Huckleberry Finn to Be Republished, Minus the "N Word" - Comments

I really liked this article. Most "news" articles written for Mibba are un-journalistic, biased, and blatantly opinionated. You told the readers what was happening along with some background information before presenting both sides of the issue. Well done.

I find that completely disrespectful. Just because Mark Twain is dead, doesn't mean you can edit and change his book! Besides, it's written like that for a REASON. It tells the differences in social class. It's not like he wrote it "just because". It was socially acceptable at the time, and he wanted to show how stupid it was.
Also, if we change it, what will become of the future readers? Will they know the world was once like that? Maybe not.
It's historical. No one should have the right to change it.

And I wonder what Mark Twain would have to say about all this...

He used that word for a reason. To make people feel uncomfortable and realize how severe racism is/was. To take the word out competely defeats one of the purposes of the book.

Anyways, it's the author's piece of art. No one has any right to tamper with it.

@ Bad Girl

Well said.

A word is only what you make it out to be. Offensive language is not offensive unless you accept the idea that it is.

You've all said it,
and it's true.
Censoring this book is no better than infringing on an unalienable right, and stomping on the true face of history.

This is completely unacceptable. If you dont like the word, don't read the book. Dont get offended because it says it either. It was written about a boy and a slave, right? It's more history they're taking away from us. What about Harper Lee's, To Kill A Mockingbird. It says that word in there 43 times, so my teacher says. Are they going to take all great novels away from us and remake them? That's disappointing.

God people. Let's get over political correctness and focus on things that actually MATTER. If people are so goddamn concerned that certain people will be "offended," then let them be. Jesus cries because some butthurt retard out there isn't mature enough to understand that Mark Twain was an intelligent and accomplished writer who obviously knew what he was doing. Otherwise, his novels wouldn't be considered "timeless classics." It's just the morons out there that think they have to revise every little thing because America isn't responsible enough to handle little things like the "n" word. Sheesh.

Couldn't we just send the book off to the Ministry of Truth and be done with it alltogether? There's no point in reading it if it is not meant to be read.

This book is a satire. They way Twain uses the 'n-word' has a meaning and reason to it.

One, it's based pre-civil war. What do expect Twain to do? He's not going to be [i] Well I should just put color or black instead of nigger because I might offend the future America.[/i] He's using diagloge from the time.


Two, When he used the N word it had meaning. Jim was a slave and as a slave back then they weren't viewed as humans. The N word dehuminze them. If you read the book you will notice that Jim is the most humanize man in the book; thus the satire kicks in.

Three, most schools read this in their 11 year in high school. Half of these people will be turning 17. I think we are old enough not to have words sugar-coated for us.

Lastly, this is the cold hard truth of how America was. Twain was basically saying this is how you are. Like it or not. Changing the N word will not only take the meaning away from the book, but it will take the history out of it to.

I find this foolish. So instead of the n word what are they putting in? Black? Colored? African American? I'm not racists or anything(best friend's got african american background and I got some cherokee blood running in my own veins) but this is just foolish. The next thing we know, they'll be doing the samething with "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Farewell, freedom of speech. I'll miss you.

I agree with most of the people on here. I think this is outrageous. First off, I understand the offensiveness of the word, but isn't it offensive to African Americans to be called "colored" or "people of color" as well? So, really, this article itself could have offended someone that was not caucasion. Second, Twain was a brilliant writer. Without the exact words he wrote, it wouldn't be much of a masterpiece. Third, anyone too immature to read that word is frankly not intelligent enough to read the book. Fourth, it's time for people to understand that, although that was a terrible point in time and we should learn from our mistakes so that history doesn't repeat itself, it's time to move on and stop being so touchy about the subject. I don't mean to sound insensitive or anything, and I know that my statement is probably controversial, but I know one kid at my school uses the history of black people being enslaved as an excuse for EVERYTHING, and I think it's unjust. So he gets to use his people's toiling and enslavement for his own benefit in a later generation? That's insulting to those who actually experienced it. I mean, I don't think we should tip toe around it, because I know I'd probably take offense to that as well, you know? Just because of the color of my skin, people aren't going to talk as frankly around me and be very touchy about the subject of slavery. Like I said, I'm not saying to forget about it or anything, or even down play it at all, but we all just need to realize that we can't really change the past and we need to continue on to the future. We need to be able to speak to each other in an equal way. We shouldn't feel uncomfortable discussing a book in front of one person where we wouldn't feel that way in front of another. Not that I don't get a bit uncomfortable about that word even though I'm white and mature enough to read it because I know what it was used for and some of my relatives still use it in a derrogatory way, but it's a book written to fit the way people of the era spoke. Twain didn't intend it to be racist, he intended it to make an impact. I suppose there's not much we can really do about it being rewritten, but I just wish they'd stop and think about it before destroying classic English literature and turning it into just another ordinary book. You know? I just feel pretty strongly about this.

Personally, I see both sides of it. I can understand why they want to change it because it's regarded as crude and unnecessary to be shown to students, but on the other hand, it was put there for a reason. Yes, it's offensive but that's how they talked. I mean, it's sugarcoating it, even if it's one word. I haven't read the book but I cam assure you that changing it is idiotic. I know that it wouldn't offend people around here, African Americans included. Most of them would laugh about it later or bitch just to bitch and I'm a middle schooler. That was a horrible time where they called each other horrible things, they have no right to rewrite it.

I can understand that the teachers would want to change it but look at the book Where the Red Fern Grows. It has a curse word and I'm glad they didn't change the book because it was great with or without the book!

I think that they should have an option of a second book. I understand how colored people could feel awkward and embarassed. I wouldn't like hearing a book with the word "fag" 400 times, referring to (a) homosexual character(s).

I think people fail to realise it is an offensive word and people feel uncomfortable hearing/reading it.

I think that they shouldnt change it for the sole reason that it was meant to be that way, it was origionally WRITTEN that way.

But I also think that changing it is a good idea, I read the book in my Junior class and we had two black kids in our class, everytime the word came up both of them would kind of squirm in their seats. Most of the whites would squirm too.

I think that for classroom purposes, changing it is a good idea. Its like if there was a book that had the word Cracker being used to name whites, and if thats what we called whites today. It was a term for whites just like Nigger was a term for black back then.

Excuse my langauge, was just writing it out to explain.

The only reason why the book says "the n word" is because that is the term they used to call slaves. It's the word Huck knew, so he said it. He wasn't being racist. He was saying what he knew.

Though my reading teacher is reading this to us right now and she replaces the word with slave. So..

That's so damn stupid. I know some people who weren't even in high school who have read the book and were (and still are) mature about the language. Taking it out is going to take out Twain's original intentions and going to leave more kids ignorant of the racism of that period.

This is bullshit.