We read:
"Mark Twain's classic novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is to be censored to remove racially insensitive terms from the text. The 1884 book has been removed from the curricula of dozens of U.S. schools due to 217 uses of the word 'n****r' and two Twain scholars plan to release an expurgated version.
A new edition replaces the 'N word' with 'slave' and also expels all uses of 'injun', a derogatory reference to Native Americans.
The scholars say the new version is a bid to make the book's treatment of race more in line with 21st century values but critics say the censorship is taking political correctness too far.
Source
Once again kids will be denied knowledge of their past. History lessons have been dimbed down, and now literature must not give kids a window onto the way we were. I am sure the Left live in fear that people might one day learn that much less restrictive societies once existed.
12 comments:
I wouldn't necessarily call it censorship as much as I would call it "revisionism".
I personally have no problem with revised versions of books, movies, music, whatever--just DO NOT title them the same. THAT is the travesty--claiming that the revision represents the original work. This particular revision is NOT "Huckleberry Finn". It should be titled "Huckleberry Finn Revised". The same goes for movies that get revised to go into the TV market. Don't title it "The Godfather", title it "The Godfather Revised". To treat it any other way is disingenuous.
-sig
Just for the record though, have any of you tried to read Shakespeare in it's original english? At some time or another a revision to the language of a textbook is required to make it available to new readers without making them face too many concepts and idioms of days past.
Given that the normal language of that day is now considered racist and is used as an excuse to keep some really exceptional literature from children I see this as a way of getting the stories back to where they belong, albeit at a cost of keeping the original contemporary language.
Most of what has been in schools even back when the original text was still allowed were abridged versions anyway.
The originals should still remain available at colleges and libraries as the definitive texts.
The simple solution is to do what my High School English teacher did. Before starting the book explain there are some words that we find objectionable today but at the time the book was written and in the times portrayed in the book such words were commonly used every day. It's a historical fact and if we understand this ahead of time we can see that the useage of the words is not meant to hurt or offend. It's called educating the readers which makes more sense than dumbing down the text so Billy and Suzie don't get their feelings hurt.
I have a simple solution. Have all the "offensive" books made into audio books read by rap "musicians" like Ludacris and 50 Cent. Since they are the only group allowed to use slurs with impunity, and the original text of the books will be preserved, everyone should be satisfied.
My wife (a High School English teacher) does something similar to what Anonymous 2:44's English Teacher did, but she takes it a step further. She not only talks about and explains the uses of words in books that we now find objectionable, but also spends a few days before starting each book going over the history and major news events of the time period with her students before starting a book (e.g. covering slavery and post-Civil War reconstruction and its impact on race relations before Huck Finn or the Great Depression before To Kill a Mockingbird).
As to Anonymous 1:16's question about reading Shakespeare in the original English, yes I have read it that way (it was the only way we read it in my classes) and the teacher helped us to figure out for ourselves (or occasionally explained when it was too out there for our High School minds to leap to ourselves) the concepts and idioms. Understanding the way that culture worked and people thought in the time and place that a piece of literature was written and how that affected their speech was viewed as critical to truly understanding the work, be it Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Twain or Tolkien. It may be harder to do, but a much deeper understanding is gained.
How far away from burning books can we be? Although today, the EnviroNazi's would consider that an "environmentally unfriendly" act.
While America's parents have been asleep, or other wise diverted, for the last few decades, your children have been, and continue to be, indoctrinated by the Left. The object of course, is to teach them to avoid reality. That is after all, the fundamental principle of Leftism. Reality (and fact) to a Lefist are like sunlight to a vampire.
What happened in this case is nothing new. School districts around the country "routinely" engage in censorship. Of course, they don't call it that. Anytime a government authority (govt funded school) decides, not what your children will read, but what they can read, that's censorship, pure and simple.
There are somethings you have no business revising. Rewriting Shakespeare to plain English so people can understand it? Fine. The same with the bible, I had more fun reading Left Behind than reading all the Thou's and Thee's in the bible.
But taking out the n-word out of Huck Finn? That's just too much. On the other hand, I barely understood "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court." Mark Twain was a genius, but when he starts writing British-speak he loses me completely.
Introducing kids to a different world is one of the most important functions of literature
"Revisions" distort those other worlds
"Introducing kids to a different world is one of the most important functions of literature"
So is school.
"So is school."
No, the task of school is to form children into good little drones for the Party.
I prefer Huckleberry Hound.
More of this PC nonsense comming from pea-brains with their tiny pea sized brains all in the name of not offending this JESSIE JACKASSON wacko
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