the facts.
Why you insist on such rigid and artificial delineations between disciplines is incomprehensible but doesn’t make for good pedagogy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer:
Have you read any Twain?
BGinCHI
@Observer: You are now arguing with assumptions that you made, not me or others.
Let me guess, you are an engineer.
I’m not going to argue with someone who doesn’t understand the basics of what we’re talking about here.
I really do hope you do some reading in the history of American and English lit.
Observer
@BGinCHI:
Doing “history” plays in Shakespeare is great but if you’re saying that, say, the War of the Roses and Henry Tudor is a part of the official school curriculum and you’re learning about that by reading Shakespeare’s Richard the III then either you or whatever school you went to shouldn’t be in the business of teaching because that’s just plain dumb.
They’re called novels for a reason.
BGinCHI
There are dozens and dozens. Heard of Dostoyevsky? Balzac? Joyce?
I’d say “classics” are likely to do just the opposite of what you say.
dms
Okay, I have a serious question for you ABL. And I’m not choosing sides with your post. I just think this anecdote connects with your post.
I just spent “Christmas” with my family, my family being my three siblings and their spouses (no children), the youngest of which is me (I), at the tender age of 56. Christmas this year was in Austin, Texas.
We’re white, except for my wife, who happens to be a “nigger”.
Anyway, one day my sister, my SIL, and I are in the car, and my SIL (the Texan) bemoans the fact that, because of PCism, kids are losing their history.
Her example: a recent controversy at the University of Texas (my SIL is a faculty member there) over a dorm named after one William S. Simkins, a former Professor of Law at the University, who, it was recently discovered by certain Austintonians, helped found the Ku Klux Klan in Florida. The powers that be at the University, after several public meetings, decided unanimously to rename the dorm and its eponymous adjoining park.
My SIL thought this reprehensible because it deprived the students knowledge of the college’s history. Her further point was that Professor Simkins was merely a man of his times, and that history would look back on our era and find fault with some of us.
Now, I had vaguely remembered reading about all of this, but, because I’m not good on my feet, I decided to say nothing.
My reactions, however, are: 1) Are you (meaning my SIL) expecting black (or African-American) students to feel comfortable living in this dorm? (not that there are, other than on their football teams, an abundance of AAs on the campus); 2) The University was ignoring much of Prof. Simkins history for most of the time the dorm was in existence, so they were the ones whitewashing, as it were, the university’s history; 3) He is not a man of his time; he is a white, southern, racist man of his time. That is not to say there weren’t others, in the North or the South, equally as guilty, but no one was naming dorms after them. And a man of his time, 50 years prior, had freed the slaves. I mean, this idea that everyone was doing it seems a rather weak defense.
So what’s your take. PCism or a wrong finally righted?
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: I am going with engineer educated in continental Europe.
Angry Black Lady
@morzer: you’re right! i’ll fix that.
Observer
@BGinCHI:
I’m not making any assumptions whatsoever so you should point them out for me.
And i’m not sure what you’re getting at. Either slavery is part of the official school board curriculum or it isn’t. If it isn’t then it’s a bad school and if it is then please do not tell me that means you need to read Huck Finn in english class.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI:
There is no reason to swear.
cyntax
@Observer:
Depends how you mean “casually insult the ruling class.” There are tons of books that criticize the ruling classes and insult them. Twain did it a lot.
If you mean that there are no books in which a systemically applied term like “nigger” (with all the institutional force and codified racism that term represents) is used against the ruling class well, of course not. No ruling class allows a term like that to be applied to them. And as a ruling class they have that power.
Again, you’re arguing in circles. Or missing the forest for the trees.
BGinCHI
And…..scene.
You see, when we discuss a play like Richard III, we talk about the context in which it was written and performed, as well as the way the history it represents was made available to people in the 1590s, and we also talk about the 15th C historical events themselves. It’s literature and history, and they go together wonderfully. OK? And if my students take a Renaissance history course (and/or late medieval), then they get an even greater understanding. And I hope they do.
OK, I’m gonna have to charge you tuition if we go any further.
BGinCHI
@Omnes Omnibus: OK, that’s a wrap people. See you at the cast party.
Observer
@BGinCHI:
As I wrote begore, you mean that Dickens or Joyce has a “classic” that employs numerous, repeated casual pejoratives to the Crown (in Dickens case) or to Irishmen in general?
Do tell. same for Dostoyevsky or any other “classic” novel you care to name. Please do name them.
Observer
@BGinCHI:
You carefully avoided the argument about it being on the curriculum and where it’s taught.
Is the War of the Roses or Dick the 3rd on your required high school curriculum and is it only taught via a Shakespeare class?
gelfling545
@licensed to kill time: I know dozens of teachers who would handle the discussion this book would engender with aplomb and even delight and make it a profitable learning experience for ALL concerned. (The best lessons for a teacher are those in which he/she learns as well.) Administrators, on the other hand would have kittens at just the thought of a teacher engaging the students in this way. Also the teacher would run the risk of being reprimanded for wasting time on literature when there are those state tests to prep for. I don’t think much Huck Finn will be read in schools with or without bowdlerization but, given this attention, more young people may seek it out on their own and that would be a good thing.
John S.
When I took AP English in 11th grade, I wrote an essay on the book Native Son titled The Bigger Nigger (for those unfamiliar the main character is Bigger Thomas). My teacher who was African-American instantly failed me, despite the fact that there was absolutely nothing racist in my essay, and I drew my main parallels to Nigger Jim (hence, the title). But it didn’t matter, and I suspect the teacher really didn’t even read the paper.
Despite her best efforts to fail me, I aced my AP exam and passed the class with a D.
Brachiator
@Observer:
What in the world are you talking about? Dickens re-wrote parts of Oliver Twist because Fagin was perceived to be an anti-Jewish caricature.
There are many other great works of literature, many read by children, that are filled with casual and deliberate bits of racism, sexism, and any other ism that you want, even when authors sought to portray members of oppressed or minority groups with some sympathy.
Life and art are both complicated.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: The use of the word “nigger” in Huck Finn is not casual. It is necessary. In order to see where Jim is placed in society, how people think of him, the word is needed.
@Observer: Of course events are taught in history classes, but history and literature interact. Lit doesn’t occur in a vacuum, and sometimes history is affected by lit.
Angry Black Lady
@Observer: you’re ignoring the points raised in this thread about context. twain didn’t use the word in order to disrespect black folks, he used it to make a point, and that point is lost by changing the word to “slave,” which as Wilmore pointed out is a job description.
i’m going to quote @Dinah: ‘s post because it is dead-on and illustrates exactly why the book should be taught in a manner that is true to its meaning while at the same time doesn’t disrespect black folks or give white folks the notion that they can start calling black people nigger. there are lessons to be learned from the book that aren’t learned if one simply ignores or revises history because it is too uncomfortable to confront it head-on.
Observer
@cyntax said:
But that’s exactly what I mean and that is precisely the argument, no? In fact that’s the entire point.
It’s not arguing in circles, it is the point. That’s EXACTLY what the kids will learn; blacks have no power and you are free to insult them and use pejoratives without enduring any meaningful blowback. Dissent and satire are one thing, but nobody tolerates direct insults. You can satirize and critize the Crown in England all you want but you cannot get away with a novel that uses the term “slut Queen”. Blacks in America? no problem. We teach kids that lesson when they’re 12 years old.
One doesn’t need to learn about slavery by reading Huck Finn. The students were supposed to have already learned that in history class. So the argument about it being historical is a red herring.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Er, it seems pretty obvious that this Observer thingy is a troll. (And not a very well-read one, at that.) There’s no point in feeding it, unless it likes pie.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
The use of Nigger in any novel isn’t “necessary”. It’s a novel.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
Secondly, the point isn’t about keeping history and english apart. The point is that the students were already supposed to have learned about slavery in history class to the argument about needing to read Huck Finn for its “historical setting” is a red herring. So it’s an faux argument in support of keeping the wording. The kids should already know all about that by the time they read Huck Finn. If they didn’t, then the school board has problems.
scav
@Observer: huh, in my public HS we read Vonnegut, Albee, Twain (in fact, we worked up an entire trial for Huck Finn), Fitzgerald, all clearlyslavish and abject admirers of society as constituted. Must not have been in the south. But, agreed, it’s not as though Observer is exactly observant so why bother bringing it up. Granted, we also heard parts of Beowolf (in the original) and Crosby’s Noah LP so it wasn’t all hard-hitting social indignation.
Ruckus
@orogeny:
This.
This was a major point of the story. If you change the word you change the meaning of the story. You change it’s possible effect. And even if only one person learned anything positive from this story wouldn’t it be worth it? But many, many people have read this book and learned something positive that they had not considered before.
The word nigger has never that I know of been a positive term. At least not in my lifetime. But it’s use has changed greatly over that same time. The usage over generations has become much less common and has led to the recognition that words used in it’s place precisely because of it’s meaning were also just as bad and for the same reason.
gelfling545
@Observer:
Students are frequently asked questions in their literature classes such as “what societal forces were at work at the time that could have influenced the author’s choice of subject matter/approach?” History students, on the other hand occasionally are asked to address the role played by certain works of literature in the events of a certain period of time. Both disciplines study the culture from various angles. This gives the student a much broader understanding of both literature and events.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: I say not a troll, but simply both dim and dogmatic. I will concede not very well-read.
Observer
@Angry Black Lady:
With all due respect, I’m not ignoring any of those points you raise.
I’m simply saying that in addition to that learning there’s a non trivial percent who also learn the wider lesson that’s it’s sanctioned to abuse and insult blacks. It’s true the novel context may be different as you accurately state but it’s also true what cyntax states
@cyntax: about no ruling class with power would let a novel like this pass.
And in weighing the two things the negative lesson learned outweigh the benefits of the positive lessons you write about.
You are simply either ignoring or underweighting the negative lessons and in my opinion they vastly outweigh the positive lessons. And to prove my point I’m just pointing out that this kind of thing doesn’t happen in anywhere else to any other group who has any power.
PS
@Warren Terra: I was mostly just trying to lighten things up. Certainly, re-titling a piece of disposable entertainment (and the U.S. publishers did so at once) is not comparable to bowdlerizing a classic.
Actually, with Agatha Christie the anti-semitism is much worse much more often than the racism, but that’s because she mostly wrote before the influx of immigrants to the UK in the 1950s. See also Sapper (especially), John Buchan, and even Leslie Charteris (my favorite of the ilk) who was actually half-Chinese by ancestry but not above a slur or seven. Sigh.
thomas Levenson
@ABL: I sure did, and it was awesome.
One thing that struck me in my then nineteen year old impossibly-awkward-19 year-old selfhood was how absolutely himself he was, completely comfortable in his own skin.
That, more than anything I remember of our two or three conversations, is what I remember most, and to what I aspire still in my now fifty something self.
morzer
@Observer:
I assume you want us to rewrite Conrad’s The Nigger of the Narcissus as well? And presumably poor old Ali will have to say
“No Vietcong ever called me African-American”?
Warren Terra
@Observer:
I’m not aware of Dickens ever insulting the Crown, or of his ever being so crude as to use perjoratives, but both of those are red herrings. There are reams of Dickens insulting the smug self-righteous people who condemn the poor to starve in the gutter (think A Christmas Carol) or who pretend to virtue and to good works while having utter contempt for the needy. Indeed, the virtue of the hardworking poor and the idea that they deserved much better treatment from society is practically the main theme running through Dickens’s work. Read The Chimes sometime. Heck, Dickens contributed to literature an archetype of ostentatiously respecting the established social order while conniving to wreak injustice, in Uriah Heep.
cyntax
@Observer:
Honestly that’s the height of arrogance. How can you say you know that everyone will have that outcome? You act as if the kids reading this do it in vacuum with no discussion and no preparation from the teacher. You don’t have to see Huck or any other character suffer from “blowback” to come to the relaization that it’s wrong. That is so incredibly simplistic I don’t know what more I can say to you.
Observer
@Omnes Omnibus:
I will concede that perhaps I haven’t done a good job of explaining my take.
So here’s goes:
Huck Finn is not necessary for learning. Slavery was supposed to have been taught in history so to say one must read Huck Finn with nigger in it for historical reasons is wrong. That lesson was supposed to already have been learned. The negatives of letting a book with so many nigger references in it outweigh the positives of whatever lessons are learned.
To back up my opinion, I state that you cannot name a classic novel that casually and repeatedly user perjoratives (“slut queen of England”) to the ruling class in it. And satire is entirely different than a pejorative so naming Twain is a silly and dumb response.
If you want to name a novel, go ahead.
Observer
@cyntax:
I didn’t EFFING say EVERYONE will learn that. Can you freakin’ people read or not?
Said some will learn the positive lesson and many will learn the negative lesson.
morzer
@Observer:
Actually, you are quite wrong when you assert that no ruling group would tolerate such freedom of speech. Attic Comedy allowed for the most direct insults and brutal accusations, uttered against named individuals and groups, in public, in the context of a communal celebration. Similarly, the British political elite were roundly mocked in Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister.
Observer
@morzer:
I didn’t say I wanted to rewrite anything. Just said if the publisher wants to rewrite Huck Finn then that by itself is not “impossibly stupid” as per ABL.
Me, I don’t want to rewrite Huck Finn. Wouldn’t teach in it school though.
Brachiator
@Observer: Go back up, read my post about Oliver Twist.
Ruckus
@thomas Levenson:
One thing that struck me in my then nineteen year old impossibly-awkward-19 year-old selfhood was how absolutely himself he was, completely comfortable in his own skin.
I grew up working with a black man no one has ever heard of who I got the same feeling from. And I can’t recall anyone else I’ve met since who struck me the same way. It was eye opening to say the least. Especially considering the time.
morzer
@Observer:
So you don’t want censorship, you just want the book out of people’s awareness.
Mighty hard to see that the second option is better than the first.
In any case, your argument is founded on the assertion that because some people might draw the wrong conclusion, we had better not teach the book in class. If we follow your logic to its conclusion, we shall be unable to teach anything, since young minds might conceivably misinterpret it with terrible consequences. This is an argument for fear and paralysis – pretty much the opposite of what Twain was trying to achieve.
Omnes Omnibus
@Observer: I would say you have done a poor job of arguing your case. I understand that you think that the use of one word in the novel outweighs its literary merit. Unfortunately for you, the weight of the academy comes down on the other side. It is often cited as the premier American novel, the seminal American text. There is both ugliness and beauty in it. It is stunningly well written with a voice that makes no nods toward English or Continental literary fashion. These are among the reasons it is taught. But I, a simple lawyer not an literary scholar, will defer to some of the others here on the other literary and pedagogical reasons it is taught as Twain wrote it.
Observer
@Brachiator:
But aren’t you making my point? It was rewritten.
Key terms: insult, ruling class, novel. Blacks don’t have that kind of pull to get a novelist to rewrite a novel with pejoratives. People with power do. That’s the point.
Reading Huck Finn in school transmits that lesson to the kids and certain kids learn that lesson oh too well.
morzer
@Observer:
And you really think that they learned that lesson from Huck Finn and Huck Finn only? That’s preposterous. Sorry, but you really aren’t making anything like a realistic argument here.
Observer
@morzer:
Not saying to disappear the book, it can always be read outside of school.
No that’s not really true.
Also, satire in the Attic Comedy in no way is the same as saying “c#nt queen of England” for instance. You can’t do that repeatedly in a novel. No one in power tolerates that. I’m just saying neither should blacks. I don’t think I’m asking for anything special here.
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes the peeps have spoken. But for the record it’s not “one word” as in one instance of a word. It’s a word repeated I-don’t-know how many times. But yes, I have failed here and, regardless of my failings, in general society the peeps have spoken.
Observer
@morzer:
Of course I didn’t say that Huck Finn is the only place to learn that lesson.
Just saying that demanding basic respect starts by not tolerating certain things, just like other groups, and that’s one thing to not tolerate. I am not making any sweeping claims about this one novel.
Just saying to me it’s objectively not something to teach in school because the negatives outweigh the positives. There are lots of other novels to read.
Specifically, the book in school lets the gov’t signal and reinforce that blacks have no power and you can ignore them. I’m just saying there’s no need for the gov’t to do that. But if you want to do that fine but please do not tell me it’s because it’s necessary for historical reasons because that is definitely bunk.
Warren Terra
@Observer:
Um, yeah. Jews in early Victorian England were the ruling class – they were practically suffused with power! Why, a mere twenty years after Oliver Twist was published they gained the right to run for office! Benjamin Disraeli was able to become Prime Minister a mere thirty years after Oliver Twist was published, and all he had to do was live as a devout Anglican from the time he was baptized at the age of twelve and endure anti-semitic slurs his whole life, including on the floor of the House Of Commons. And a mere hundred years after after Oliver Twist was published the Jews mostly moved out of the slums they’d long been largely confined to, although the fact that the Blitz flattened those slums may have been a factor.
I mean, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? Dickens chose to tone down the (still not exactly glowing) portrait of that famous Jew Fagin not to avoid offending his social betters, but to protect his social inferiors. Protecting his social inferiors was practically the theme of his life, which seems to have escaped you.
morzer
@Observer:
Yes, satire in Attic Comedy is basically saying c#nt queen of England. The dominant politicians of the day are accused, by name and often onstage of a variety of sexual perversions, acts of cowardice, embezzlement.. you name it, the accusation is there. You can’t simply pretend that there is no parallel between the situations.
And yes, your whole argument is based on the supposed power of one book to corrupt young minds. It’s not a credible argument – as you acknowledge by trying to deny it, even though you’ve made it repeatedly on here. The argument ignores the social setting in which people read books, it ignores the fact that most people are capable of seeing what the book is saying, and it also ignores the basic reality behind the book – that Twain is arguing against the inferiority of black people, in fictional form.
By your argument, we can’t teach Oliver Twist, because it might suggest that everyone must demand more gruel… or might some people read it as suggesting that it’s a bad thing to be a criminal if you are Jewish… or is the moral that you shouldn’t fall off the roof when trying to evade justice? As for the horrors that unleashing Nicholas Nickleby on an unsuspecting public might produce… well, clearly we can’t take the risk. Titus Andronicus is right out.. and what might Hamlet do for uncle-nephew relations? Much better to ban any book that might possibly, just possibly, have a bad influence on one young mind.
Books are not as simple as you want to believe, and nor, mercifully, are most readers.
Warren Terra
@Observer:
Here is a link to the book. You seem to need to read it.
I defy you to read the book and ignore Jim’s humanity. I’m sure it must be possible somehow, but the precise method rather escapes me. Yes, the book does convey that blacks in that society had essentially no power. That doesn’t mean that they should, or that they still do. Realizing the injustice of Jim’s situation is central to the book. I don’t think a lot of people read it as an instruction manual on how to treat African-Americans.
Jim, Once
@BGinCHI:
And you know what? This is the way it works in high school, too – teachable moments all over the damn place. And we taught “The Artificial Nigger,” too, complete with introductory context. And those parents who didn’t like it were instructed to ask their children what the teacher had told them about the story and the author. I’m so tired of people who think we don’t teach critical thinking in the public schools, or don’t exploit the ‘teachable moment,’ or cower to irate parents. It’s not why we went into teaching, it’s not why we stay in teaching.
Edit – I broke one of my rules and posted this before reading the whole thread … sorry if this comment doesn’t fit what’s happened since.
Observer
@morzer:
Look it’s plaintively true that I’m not going to convince anyone here about this but that doesn’t mean that you have to go and put words into my mouth via “logical conclusions”.
I’m just not saying or arguing what you seem to want me to say or argue.
I am simply saying that Huck Finn is not a necessary read to learn about slavery and that the copious use of the term nigger outweighs it’s literary benefits and that blacks as a group should not be okay with the teaching of that in schools. The argument is very specific to Huck Finn, the term nigger and the current and past stature of blacks in American society. It’s not something that can be extrapolated to anything else, I am not arguing for censorship or book burning or anything else.
You believe something different and I have done a crap job of arguing.
Can we move on now? I’m not going to convince you or anyone else on this, with every post you seem to invent some new thing to put into my mouth and I just don’t agree with that. I continue to believe my position is correct even if it was a poorly thought out and executed defence of said position; those two things do not need to be in conflict.
The peeps have spoken. So enough. I’m done here on this issue.
@Warren Terra: Again, agreed that’s the point but there’s the other point of a book with the word nigger repeated in it a thousand times or more; that has to have some impact. I’m not going to convince you or anyone else on this topic. I admit defeat in the argumentation. Again, to me saying that blacks should demand what other groups demand and not have to have their kids read books with pejoratives in them is easy to see to me, but obviously it’s a minority position (no pun intended).
In any case, I appreciate the interaction here on this topic but not the insults and I am resting my case because you don’t continue to throw good money after bad. You folks have raised some very valid points to my arguments and I won’t be able to parry and reset this entire argument as the tack I took was a fatally flawed to begin with even if I believe the underlying conclusion is correct.
Again, it was interesting and I’m signing off for tonight and admit defeat. hopefully gracefully.
Jim, Once
@Observer:
Did you notice? He/she never did answer where he was from or what he did for a living. I’ve never seen anything like those comments of his… it makes you wonder if he was ever a student in a true literature class in his secondary education years.
Observer
@Jim, Once: I generally don’t respond in substance or detail to ad hominems. The arguments stand on their own and have nothing to do with my background or living. If you want to insult me, then you should just do it straight without being so g-damn passive aggressive.
I lost an argument and apparently very badly. It happens. It doesn’t mean my position was incorrect but it does mean I personally lost an argument.
conumbdrum
I don’t know who took the position that Huck Finn has to be read to gain historical perspective on the subject of slavery (and don’t plan to search the thread to find out), but it’s a bogus argument from the get-go. Huck Finn’s importance can be chalked up to this: it’s a great piece of literature from the pen of America’s most important writers. The fact that you don’t need to read the book to understand slavery is irrelevant, and makes as much sense as ditching A Tale of Two Cities from the curriculum because Ms. Merkel already told you all ’bout the French Revolution last year.
Man, I’m sick of this country – and especially our fucking institutions of learning – bending over backwards to make sure that no one is “offended,” or even made “uncomfortable,” by works of art. If Twain gets censored, they’ll be going after Faulkner and O’Connor next, just you wait. (“We don’t see the character of Luster in The Sound and the Fury as a positive role model for the black community.”)
conumbdrum
Someone needs to acquaint himself with the meaning of the term “slippery slope.”
Jim, Once
@Jim, Once:
You’re right – it was, in part, an ad hominem attack, which I deplore and try to avoid myself. Apologies. And you can go ahead and use the full spelling of ‘goddamned’ when calling me passive-aggressive – THAT part won’t offend me at all. But how the h – e – double hockey sticks does my statement qualify as passive-aggressive? I still wonder where you went to school, because it most definitely shapes the argument you’ve been attempting here. I stand by what I said about never seeing anything like your comments. Where you were educated in your secondary education years has everything to do with them. I repeat the question that has been asked here repeatedly: where were you educated, prior to college/university?
Peter
@Observer: I’m curious, have you ever taken an English class in your life?
Devildawg
@Observer:
That is probably the most ridiculous argument you have made so far. Allowing a teacher to use to the book does not reinforce the notion that blacks have no power, unless the teacher is a moron who doesn’t address Twain’s intention of using the word nigger in the context of the novel and commentary on society.
You position, based upon not reading the book apparently, also rules out teaching “Invisible Man” by Ralph Ellison, “Go Tell it On The Mountain” by James Baldwin, and thousands of other books because they emphasized the marginalization of blacks and indicated a lack of power within society. This is ludicrous.
honus
@thomas Levenson: Uh tom, Dick Gregory is still alive. So don’t talk about the nigger in the past tense.
honus
@Origuy: “As for those who say “drop it”, Huckleberry Finn is one of the most important books in American literature. Dropping it would be like leaving the Civil War out of history class entirely.”
“All of American literature comes from one book written by Mark twain called Huckleberry Finn.” -Ernest Hemingway
honus
@Observer: you are a fucking idiot and know nothing about the book.
honus
@Observer: so no one in the south has ever read Huckleberry Finn or for that matter any of Twain’s other novels? Because they all casually disrespect the south and southern culture.
You should really gain some familiarity with literature before you expound on it.
BruceFromOhio
@ed drone:
There are a shitload of school systems, teachers, parents and students that prove you not just laughably wrong, but sadly ignorant and misinformed.
wenchacha
Okay, I am now being sucked into the Huck vortex. A billion years in my high school English class, our teacher mentioned a parody-ish version of the text, “Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey,” by Leslie Fiedler. For some reason, all these years I have been imagining it to be some kind of off-Broadway musical from back in the 60s. Wikipedia tells me otherwise.
Searching for the long-forgotten title, up popped a link to freakin freeperville, which mentioned the same book. The really shit part is, all of freeptown blames the Bowdlerizing of Huck Finn on, you guessed it, dum libruls.
Is this an adequate example of how really fucked up we are in this country? We have race, politics, revisionist history and god knows what all crammed between the pages of one book, and it isn’t even The Bible!
I hate to see a book messed with, but there are hundreds or maybe thousands of schools in America who don’t know how to teach it otherwise. Right there is a big problem. Kids ought to be able to discuss civil discourse and the not-so-pretty parts of our country’s history before they leave Middle School. I don’t see it happening. Maybe not ever.
Students should discuss why they are reading Huck-lite and not a more traditional version.
I really hated going over to freerepublic. It sucked hard.
BruceFromOhio
@bemused: Just as it takes time and effort to cause such things, time and effort can remove them.
Lovely little town in NE Ohio had the bible-thumpers take over the school board. Gonna put prayer BACK in the school! Gonna put God BACK in the curriculum! Gonna put Creationism in the science books where it belongs!
It took a couple of years, but the damned fools were finally thrown BACK out of the school system, and life has essentially returned to normal. But, what a Gaia-damned pain in the ass the fucktards can be when they get a head of steam up. Seems it takes the occasional reminder to ordinary folks why you don’t let these dimwits BACK into positions of power.
goblue72
@Observer: You wouldn’t teach it in school because you are a narrow-minded linear thinking moron. As has been demonstrated here over and over and over again.
SpaceSquid
Thanks for the transcript, ABL. Us furriners appreciate it.
Angry Black Lady
@SpaceSquid: my pleasure.
debbie
@BruceFromOhio:
Equally happy news from another part of Ohio:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/ohio-school-board-fires-t_n_807418.html
Observer
@goblue72:
This issue is linear so I’m using linear arguments.
I’m not the narrow minded one here. A guy wants to change the name of a character in a book and you folks are the ones freaking out. You folks are the ones saying this guy is “astonishing stupid” not me. It’s not the gov’t legislating or forcing anything, it’s just a guy responding to the market and trying to make money and you’re the folks screaming about slippery slopes. If the book is so great then changing the name of one character shouldn’t be a big deal but apparently it is to most of you folks here. What’s the big deal I say.
If I’m the narrow-minded one then I guess the rest of the English speaking world is as well and I suppose they will never “get” America seeing as how they also don’t generally teach Huck Finn in their schools for pretty well the same reasons I state here despite you people saying it’s a must read. Say, why don’t you fly over to London or Sydney and tell them that they’re narrow minded idiots for not wanting to read an American book with the word nigger in it a thousand times. They do read some American books you know, just not Huck Finn. boy are they missing out on understanding America and slavery and what not.
I used to get pissed off at Repubs when back in the Bush years they’d say that the Dems are no better at race then they are and that Dems are poseurs and it’s the Repubs who promote people like Rice and Colin Powell but over the past few years, it hasn’t bothered me as much.
You want to throw insults at me because you have strength in numbers here on this blog? Fine go ahead. Says more about you than it does about me.
morzer
@Observer:
In England, people don’t teach Huck Finn because they are generally more interested in the British literary tradition (you know, Dickens, Austen etc etc). Trying to make that rather obvious fact into some sort of twisted argument about narrow-mindedness suggests that you really have no clue about the wider world. Oddly enough, I read Huck Finn as a boy in Britain, and it certainly didn’t teach me that black people were inferior. Why was that, do you think?
As for your argument that money is all that matters, I think that indicates just where your true allegiances lie.
twiffer
@Brachiator: that’s just embarassingly stupid. you don’t even have to live in NY to know a kill is a stream: just drive through it. every piddling little brook is signed if you cross over it.
More anonymous than usual
@Observer:
You obviously haven’t read the book you’re criticizing. It doesn’t teach disrespect at all, quite the contrary.
Growing up in southern WV, when we drove to Florida in the late 1950s and early 1960s, prior to the Interstate system, I saw whites only and colored only signs in Georgia, and asked my Mom, “what’s up with that?” and she said “Shhh, we’ll talk about it later.” Mostly we were warned not to pay attention to it or draw attention to ourselves. Once we were in FL it was more rare.
While there was obvious prejudice in southern WV, there were a lot of black coal miners, and there was a saying, everybody is black underground. When you life depends on the guy next to you, and you’re all black with coal dust, things look a little different than they do at the cotton gin. There were no Jim Crow laws in WV, and no signs on the bathrooms and water fountains.
Huckleberry Finn was a perfect uneducated product of his times, and in the beginning of the book never had a thought that didn’t involve lunch. He liked Jim, which was against all the rules, but he was too ignorant to know it.
In the course of the trip down the river, (If you’ve ever seen that river, it is hard to believe that a man and a boy would go out on it on a raft! It’s huge!!! But Twain was a riverboat man, and he knew that people did it.) Huck learns how to think from Jim, and decides that his friendship with Jim is more important than the rules of the early 1800s – don’t forget, there are slaves all around, and Jim isn’t free, he’s a run away looking for his family.
Anyway, like others who have commented, I learned a lot from the Twain books. I also worked along side black men at the family business and in the Navy, strong skilled guys who I was proud to know and work with and learn from. Before all that education, seeing those nasty signs in the south of the 50s, well, it was a lot to swallow for a 10 year old is all I can say. Mark Twain helped me understand a very complicated world.
Go read the book before you criticize it! Not teaching disrespect AT ALL. Just the opposite, in fact.
I hate it when people pitch in their $0.02 on something they know nothing about.
JR
bjacques
Something tells me a bowdlerized Huckleberry Finn is one of those “wouldn’t it be great if” ideas that doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. I just can’t see a market for it outside squeamish school districts, and those would probably be offended by other things the book attacks or lampoons. Goth girls (Emmeline Grangerford!), the state of Arkansas, feuding hillbillies and drunks ranting against the government are a few things that come to mind.
Replace the N-word in “Huckleberry Finn” with something innocuous (“slave?” ORLY?) and almost every other page still confronts you with the glaring fact of Jim’s social position in the ante-bellum South. One literally risked damnation (as Huck does) by denying it.
Anyone reading the book can probably tell it’s about the past, when people did and said things differently (well, mostly). In school, any competent teacher will provide enough social and historical context–sorry, will send the kids over to history class, because this is *English* class–to explain a lot of things about it, not just the N-word.
Sanitizing a book pre-emptively for the benefit of an audience that presumably can’t handle the real version is patronizing as hell. It presumes they can’t think for themselves. If so, why bother to teach them at all? No-one’s going to stop the bowdlerizers, but I doubt they’ll net much coin or praise out of it.
Observer, the N-word predates Huckleberry Finn and, sadly survives it. But I’m willing to bet that if you take people who have read the book and those who disrespect black people, you’re not gonna find a lot of overlap. The latter hardly read books at all, and are proud of it.
As for that American city that isn’t represented in Congress, if you’re talking about Washington D.C., well, it’s not exactly a city, and the representation problem goes back to the founding of the country (short version, it’s a federal district reserved for Congress, sort of). A majority black population in a city wasn’t exactly an issue then.