<p>I had to look up the controversy surrounding “Brave New World.” It seems that the depiction of Native Americans is quite derogatory. I don’t remember a thing about that. But after all these years, I do remember “Do it to Julia!”</p>
<p>scansmom, my understanding is that they plan to substitute the word “slave” for that other word, and “Indian” for “Injun”, and that’s pretty much it. You can see how “slave” works awkwardly in the passage you cite, but I wouldn’t say that it works so badly that the whole project collapses because of it. It would help if they said “freed slave” instead of the oxymoronic “free slave”.</p>
<p>IMO it is pathetic to change Huck Finn. Totally against good educational principles. Why study the book at all, if you are not going to discuss the reasons for language choices, context within history, and denotation/connotation of words? Fear wins out in America, yet again. I give up.</p>
<p>I agree that they have added some stuff, my daughter read house on mango street in spanish in middle school & for the tie in to 8th grade health she read Cut & Speak.</p>
<p>But it still seemed like most of it was very similar.Hardy, Hemingway, Dickens.
My 7th grader was performing the Lysistrata at the same time her sister was reading it for her Hum class in college.
( different versions)</p>
<p>Thanks to whomever posted the link to the Sandy Banks piece.
Along the same lines, in the book “Great Books for High School Kids: A Teachers’ Guide to Books That Can Change Teens’ Lives” there’s a very interesting chapter (Ch. 3) titled “How Dangerous Can a Book Be?”, which is a very heartfelt account by a hs English teacher of the difficulties, challenges and rewards she encountered while teaching the book to a mixed-race hs class. (you may able to bring up a fair number of pages from this chapter in the “reader” device in the link by clicking “surprise me”) [Amazon.com:</a> Great Books for High School Kids: A Teacher’s Guide to Books That Can Change Teens’ Lives (9780807032558): Amy Crawford, Rick Ayers: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-High-School-Kids/dp/0807032557#reader_0807032557]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Great-Books-High-School-Kids/dp/0807032557#reader_0807032557)</p>
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It seems to me that if you replace n------ with anything that isn’t a derogatory epithet, some of the meaning of the passage is lost. I just find it odd that it’s OK for the book to show that human beings were treated as property and mistreated, but not to show that they were called names.</p>
<p>The issue is how uncomfortable it is to be the only (or one of a few) black student in a class that is studying this book. These words are not being changed in all versions, just in an edition/editions for schools. Huck Finn is certainly worth rereading.</p>
<p>Changing the wording in classic literature, or ignoring the “dark” parts of the Constitution, reminds me uncomfortably of George Orwell’s 1984, with the Department of History that was responsible for re-writing all the history so it would read favorably for those currently in power. Also reminds me of places like China, where the government controls what is “true.” </p>
<p>Our history, and our literature, has some ugly parts in it. To ignore that is to fail to learn from the past. And we know what happens to those who fail to learn from the past… they are condemned to repeat its mistakes.</p>
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<p>This is why I love Mark Twain.</p>
<p>This book is an easy exercise in historical context. Kids of all races throw the N word around, especially the phrase “my n*gga”. Some discount the black experience as ancient history that happened to other people, concluding that modern day blacks should just get over it already. If reading this book in its original form is uncomfortable, that’s a good thing. Otherwise, might as well stick to Dick and Jane.</p>
<p>All of this discussion tends to confirm my instinct that at the high-school level the n-word issue overwhelms everything else about the book. Believe it or not, that’s not the only thing important about Huckleberry Finn! It’s not even in the top 5 or 10 things!</p>
<p>Now, bowdlerizing the book is a pretty lame response, but I understand the impulse to try to do something to make it possible to teach the book as being about things other than use of racial epithets.</p>
<p>Gone with the Wind is another example of a book that is offensive (incredibly patronizing to blacks) but it reflects Martha Mitchell’s era, looking back at the Civil War era. You can’t “fix” it, but you can read it with understanding.</p>
<p>I used to love it (when I read it in HS) but going back to re-read it now, I am horrified and wouldn’t recommend it to my children to read, at least not without some explanation.</p>
<p>Edit–Not that MM is on the same literary level as MT, so we’re not talking about a major loss to civilization…but it was a good read!</p>
<p>Not in favor! Which books will be next? Which lyrics to songs? </p>
<p>It is just like messing with sports teams, both professional & college & high school.
Indians, Seminoles, Braves, Redskins, Red Raiders, etc, all not “politically correct.” </p>
<p>Did Natick, MA high school change their athletic teams’ name from Red Raiders to something else? I thought Doug Flutie (noted alum) was totally against that.</p>
<p>And here’s what happens when a ridiculous precedent is set:</p>
<p>[Connecticut</a> School Official, Objecting to Racial Term, Wants to Block Wilson Play - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/connecticut-school-official-objecting-to-racial-term-wants-to-block-wilson-play/]Connecticut”>Connecticut School Official, Objecting to Racial Term, Wants to Block Wilson Play - The New York Times)</p>
<p>Mark Twain meant for that word to be offensive. He was not trying to offend Black readers; he wanted the white readers to “hear” it again & again. He wanted to make them realize the dehumanizing effect of that and all the other talk he quotes in the book. Otherwise when Huck “goes against his conscience” and fails to turn in Jim, the reader misses the gigantic change Huck has undergone during the time the book covers.</p>
<p>Twain is also trying to effect a change in his readers’ hearts; he knew plenty about the casual racism of the white people who thought they weren’t.</p>
<p>Didn’t you pick up on the irony of the passage from ch 6 (about the guy from Ohio)? There is a lot of depth in it----</p>
<p>If you substitute “slave” or even “freed slave” not only is the irony (and even sense) lost; you lose the invitation to compare the black <em>gentleman</em> college professor from Ohio (Oberlin?) with the speaker, who is too drunk to find the polling place but won’t vote because the “lower specimen” is being allowed to do so in his own state hundreds of miles away. Don’t forget Ohio was an abolitionist stronghold. Free Blacks had been in Ohio for quite a while (Sally Hemings moved there); it was possible this man would have been third generation free. Twain’s readers would have known this, and so would the speaker. </p>
<p>Furthermore, most freed slaves, if they were able to better themselves, were still not able to get anywhere near being college professors and speaking several languages. This man had had advantages not available to the majority of white citizens, in the 1850-70s. We as readers are supposed to realize that, as even the most casual observer of the mid 19th Cent would.</p>
<p>Taking away the N word from this and any other passage takes Twain’s greatest weapons, his words, from his hands.</p>
<p>Obviously, if teaching the book, you have to explain all this to the students and the parents, too. And, as others have noted, the kids have heard that word and worse from contemporary music.</p>