“Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby can’t chew it,” said Mark Twain. Twain is no stranger to censorship, as his novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” has caused controversy in the United States since the book’s first publication.
Delia Lloyd from Politicsdaily.com said the book has been the fourth-most banned book in the U.S. school system. While book banning in general is a frightening exercise of censorship, the latest publication — where offensive words such as “nigger” and “Injun” are being replaced with the slightly more politically correct “slave” and “Indian” — is arguably worse.
“It would be unthinkable to alter ‘The Great Gatsby’ because of how women are portrayed,” said University of California at San Diego’s The Guardian.
There is crime enough in changing an author’s work, but the latest change in diction is potentially counterproductive in dealing with America’s racial issues. According to Politics Daily, Auburn University Professor Alan Gribben will publish the newly censored version of “Huckleberry Finn” because he feels uncomfortable using the “N-word” while teaching the classic.
To that end, if you are not capable of dealing with this extremely anti-racist novel because of its uncomfortable wording, then let someone else teach it. Saying “nigger,” even in a classroom setting, isn’t meant to be easy or comfortable, but it is important not to ignore our history.
“You can’t change history to reflect our contemporary values,” said Director of Community Learning James Shields. “The whole idea of history is to know what happened before us. As the saying says, you need to know your history so that you don’t repeat it.”
Slavery was part of United States’ history before we were the U.S., but racism continued heavily after slavery was illegal and still continues today. Being silent about slavery and the racism which did not end with abolition does not acknowledge our history.
Though “Huckleberry Finn” is only one novel — one part of a movement against racism — the book’s place as a literary classic puts Twain’s work in a position to enlighten students if they are exposed to this novel in a constructive way, which means with the correct historical and literary context intact.
“We’re talking about a particular place in time where the word African American was not known, where the word ‘negro’ was rarely used,” said Shields, providing one example of appropriate context.
“Huckleberry Finn” makes people uncomfortable. The next step is to admit that acknowledging racism is the reason for this discomfort. Realize that the issue must still be spoken about.
“Although I can tell the same story in different words, I don’t think it would be as effective,” said Monesha Staton, Hege Library associate for technical services. Twain may not have intended for his novel to be addressing racism so many years later, but as Staton said, no one truly knows what he intended.
However, the fact remains that “Huckleberry Finn” is an important tool for in fight against racism, and thus should be left alone to do its job.