[Vision2020] Huck Finn Stripped of "N" Word

[Tom Hansen]

Removing words from books (as reflected in the news item below) and
painting false images of our history (as plagiarized and falsely detailed
in "Southern Slavery As It Was") will only serve to lie about the way
things were back then.

It is my strong opinion that Huck Finn MUST be maintained in its original
form, so that future generations are not forced to live a lie.

Courtesy of KHOU.com (Houston, Texas) at:

http://www.khou.com/news/New-edition-of-Huckleberry-Finn-Tom-Sawyer-removes-the-N-word-113005044.html#

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MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Mark Twain wrote that "the difference between the
almost right word and the right word is really a large matter." A new
edition of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" will try to
find out if that holds true by replacing the N-word with "slave" in an
effort not to offend readers.

Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who is working with NewSouth Books in Alabama
to publish a combined volume of the books, said the N-word appears 219
times in "Huck Finn" and four times in "Tom Sawyer." He said the word puts
the books in danger of joining the list of literary classics that Twain
once humorously defined as those "which people praise and don’t read."

"It’s such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous
reading experience and a lot of readers," Gribben said.

Yet Twain was particular about his words. His letter in 1888 about the
right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the
lightning bug and the lightning."

The book isn’t scheduled to be published until February, at a mere 7,500
copies, but Gribben has already received a flood of hateful e-mail
accusing him of desecrating the novels. He said the e-mails prove the word
makes people uncomfortable.

"Not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it," he said.

Another Twain scholar, professor Stephen Railton at the University of
Virginia, said Gribben was well respected, but called the new version "a
terrible idea."

The language depicts America’s past, Railton said, and the revised book
was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing. Railton has
an unaltered version of "Huck Finn" coming out later this year that
includes context for schools to explore racism and slavery in the book.

"If we can’t do that in the classroom, we can’t do that anywhere," he said.

He said Gribben was not the first to alter "Huck Finn." John Wallace, a
teacher at the Mark Twain Intermediate School in northern Virginia,
published a version of "Huck Finn" about 20 years ago that used "slave"
rather than the N-word.

"His book had no traction," Railton said.

Gribben, a 69-year-old English professor at Auburn University Montgomery,
said he would have opposed the change for much of his career, but he began
using "slave" during public readings and found audiences more accepting.

He decided to pursue the revised edition after middle school and high
school teachers lamented they could no longer assign the books.

Some parents and students have called for the removal of "Huck Finn" from
reading lists for more than a half century. In 1957, the New York City
Board of Education removed the book from the approved textbook lists of
elementary and junior high schools, but it could be taught in high school
and bought for school libraries.

In 1998, parents in Tempe, Ariz., sued the local high school over the
book’s inclusion on a required reading list. The case went as far as a
federal appeals court; the parents lost.

Published in the U.S. in 1885, "Huck Finn" is the fourth most banned book
in schools, according to "Banned in the U.S.A." by Herbert N. Foerstal, a
retired college librarian who has written several books on First Amendment
issues.

Gribben conceded the edited text loses some of the caustic sting but said:
"I want to provide an option for teachers and other people not comfortable
with 219 instances of that word."

In addition to replacing the N-word, Gribben changes the villain in "Tom
Sawyer" from "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and "half-breed" becomes
"half-blood."

Gribben knows he won’t change the minds of his critics, but he’s eager to
see how the book will be received by schools rather than university
scholars.

"We’ll just let the readers decide," he said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The main difference between a cat and a lie is that a cat only has nine
lives."

- Mark Twain