A famous Clemens/Twain quote goes like this, “The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” 
A ‘classroom friendly’ version of the famous novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is scheduled for release in February. In this version, the “n word,” which appears in the novel 219 times, has been replaced with the word “slave.” Additionally, the language has been made politically correct so as not to offend readers.
You might as well burn every edition of, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, to spare the sensibilities of every potential reader. Many dictators and potentates have sought to rewrite history by book burning. Cutting and pasting is the same thing. The book should be read as Clemens/Twain wrote it — or not read at all, in my opinion.
What have we become as a nation? How dense and historically insensitive can we be that we try to rewrite history based on present notions and foibles?
Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Jeremiah Wright and others use the word, “nigger” continually in their speeches. Does this mean that somebody needs to go through those at their source and edit the speeches?
I also recommend the American Perspective, and Opus #6’s take on hate speech. (LINK HERE)

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13 COMMENTS

  3. Opus & The_Kid – Weird political correctness seems to drive society to the extent that everyone has to keep up with the current fad in what one can and can not say, can and can not read. If you criticize Mohammad, somebody wants to kill you. If you are black and use the N word, it's in vogue. If you're not black, you are held up as a sign of ridicule. — and you're right, KID, it's a very fragile situation.

  4. This bothers me too…if you are going to do a movie or a tv show that takes place during a particular time or deals with certain topics, get it right.

  5. It's one of the greatest American novels ever written. It reflects the history of the South before the Civil War. We made mistakes back then by calling Blacks niggers. Must we compound our mistakes by hiding our history.

    Damn I hate these PC bastards!

  6. Which is worse – changing Huckleberry Finn or putting a warning disclaimer in front of a book containing the Declaration of Independence and Constitution?

    The ideology that produces this kind of thought is a menace to society and needs to be stopped.

  7. If they're going to edit Twain, then I want King, Sharpton, Malcom X, and the Reverend Jessah edited too… 🙂

  8. The time has come for this nonsense to stop! I for one am sick and tired of political correctness or as I call it "I can't take the truth so I'll just turn my back"

    The written word is history, good or bad. It should never be altered. It should be studied and hopefully in turn learned from. The fact that people talked and held things differently in different eras is still a fact. If changed is deemed, so be it.

  10. Euripides – The progressive mantra continues to be that the Constitution and Bill of Rights is simply a set of outmoded guidelines that need to be replaced by a doctrine based on the writings of Marx/Engles.

    Jotote – Amen, brother!

    WoFat – GREAT idea. The Philistines (called Palestinians today) always seemed to come out on the bottom – this needs to be changed NOW!

  12. LL: Yeah, it's all about "values," and by values I mean socialism. I misstated the warning in that republication of US documents. It's worse than I remember:

    “This book is a product of its time and does not reflect the same values as it would if it were written today. Parents might wish to discuss with their children how views on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations have changed since this book was written before allowing them to read this classic work."

    Yes, interpersonal relations are much more important than the foundational principles of the US.

    And the changes to Huckleberry Finn? That's just brainless hubris on the part of the publisher.

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