The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Right after the request of Mark Twain to have his autobiography republished last year, exactly 100 years after his death......

I can see both sides on why book is offensive to many people....

To read the book to students is probably a nightmare for a lot of teachers but they probably can choose not to read it out loud...(If they are forced to read it out loud, that is a whole other matter)

The hypocrites that the human race are as a whole, allow for violence to be readily available on any given TV show and without much thought to its impact on society....

Instead, in the year 2011, Auburn University is going to change a literary classic without any opinions or votes from the people of the US, or the world...

Sure people can argue that when a film is censored for TV if it has inappropriate language, sex and/or nudity in it, this isn't much different....

I deplore watching censored versions of films filled with commercials interrupting the film's flow and containing bad over dubbing, e.g. "Yipee Ki Yay MISTER FALCON!"

So I don't agree with word nigger being replaced by the word slave in a wonderful novel by one of America's greatest writers....

The word slave seems even more offensive now, to me....

Huck wouldn't have referred to Jim as a slave, when conversing with him, it just isn't the way Huck speaks, plain and simple!

Nigger being such an offensive word in today's world as a whole is not Mark Twain's fault, it is ours, for the world treating the black man and woman like lesser humans and then attaching the word to such horrible treatment and negative connotations...

In the end, great art suffers because of how society has acted as a whole...

Makes me lose a lot of faith in society...

OMG BAD WORD GET RID OF IT

this just comes down to lazy hands off parenting, if you can't at least *Fucking try* to make your child understand the context in which the word is used, then you a) shouldn't be sending your child to public school at all b)don't deserve to be raising children

edit: but i don't give modern parents enough credit, they have a very difficult job ahead of them, especially american parents who have to explain to their kids why waterboarding is ok to do to terrorists, and shit terrorism in and of itself, that weird doublethink kind of stuff would fuck a kid up

they should call it "the Joyrex version"

  On 1/8/2011 at 9:36 AM, Awepittance said:

this just comes down to lazy hands off parenting, if you can't at least *Fucking try* to make your child understand the context in which the word is used, then you a) shouldn't be sending your child to public school at all b)don't deserve to be raising children

 

 

edit: but i don't give modern parents enough credit, they have a very difficult job ahead of them, especially american parents who have to explain to their kids why waterboarding is ok to do to terrorists, and shit terrorism in and of itself, that weird doublethink kind of stuff would fuck a kid up

oh look awepittance brought waterboarding into it.

anyway this made me pretty angry - as it's clearly one of the greatest novels ever wrtitten - but i'd say the problem comes down to lazy TEACHING rather than lazy parenting.

shiiiiiit.

People scared and angry at shit they dont understand.

wait, what word—nigger?

edit: cool, just wanted to make sure watmm's still rocking in the free world

They should reprint it and drop the R so it sounds less intimidating. NIGGAAAAAAAAAAAA wurd.

  On 1/8/2011 at 11:42 AM, Iain C said:

- as it's clearly one of the greatest novels ever wrtitten -

I'm willing to acknowledge this, but even reading it as a kid I thought it was pretty dull and preachy. Tried reading Twain's other books, like Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and didn't like them that much either. When Twain writes pure adventure/boy's stuff it can be really good, but he always seems to end up straying into Swiftian satire/social commentary...I'd be curious to read him again as an adult, maybe I'd like it more...I like Twain's persona and "famous sayings" more than his work, I think...

Speaking of famous books with nigger in them, when I was young Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was one of those books you're not supposed to read because it contains stereotypes. When I was an undergrad I finally decided to read it and found it was a great book. Political correctness is sickening.

  On 1/8/2011 at 11:42 AM, Iain C said:

but i'd say the problem comes down to lazy TEACHING rather than lazy parenting.

how does it come down to lazy teaching? Right now there are numerous schools that cant legally study the book because it has been banned for the use of the word. This version at least gives them the opportunity to teach the book.

the pussification of America

That's right...erase your history. Forget who you are.

  On 1/8/2011 at 10:43 AM, lumpenprol said:

they should call it "the Joyrex version"

Papa Jim

people have been pissed off about huck finn; tried to censor twain's shit for years now. i'm too lazy to research it but i figure you could go back at least two decades and find some of this going on... probably more, but for things other than racial sensitivity.

edit: it's stupid, but it ain't new, and it hasn't really changed much. i got the uncensored huck finn along with a lot of teacher disclaimers about how things were back then. not that i didn't already understand on my own.

Censorship in school is nothing new.. funny they would come back to this shit though.

How many of us in the US studied the Tulsa race "riots"? You know, the war against blacks in Tulsa, OK where they actually called in an air strike. I'd never heard of it until AFTER I graduated from college (I was not a liberal arts major, but still I had to take history electives).

  On 1/8/2011 at 11:42 AM, Iain C said:

 

 

anyway this made me pretty angry - as it's clearly one of the greatest novels ever wrtitten - but i'd say the problem comes down to lazy TEACHING rather than lazy parenting.

but ultimately it's the responsibility of the parent, not the teacher. i mean i think realistically it's a combination of the 2.

I think chassis is on to something, replacing the word with nigga instead of slave...

Lazy teaching, lazy parenting...America is one huge lazy monster spreading its lazy ideals across the world like a morbidly obese person spreading butter over everything they eat. Then the US eats up its butter covered countries and shits and pisses on the left over food items(useless countries) that are too gross(poor, disease ridden) to eat(be concerned with).

We still let the kids read '1984' though...

seems like there could be some confusion between reading a censored novel and then reading a novel about censorship being evil...

This is why I love America.....

It is truly a wonderful example of the modern (first world) human condition, psychotic and hypocritical...yay

no, you don't replace the word, you teach the context. you open up a discussion about the word and its usage. this is just lazy american whitewashing of anything that might upset special interest groups or parents who shouldn't have had children in the first place.

Blame the school boards and white southerners who can't cope with their past.

  On 1/9/2011 at 12:15 AM, remy marathe said:

no, you don't replace the word, you teach the context. you open up a discussion about the word and its usage. this is just lazy american whitewashing of anything that might upset special interest groups or parents who shouldn't have had children in the first place.

  On 1/9/2011 at 12:26 AM, azatoth said:

Blame the school boards and white southerners who can't cope with their past.

where's the gif of the guys applauding....

Well done you two...succinct and correct :)

  On 1/9/2011 at 12:15 AM, remy marathe said:

no, you don't replace the word, you teach the context. you open up a discussion about the word and its usage.

no. Either you can teach the word or you cant. Plain and simple. You risk losing your job if you teach banned material. The banning of the book is what you should('ve) be(en) complaining about. Not this new version. I also really dont get why people think gratuitous use of the n word is necessary to the reading of this book for a discussion on prejudice and slavery. People should know the word and its context, but why does it need to be thrown at you more than a hundred times from mark twain to make you understand it?

  On 1/8/2011 at 10:39 PM, Awepittance said:

  On 1/8/2011 at 11:42 AM, Iain C said:

 

 

anyway this made me pretty angry - as it's clearly one of the greatest novels ever wrtitten - but i'd say the problem comes down to lazy TEACHING rather than lazy parenting.

 

but ultimately it's the responsibility of the parent, not the teacher. i mean i think realistically it's a combination of the 2.

Lazy teaching, lazy parenting... who gives a fuck... how about we just DON'T CENSOR BOOKS!!!

I'm getting sick of these fucking retards dragging everyone down to their level. I don't care who is offended by the word Nigger. Mark Twain didn't write this novel so assfucks in 2011 wouldn't wring their hands over some naughty language.