[Vision2020] Huck Finn Stripped of "N" Word

[Joe Campbell]

WTF?

On Thu, Jan 6, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Tom Hansen <thansen at moscow.com> wrote:
> Removing words from books (as reflected in the news item below) and
> painting false images of our history (as plagiarized and falsely detailed
> in "Southern Slavery As It Was") will only serve to lie about the way
> things were back then.
>
> It is my strong opinion that Huck Finn MUST be maintained in its original
> form, so that future generations are not forced to live a lie.
>
> Courtesy of KHOU.com (Houston, Texas) at:
>
> http://www.khou.com/news/New-edition-of-Huckleberry-Finn-Tom-Sawyer-removes-the-N-word-113005044.html#
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the
> almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new
> edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to
> find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an
> effort not to offend readers.
>
> Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama
> to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219
> times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts
> the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain
> once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don’t read."
>
> "It’s such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous
> reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said.
>
> Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the
> right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the
> lightning bug and the lightning."
>
> The book isn’t scheduled to be published until February, at a mere 7,500
> copies, but Gribben has already received a flood of hateful e-mail
> accusing him of desecrating the novels. He said the e-mails prove the word
> makes people uncomfortable.
>
> "Not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it," he said.
>
> Another Twain scholar, professor Stephen Railton at the University of
> Virginia, said Gribben was well respected, but called the new version "a
> terrible idea."
>
> The language depicts America’s past, Railton said, and the revised book
> was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has
> an unaltered version of "Huck Finn" coming out later this year that
> includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book.
>
> "If we can’t do that in the classroom, we can’t do that anywhere," he said.
>
> He said Gribben was not the first to alter "Huck Finn." John Wallace, a
> teacher at the Mark Twain Intermediate School in northern Virginia,
> published a version of "Huck Finn" about 20 years ago that used "slave"
> rather than the N-word.
>
> "His book had no traction," Railton said.
>
> Gribben, a 69-year-old English professor at Auburn University Montgomery,
> said he would have opposed the change for much of his career, but he began
> using "slave" during public readings and found audiences more accepting.
>
> He decided to pursue the revised edition after middle school and high
> school teachers lamented they could no longer assign the books.
>
> Some parents and students have called for the removal of "Huck Finn" from
> reading lists for more than a half century. In 1957, the New York City
> Board of Education removed the book from the approved textbook lists of
> elementary and junior high schools, but it could be taught in high school
> and bought for school libraries.
>
> In 1998, parents in Tempe, Ariz., sued the local high school over the
> book’s inclusion on a required reading list. The case went as far as a
> federal appeals court; the parents lost.
>
> Published in the U.S. in 1885, "Huck Finn" is the fourth most banned book
> in schools, according to "Banned in the U.S.A." by Herbert N. Foerstal, a
> retired college librarian who has written several books on First Amendment
> issues.
>
> Gribben conceded the edited text loses some of the caustic sting but said:
> "I want to provide an option for teachers and other people not comfortable
> with 219 instances of that word."
>
> In addition to replacing the N-word, Gribben changes the villain in "Tom
> Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes
> "half-blood."
>
> Gribben knows he won’t change the minds of his critics, but he’s eager to
> see how the book will be received by schools rather than university
> scholars.
>
> "We’ll just let the readers decide," he said.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine
> lives."
>
> - Mark Twain
>
>
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