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New Edition Removes Mark Twain's 'Offensive' Words : NPR (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=132663590 - broken link)
somebody shoot me. Please!
20yrsinBranson
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This is an example of just how ridiculous Political Correctness is.
It has been many years since I have read Huck Finn but when I first read it back in the late 1950's I saw the character, ****** Jim, as one of the heroes of the story. Wanna bet his name will be replaced by ****** in this post? I was in my pre teens when I read TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERY FINN. Those two books were huge influences in my views on racism later on. I grew up in a rural community in Eastern Colorado and our community was what we referred to as "Lily White". In order to see people of Color we would have to make the three hour trip to Denver. Any youngster who read Mark Twain's stories knew in their hearts that there was something wrong with racism. In my opinion editing Twain's works is about as serious as misquoting a Bible passage.
After all these years I can't remember all the details of the story but was ****** Jim really a runaway slave? The word ****** did not apply to just slaves.
[quote=Gunluvver2;17287596]************************************************** *******
This is an example of just how ridiculous Political Correctness is.
It has been many years since I have read Huck Finn but when I first read it back in the late 1950's I saw the character, ****** Jim, as one of the heroes of the story. Wanna bet his name will be replaced by ****** in this post? I was in my pre teens when I read TOM SAWYER and HUCKLEBERY FINN. Those two books were huge influences in my views on racism later on. I grew up in a rural community in Eastern Colorado and our community was what we referred to as "Lily White". In order to see people of Color we would have to make the three hour trip to Denver. Any youngster who read Mark Twain's stories knew in their hearts that there was something wrong with racism. In my opinion editing Twain's works is about as serious as misquoting a Bible passage.
After all these years I can't remember all the details of the story but was ****** Jim really a runaway slave? The word ****** did not apply to just slaves.
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I guess I was right about the political correctness issue.
GL2
Dr. Laura got fired for saying the "N" word on air. Not calling someone or referring to someone as the "N" word, but referring to the word as just a word.
I voted for Obama and almost certainly will vote for him again. I am probably the definition of what Rush Limbaugh means when he uses the word "liberal". Even so, I'm appalled at this attempt to censor great literature.
I wonder how people would react if it was suggested we censor Shakespeare's play "The Merchant of Venice" because it contains antisemitic overtones? A Jewish moneylender named "Shylock" is the villain in this story.
Huckleberry Finn is a classic piece of literature. What is perhaps most ironic about those who would censor this book is that they know very little of Mark Twain. Twain made many contributions to literature. I wonder if those who fear the racial impact of the N word have ever read his essay called the "United States of Lyncherdom"? Twain was very much opposed to real racism which was going on at that time like lynching black men for imaginary offenses. For his time, Twain was a much more enlightened person than critics today could ever imagine.
Why can't we accept the notion that authors and the books they write simply reflect the prejudices and sentiments of the time? It is not Twain or Huckleberry Finn that was prejudiced. It was American culture in the late nineteenth century that was prejudiced.
Removing the N word from books isn't going to stop people from using it. Nor, will such acts stop bigotry and discrimination. What it will likely do instead is create some type of artificial "feel good" world where we imagine that if we don't see prejudice in the words around that it does not exist. This is nonsense and anyone with any reasoning capacity can see that it is wrong.
The people who want to censor this piece of classical literature are nuts.
Now that we have the "Conservatives" in power this will just be the first of many books that will be re-written.
I'd have to disagree with you on the political leanings of those wanting to do most of the censoring and rewriting...but perhaps that's another thread.
Well, I am writing a novel, where one of the central characters is a racist. He uses the "N" word, because that is how the character refers to black people..in his bigoted arrogance. I will not change that to appease anyone, nor would I appreciate being censored for using it.
The fact of the matter is, Twain used those words because it was the sign of his times, just as it is a sign of our times for young black people to embrace and now refer to each other with that word, thus changing it's meaning for them. In Twain's time, black people were referred to with that and many other derrogatory words... in fact most races/cultures were referred to with one insulting word or another.
You can't censure history. You can change the words, but the history remains.
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