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According to the American Library Association, Huckleberry Finn is #14 on their list of “most banned or challenged books“, with “challenging” meaning “attempts to remove a book from a library”, and “banning” meaning “a successful removal”. Here are the first 15 books on the “top 100 list” from 2000-2009 (lists compiled by decade), in order with the most/banned challenged works at the top. The results are surprising, but I bet you can guess why some folks find these books offensive:
One would think, for instance, that Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison’s books, both superb expositions of black culture and oppression, wouldn’t be banned, but they’re banned because of their sexual content, as are many other books.
That’s not the case for Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the great and influential novel by Mark Twain. Ernest Hemingway said this of that book: “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.” I pretty much agree, and have read that book at least three times.
The reason Huckleberry Finn is considered objectionable is because of one word it uses frequently: “nigger” (I won’t use “n-word” because the book itself contains the full word, and I want the full book read without censorship). It also portrays widespread negative attitudes towards blacks, which of course were pervasive at that time (1885), and also has the word “Injun” instead of “Indian” (now “Native American”). There’s been a more or less constant fight over Huckleberry Finn, and in 2011 one person even published an edition with the word “nigger” expunged and replaced by “slave,” a move that outraged scholars. I can understand how reading the book without guidance might outrage people, especially African-Americans, but there is a sensitive and supportive way to teach the book, which, like most books, was a product of its time.
But rather than deal with the intricacies of such instruction, some schools prefer to either ban the book or remove it from its curriculum, with the latter move just adopted by a Quaker school in Pennsylvania. As Philly.com reports:
This week, a Montgomery County school removed Huckleberry Finn from its curriculum after a group of students said the book made them uncomfortable.
After a forum for students and faculty, the administration of Friends’ Central School decided to strike the book from the 11th-grade American literature class, principal Art Hall said in a letter to parents this week.
“We have all come to the conclusion that the community costs of reading this book in 11th grade outweigh the literary benefits,” Hall said in his letter.
The book’s use of the N-word was challenging for some students, who felt the school was not being inclusive, Hall said this week.
At least they’re not removing the book from the library, which other U.S. schools have done. And other schools in the area, including a Quaker one, will continue to teach the book:
Other local schools said they either teach Huckleberry Finn or have it on their library shelves. The West Chester Area School District, for example, often teaches it in the 11th grade. The Lower Merion district makes it available in its library
“We don’t shy away from teaching it,” said Jim Miller, dean of students and an English teacher at Friends Select School. “We see it as a very important opportunity to educate kids further about the use of language, especially the use of the N-word.
Principal Hall doesn’t see this as censorship, but of course it is: the book, apparently once on the curriculum, has been removed. Students won’t read it. So Hall’s “explanation” is disingenuous:
Hall said the choice would empower students.
“I do not believe that we’re censoring. I really do believe that this is an opportunity for the school to step forward and listen to the students,” he said.
Empowering students by protecting them from the word “nigger”? I don’t think that’s particularly empowering, especially because the relationship between white Huck and black Jim is a caring one, for Huck’s efforts are directed at freeing Jim from slavery. Twain was resolutely anti-slavery, and it shows in the book, especially in Huck’s conflict between his upbringing and his social milieu—one that taught him that blacks were inferior—and his own moral feelings that this is wrong. Sure, Jim is at times a bit of a stereotype, but even that can be a fertile subject for discussion.
Students of any ethnicity should, I think, be able to face a past in which they were seen as inferior, a past that includes racial epithets. I would not for a minute want to ban or challenge a book that called Jews “kikes,” “hebes,” “sheenies,” and the like, and I would like Jewish students to be able to watch Nazi propaganda films that characterize Jews as slimy rats.
Such things need to be taught with care, but what do we gain by sanitizing the past? Are we not to teach black students about slavery? Indeed, the message of Huckleberry Finn is anti-slavery, and it’s wonderful literature to boot. Let the students see the “n-word” unbowdlerized, but let them also realize its historical context. For if that book is hidden, the students are deprived not only of fruitful discussion, but of a fantastic work of art.
h/t: Barry
And yet those poor delicate students will very likely all have iPods packed with rap tracks which use the dreaded N-word in every other line!
But that’s okay because n***ahs are doin’ the rappin’.
(Is ‘black’ in or out this year?)
cr
The banning of Huck is a recurrent theme in American education. It always reminds me of an entry in Puddnhead Wilson’s New Calendar:
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then he made School Boards.
Whenever the banning of Huck comes up, I wonder if people have read it closely enough to notice that Jim is the bravest, most rational, most human character in the book. Look at Pap. Look at that goofball Tom. Consider the feuding Shepherdsons and Grangerfords. The Duke and the Dauphin. All white folks.
+1
I will admit to mixed feelings on this. Huckleberry Finn is a great book and should be read. But “nigger” is such a socially incendiary word, I have concerns that its frequency in HF would make the book counter-productive, especially in high school. As a consequentialist, I think bowlderizing is an appropriate solution in this case.
Just saying.
Good Grief…how would you ever get through American History?
I don’t agree, but I can see your point. My wife teaches school here in Virginia. Two years ago, she had an African-American eighth-grade student who was astounded to learn that there were once slaves and that all the slaves looked like him. He certainly wasn’t ready to read Huck.
Only the slaves imported from Africa to America (at an educated guess) “looked like him”. On average, globally, the average slave has had East Asian physiognomy. Though if you did an accounting for the Romans, that might muddy the average.
Yes. I should have made clear that the lesson had to do with enslaved people in a class on Virginia history. But we were talking about Huck Finn, and I didn’t think it was necessary.
I disagree too. For many reasons. Number one though is that hiding or editing our past is lying and inhibits our ability to learn and make progress.
That aspects of HF can appear to be so offensive to people in the present makes it that much more capable of having positive impact, and that much more important that it not be prohibited or censored.
Providing, of course, that people actually read it and are capable of comprehending it. I admit that many, even many that have plenty of education, can’t seem to read well at all. It isn’t that they can’t read the words, they just don’t seem to be able to comprehend what they read or place it in a reasonable context. This is where Jerry’s “taught with care” comment applies, I think.
I see To Kill A Mockingbird, right up there on the list as well. Why do we not see the bible up there – should be at the top of the list. Instead we see it in hotel rooms all over the country. I guess being offended is not allowed? g*d might be offended if you are offended and that could end badly.
There is probably a UNICODE for “bomb detonates” that would punctuate your “badly” very aptly.
I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with the use of the word uncomfortable.
+1
It’s 40 years since I read HF, but I recall southern white society being depicted as brutal, credulous and ignorant. Obviously, this book is full of micro-aggression against the white south and should accordingly be banned. 🙂
I forgot to recommend The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by that indefatigable defender of the first amendment, Nat Hentoff, who uses HF as the book in question.
The casual cruelty of the people along the river from about Quincy to St. Louis has no parallel anywhere else in the country, including the South. Twain has them pegged perfectly in this book, and the word “nigger” definitely belongs in it.
“Students of any ethnicity should, I think, be able to face a past in which they were seen as inferior, a past that includes racial epithets.”
Yes. It is empowering to be able to see that social naming isn’t always destiny.
A friend recently shared with me that my life’s story reminded him of Huckleberry Finn. And as much as I would like to banish, push away, and censor from my mind all the ugliness of my impoverished past, having a mirror in a historical work of art shines a soothing light on a history that is not unique to me.
People mistake mentioning a taboo for enacting a taboo.
I happen to be acquainted with the person who sanitized Huck Finn of the n-word (having had him as a neighbor in boyhood, and knowing him slightly as a fellow English professor. While I was very annoyed by the n-word-free edition, at the same time I recognized the editor’s strong good intentions. These derived, I suspect, from the guilt and frustrations that liberals feel about this country’s shameful past.
But, paradoxically, acts of fumigation such as this one do not help us progress: rather they only whitewash our past (I think here of Tom Sawyer’s gleaming while fence, which he obtained at no labor on his own part)and make sociopolitical denial easier–of course, the Civil War WASN’T about slavery. Everybody knows that.
The word ‘nigger’ was on everybody’s lips in the 19th century and beyond (even Lincoln used it). Twain’s ethical universe in this novel REQUIRES the word in order to realize its unexampled moral force, as shown in Jim’s character more than Huck’s (I disagree with PCC on this point: Jim is no more a stereotype than anyone else in the story, from Miss Watson, Pap Finn, Tom Sawyer, the King and the Duke, down to Huck himself. This is, after all, the stuff of literary comedy, with the creation of which Mark Twain was the best–with Faulkner his grandson and heir (sorry about that, Ernest).
Sorry about the unclosed parentheses: the older I get, the more open-ended I seem to be.
When I was at primary school, year 6 I think, Huck Finn was part of the curriculum (New Zealand). I can’t remember it that well, but I know I enjoyed it. I remember the class discussing how the US used to have slavery, and how “nigger” was a normal word back then. I think it was our introduction to civil rights type issues. I don’t think it’s part of the curriculum any longer, but US civil rights issues are still discussed.
What is the tl;dr on “ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r”
“too long; didn’t read”
I think he knows what tl:dr means. I think he was asking what the story was about ttyl; ttfn; l8r g8r
Try this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L8r,_g8r
cr
OOPS! I am so out of it.
I can understand most of the list, but why is Captain Underpants being censored?
Probably because some people were afraid that “underpants” might conjure in some childrens’ minds the word penis, or vagina, or even anus(shudder). Or whatever the ridiculously infantilized slang terms some parent made up to save their child from learning those words.
In Mark Twain’s Victorian America, even the underpants themselves couldn’t be referred to. The polite word was ‘unmentionables.’
Out of interest, do Americans use the term “Victorian”? Just wondering, since the US was independent by then.
We’ve just always overachieved at cultural appropriation.
Politically independent, but not culturally.
Or perhaps because the author introduced a gay character.
I grew up in a pretty much all-white suburb in southern California (there were 2 black kids in my high school during my entire 4 years). I can’t remember if I read Huck Finn in conjunction with a class or just for pleasure, but Jim was my favorite character, even more than Huck. As a 15-year-old I KNEW when I read a line like “I knowed he was white on the inside…” (Huck about Jim) — Huck was saying that Jim was inherently good and trustworthy, just like white people — I recognized it in context as a sort of social PROGRESSIVIST remark for a 13-year-old kid brought up in the slave-owning South.
“But, paradoxically, acts of fumigation such as this one do not help us progress: rather they only whitewash our past…”
I couldn’t agree more. From an historical standpoint, I think one of the most important things students should learn is how to put “text in context.”
Finn is not only a great book, but a strongly anti-racist one. A white southern boy turns his back on everything about race he was taught in school and church, and in the wider society, to do what he can plainly see is the right thing.
Heresy!
Burn the heretic!
The discomfort the students feel when they read challenging books is caused by their brains attempting to think. Any rarely performed activity will always be somewhat stressful to begin with.
It would be much more to the point to remove from the curriculum any books that do not make some students feel unfomfortable.
I agree. After some time they may actually come to enjoy it. Having their cognitive functions stimulated, that is.
I have sometimes suggested that a REQUIREMENT for a Press Card be a regular litany of law suits which boil down to “Shut the FUCK up!”. Without that, how could you know a journalist was performing their public gadfly task?
sub
This is most definitely censorship, though the motivation, a lack of spine, is different then that which usually leads to censorship. I completely agree with Mr. Hemingway’s assessment of the book, which I read every couple of years. There IS such a thing as a classic piece of literature and this book is perhaps the best American example of same. I am disappointed by the school administration’s decision.
Don’t discount spineless in the fight against free speech. I am convinced that many bureaucrats will land on the side of censorship in preference to having to deal with a difficult situation. That is the tragedy of modern education: the educators have been replaced by administrators.
Although Huck Finn was published in 1885, it is set a couple of decades earlier, in the years just before the Civil War. In it, the title character elects to forfeit his immortal soul — the price, he’s been taught by the good, god-fearing people of his Missouri hometown, for helping a runaway slave — rather than betray his fluvial comrade Jim. Properly understood in its historical context, the novel is a narrative of black liberation from slavery, of a piece with the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass.
Shame that schools don’t seem to be able to teach it that way.
Harry Potter No 1 on the blacklist!? They have got to be joking. Rowling was middle of the road Church of England, and Harry is essentially a Christ figure, dramatising John 15: “Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” I discuss the Christian/Stoic values of the series here:
https://www.academia.edu/15108812/The_Hard_Decisions_of_Albus_Dumbledore_Thoughts_on_the_Politico-Moral_Lessons_of_the_Harry_Potter_Saga
I appreciate that the objections to Huckleberry Finn come from the other end of the political spectrum.
But HP has heroic evil people and craven good people. One cannot permit such complexities to erode the moral underpinnings of our special piss stains. I mean ‘snowflakes’.
I think you’re overthinking the objections. As Lou says, AIUI the biggest complaints are from fundie Christians who object to magic being portrayed as normal, funny, interesting, or generally non-satanic.
HP was also banned in some backwaters of Ecuador. Because it glamorized witchcraft, and witchcraft is of course Satanic.
Howcome they haven’t got around to banning Terry Pratchett? As a Pratchett fan (and not a J K Rowling fan) I’m incensed at the shocking neglect shown towards Sir Terry’s marvellous mythos. He has wizards, witches, trolls, goblins, vampires, werewolves, innumerable not-very-divine gods, religious bigots… the ghost of Sir Terry might very well enquire ‘Just what does a guy have to do to get banned around here?’
cr
P.S. And I’m pretty sure Terry was an atheist, whereas a J K Rowling was C of E.
Oh, I get it now – blatant favouritism towards their own…
The atheists on the Discworld get a bad press (deservedly in the minds of the Christian right).
— The Colour of Magic
I doubt if the censorious ever think hard enough to get through the surface meaning.
From 1989 until I retired in 2008, I worked with many different tribes. Almost never did anyone use the term Native American. Indian or American Indian was usually their preferred collective noun. The most preferred name, however, was to use the particular tribal name like Cherokee or Navajo. Even regional and national tribal organizations use Indian, such as the All Indian Pueblo Council.
But that humanises them, and if you humanise THEM , then you make it harder to exploit them. Haven’t you read the script?
If you want to see someone as human, it helps to learn their first and last names.
But, my main point was that American Indians, generally do not see the term Indian as a pejorative, although Injun would be. An interesting fact is that the people I would run into most often who prefer the politically correct term Native American are what my Cherokee friends would call wannabees. Wannabees are people who claim to be Indian but are not–and the most common are people who claim to be Cherokee.
Just out of curiosity, why Cherokee in particular? I’d have thought one’s wannabe tribe identity would correlate with what part of the country one grew up in.
Yes, I’ve read about surveys showing that some majority of ‘Native Americans’ prefer ‘Indian,’ but I still know what the PC police think of me when I dare to use it. (Which is most of the time, actually, as I really don’t care any more what the PC people think.)
There are wannabees for other tribes, but the Cherokee situation goes back to the Trail of Tears and it is quite fascinating. It is common to find folks in the Southeast who claim to be part Cherokee, and for some that might be true. The area you find the most wannabees is in the states traversed by the routes of the Trail of Tears and for some reason most commonly in Kentucky and Missouri.
But here is the odd part. In Kentucky, you mostly hear that the Cherokee ancestor was a little girl left behind as the Indians traveled through–and it is almost always a girl, rarely a little boy. In Missouri, the story is usually that the Cherokee ancestor was a woman who “escaped.” The Cherokee, however, were not being driven by the military, as many people think. They had agreed, unhappily, to removal and were given the right to conduct their own removal so that they all knew that their entire nation was moving. So the wannabees would have us think that in Kentucky, the people were frequently leaving their children behind and that in Missouri the young women were often running away from their parents and grandparent, husbands, children, aunts and uncles, tribal leaders, religious leaders, etc., so they could go live with strange white people. I don’t think so.
There are a number of groups in the Southeast that claim to be Cherokee “tribes,” more than similar groups who claim other tribal affiliation. Non are federally recognized and the Cherokee, in particular are not very happy about these groups.
Thank you for all the detail, that is indeed fascinating!
So ironic how European-Americans destroyed all those cultures they (we) now find so romantic.
Another thing about “Cherokee:” a lot of Americans seem to think that “Cherokee” is synonymous with “American Indian.” There’s an amazing number of celebrities who claim to be “part Cherokee,” for example. Either this one tribe is responsible for most of the entertainers in America, or it’s the only tribe most people have heard of.
Wow, then things have changed since I was a girl. Of course, we had Westerns to watch back then. 😉
But there are just so many famous names–Comanche, Cheyenne, Apache, Navajo, Sioux, Iroquois, Arapaho, Dakota, Hopi, Chippewa, Seminole, etc., etc. And just about every state has its own local tribes that are regionally familiar.
My recollection (from imported cowboy Westerns) is that Cherokee hardly ever featured. It was all Apaches, Sioux, Cheyenne and Comanches. So where the prevalence of Cherokee came from seems – odd.
cr
Well, there was always Paul Revere and the Raiders…and Cher…
Genealogical correspondence web sites frequently have numerous letters from people requesting verification from other family members that the stories they’ve been told about being partially Cherokee are true. It would seem that the Cherokee tribe was thought to be exceedingly prolific.
In Canada the preferred term seems to be Aboriginal or First Nation.
You might get away with Indian, but you well might not. Tribal affiliation seems to be an internal identifier, such as the Mohawks of Kanesetake or the Cree of Northern Ontario.
While actually quite proper, “aboriginal” always seems to have a whiff of “primitive” about it to me. I like “First Nations;” but of course, it doesn’t really matter what I like. And of course it’s a mistake to think that all Indian/Native American/Aboriginal/First Nations people are in agreement anyway! Human nature!
Excellent point, Diana. I’ve always loved the expression “Two Jews, three opinions”:-). Probably true of most ethnic groups, or even just groups of humans ( not to mention kittehs).
Whoooooops! Diane, not Diana😖
No problemo, Marilee.
😉
Love “two Jews, three opinions.” First time I’ve heard it. 😀
Marilee and I took Mohamed Noor’s genetics course together:-)
Well, I hope you were able to keep each other straight. 😀
Usually, I think;-)
While in the rest of the English-speaking world, ‘aborigine’ is taken to refer almost uniquely to Australian aboriginals or ‘blackfellers’ (not sure of that term is still OK. ‘Abo’ is almost certainly not).
An American Indian who called himself an ‘aboriginal’ in Australia would cause some confusion.
cr
Yes, for a good part of my life I had no idea that aboriginal had any wider meaning beyond Oz.
I keep hearing that we who are not oppressed don’t get a say regarding the ideas presentated by oppressed people re oppression.
The problem though, is that oppressed people are not a monolith. So, you will have some who are offended by certain words and others who are not. So, if we are to “shut up and listen”, without question, then *who* exactly are we to believe?
Which is funny, because SJWs, speaking on behalf of American Indians, gleefully admonish people for not using the politically correct words that *they* find appropriate.
I also think that some ignorant SJWs have assumed that *all* black folk be referred to as “African American” as anything else is racist. See, they don’t know that black people can hail from Europe, the Carribean, SA etc.
I was once accused of being racist for using “black” over AA.
I would ban Potter on the grounds of poor writing. But Pullman? He is brilliant.
AIUI that was intended. Twain/Clemens intentionally had his characters speak and act as generic ‘uncultured’ people of the early 1800s, even though even by his time in the 1880s the language used in the book was already considered dated and incendiary. IOW he specifically and intentionally wanted people to notice, react, and talk about the language. So if people are getting upset about the language used and having discussions about it, that’s exactly what the author wanted. If they are banning the book because of its themes and language, they are doing exactly what the author didn’t want to happen.
So I would also concur with most of those responding to Darwinwins in saying that bowldlerizing it is not a viable solution. The language is intended to be a difficult yet important part of the book. Take it out, and its kind of like taking the suicide out of Romeo and Juliet and saying the lived happily ever after, because you’re afraid teens may get the wrong idea about suicide. How do you teach the key themes without it?
It’s not generic. Twain grew up in that area, and he knew very well how people talk there. It is still recognizable to me, who grew up in the 1950’s and 60’s.
A related point: I had always accepted the prevailing critical view that the final one-third of Huck Finn was a bit of a muddle compared to the novel’s brilliant first two-thirds. I recently heard a Twain scholar argue that, Twain having meant the book as an allegory for the black experience of slavery and the Civil War, the last third was intentionally riddled with incoherencies, to reflect the failures of Reconstruction, which had become glaringly apparent by the time the novel was written in the early 1880s.
Really? The “community costs” outweigh the benefit of teaching? I am not quite sure what the Montgomery County School Board is saying here, but it is certainly to their discredit. If they can’t make the case for continuing to teach HF, what’s the point of them?
I wonder today, in our politically correct world, if many white folks know that quite a few African Americans use the n world with each other – different meanings generally, but use it allot. Not just something they might happen to hear, heaven forbid, at a Chris Rock event.
I’d think it would be kind of hard not to know that…
Louis CK – Tom Sawyer vs. Huck Finn – YouTube
One word I’d like to see discontinued is “disingenuous.”
Replace with “insincere” or “flat-out lie.”
I think “disingenuous” gets overused in situations it doesn’t apply. But, properly used, it fulfills a specific niche — a particular type of insincerity where one pretends to know less than one actually does. There isn’t another English word, to my knowledge, that has that meaning.
“Dissembling” probably comes closest, but that connotes concealment of motives or intentions rather than knowledge.
Agreed. Can we please kill all people who disingenuously misuse ‘disingenuous’? Along with ‘prevaricate’ and ‘refute’?
cr
Calling someone ‘disingenuous’ has always struck me as a disingenuous way of saying, ‘You’re a XXXXing liar’ or ‘You’re dishonest.’ But it may also have a delayed effect as the recipient, as often happens needs to puzzle out what is meant, that makes it more lethal and enraging than a straightforward smack-down.
The book makes students “uncomfortable?” Let’s hope they never read ROOTS. Not only does it contain the word “nigger,” but there are scenes of Blacks being branded and whipped, a Black woman is raped by her White master, and a runaway slave is forced to choose his punishment: he can lose his foot or his balls. I never understood the argument that we are supposed to discuss slavery with all its horrors, but telling students that slaves were addressed by an insulting term is too much for them to handle.
The entire canon of black American literature between the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement — from Frederick Douglass to W.E.B. DuBois, from Zora Neale Hurston to Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, and James Baldwin — is the story of race-based oppression in America. If the gatekeepers are going to get queasy about graphic depictions of racism, all of them could wind up under the censor’s heal.
… the censor’s heel. (I’ve done that heel/heel thing before, too.)
The objection to Twain, but not to Haley or the other writers I mentioned above, would appear to be based (thus far, tacitly, as far as I know) on their being black and his being white. But being plunged into poverty in Hannibal, MO, by the early death of his father, and having but a fifth-grade formal education, Twain lived in close proximity to slaves and was a keen observer of their experience.
If, as Toni Morrison claimed, Bill Clinton was America’s “first black president,” then maybe Twain ought to be regarded as our first black novelist.
I notice that “The Joy of Gay Sex” only made place 78 – interesting.
Probably because its not as popular. I’ve never heard of it, but I guarantee you, if it was as popular as huck finn, it would be
Yeah, I was thinking, probably because it’s not on that many school curricula to begin with. 😉
I read huck fin when I was 10 along with my best friend who was a big fan of Tom sawyer!! Great times!! We dramatized the fence painting scene from Tom sawyer in school the following year!! Might as well ban origins because it offends creationists!! Geesh.
Alas, only the ALA’s list of Frequently Challenged Books gives the specific reasons for attempts to ban books. (http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks)
Some books are challenged by specific interest groups. It is primarily Christian fundamentalists who have a problem with the Harry Potter books, because ANY suggestion that witchcraft can be benign is evil. Philip Pullman’s “Dark Materials” is overtly intended as an anti-clerical allegory as an alternative to Lewis’ Narnia books. Christopher Hitchens’ right-wing brother Peter has called Pullman “the most dangerous man in England”.
=-=-=
The above mentioned Lower Merion district definitely taught Huck Finn when I was in high school there. I infer from the above it no longer is.
I liked the black commentator on Jon Stewart who commenting on the bowdlerized Huck Finn said “From nigger to slave? That’s like having your TV show moved from CW to UPN.”
If we do not face the ugliness of our past, then we cannot understand the present. There is a danger in not accepting the reality of human history. Glossing it over by removing ‘nigger’ and replacing it with ‘slave’ completely ignores the reality of US history, especially the layers of society and the effect that still strongly lingers in not just the US – but in most all Western countries. We cannot white-wash out history because we would rather believe it was different. Starkness of bigotry, hatred, slavery, subjugation of peoples based on race, religion, culture, and/or sex must always be faced with clarity. Part of the problem we have currently is because too many people want to ignore our history and make it all happy and nice.
Besides which, ‘nigger’ and ‘slave’ mean two completely different things! A small percentage of persons (worldwide) were both, but I’d expect equating the two would be quite insulting to people who were one, but not the other.
I would expect the replacement of ‘nigger’ by ‘slave’ would subtly change the meaning of parts of the book.
cr
I am surprised to see only 1 queer title – Tango makes 3 about same gender penguin parenting….
In Canada the Surrey BC Schoolboard spent more than $10 million dollars and 5 years all the way to the supreme court to try to keep
“Heather has 2 mommies” from the library.
Sadly within the last 15 years that occured.
in the 1980s a group of Toronto Parents wanted “Lord of the Flies” out of high school since it was “about men’s pants”..
people rarely read what they claim offends them.
I worked in a mainstream video store when “Last Temptation of Christ” was release on VHS and Beta, and people were horrified when I played it in the store,
I thought it was one of the most boring movies
in the 1980s a group of Toronto Parents wanted “Lord of the Flies” out of high school since it was “about men’s pants”..
… and of course ‘Black Beauty’ was banned in South Africa…
(Not sure if that’s just an Internet legend. It seems so – ‘fitting’ – that one naturally suspects. But quite a number of sources say it was. Among them this list:
http://archive.postdesk.com/banned-books-list-reasons-why-censorship
… which also notes that da Vinci Code’s “sale has been prohibited in Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Iran, Pakistan, and various Indian states, on the grounds that the book is offensive to Christianity.”
How ironic.
cr
Finland banned ET because no pants and encouraging disrespect to authority and south Korea removed all the songs from Sound of Music. censorship is hysterically funny
In addition to Hemingway’s assessment of the book, I’ll add that Huck utters one of the greatest lines in the history of literature: “All right, then, I’ll go to hell.”
A nice essay on that one line is by Rachel Held Evans. (Yeah, she’s religious, but cut her some slack for this essay.)
Huckleberry Finn is such an important book with an important message. We should not shy away from the lesson it teaches. We should not shy away from our past and pretend it never happened. We should examine it and learn from it.
Your comments are right on, Jerry. As a teen in a mostly white community, I read HF and it totally changed my outlook on blacks. I switched from being mildly racist to a realization that Negroes (as they were known, politely) were totally human and equal to whites in every respect. That book prepared me for a short stretch in the military after high school when blacks and whites all lived together in large open barracks (Truman had just recently integrated the military). None of us had any problems when it came to “color” differences among our buddies despite being thrown together with guys from all parts of the US. It was one-for-all and all-for-one so far as our buddies were concerned. Huck Finn was one of the seminal books in my life.
Yes, as your comment and the comments of many others make clear, Huckleberry Finn is very far from being a pretty piece of embroidery or a numbing palliative. It is is a great and challenging book.
Yes, as your comment and the comments of many others make clear, Huckleberry Finn is very far from being a pretty piece of embroidery or a numbing palliative. It is a great and challenging book.
Thanks for the kind remarks.
I think, from what I keep reading of American schools, they want a utopian world, where the past is so sanitized, it no longer exists. I think they want a world depicted in George Orwell’s 1984 where the enemy yesterday is your friend and you don’t even remember why you were at war in the first place
Either Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer was supposed to be read by me at school in England in the 1970s, but whichever one it was I found impossible to read or understand culturally. Perhaps I should try again now…
I’m British, and have never been to the USA, but had no difficulty with it – I loved it, and still do.
I’ve taught Huckleberry Finn in Intro to the Novel class at a community college, with great success. Much discussion and high interest in Huck and Jim’s friendship. I always introduced the novel by explaining that the word “nigger” was used and why. Never had a problem with the students. Maybe high schoolers aren’t ready for it, I don’t know.
A couple of years ago, the local community college here produced the musical Big River by the great Roger Miller. The play is based on the book Huckleberry Finn, as most will know.
In the play, the word nigger is used quite a number of times and several members of the cast refused to say the word. The producer and musical leader for the production was a black educator who now holds a Ph.D. in musical education and is held in very high regard by all of us who know him. He wrote to the book copyright holder, William Hauptman, asking him about the use of the word. Mr. Hauptman agreed that the word was overused and sent us a listing of his redaction. As I recall, we used the word about eight times rather than some 15 or 16 times.
Both the school producer and the black members of the cast were comfortable with the play and it got great reviews. My Rabbi was amused by the fake Hebrew words the King says. I played the King.
It won’t be long now before they restore the Salem Witch Trials.
Wiccan trials.
As far as I’m concerned, anyone who either doesn’t understand Huck Finn, or is too incompetent to teach it, should remove themselves from any position even remotely connected to education.
Twain is one of the US (and world) treasures. But even without that … hiding stuff from kids like this bothers me.
What would these censors make of my grade 9 and 10 English teacher who went out of his way (and said so) to assign “controversial” works, like (e.g.) _The Grapes of Wrath_.
“…there is a sensitive and supportive way to teach the book, which, like most books, was a product of its time.”
ALL books are a product of their time, and these absurd attempts by people who should know better than to attempt to rewrite literature (and therefore history) are more than simply misguided; they are insane.
People have become far too ‘sensitive’ for their own good, and need to accept the reality that the past was, as was once said, a foreign land where they do things differently (L. Hartley). No reasonable person should expect the literature of the 19th, or any other century, to mirror the values most of us now have. Will we next see attempts to rewrite Orwell’s ‘1984’ because it exposes and explains the totalitarian mindset and machinations of current bureaucrats and do-gooders far too accurately, and now needs to be ‘dumbed down’ and made more ‘relevant’?
“In today’s headlines: The Smithfield Board of Education voted unanimously at their meeting last night to suspend, indefinitely, all educational functions at all schools in the District in response to a student petition claiming that having to get up early to go to school and do tasks assigned to them by authority figures was demeaning and made them feel ‘uncomfortable’. In a lengthy, poorly-spelled statement read by Missy G. Nader, President of the local High School Student Council, it was also said that the students felt ‘oppressed’ by the heavy-handed demands of the teachers for them to pay attention, take notes, stay awake, and stay off their I-Pads, etc. She said, “No one should call themselves a ‘teacher’; we’re all just students of life, here- besides, we know everything already and ALL viewpoints are equally valid, anyway.” The sports programs will, of course, be maintained as usual.”
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Let’s just throw critical thinking away. Let’s not introduce a controversial opposite challenging a brain to think. Let’s develop another dysfunction in the heads of eager minds. Let’s not let em make their own conclusion. Screw enticing autodidactic tendancys. Damn fools.
I would love to see a course that teaches
banned and censored books only. Ideas and history that some people want restricted are precisely the kinds of information necessary to have. The tendency to restrict certain types of knowledge has led to ghettoization of evangelical fundamentalist Christians into home schooling programs that prevent them from learning to intereact with the rest of society.
This is very unhealthy and dangerous to our democracy.