# High School Urged To Take 'Huck Finn' Off Reading List



## MA-Caver (Mar 22, 2007)

I found this rather upsetting.


> *'Huckleberry Finn' wins a first round in St. Louis Park*
> Parents' request to have it removed from high school's required reading list was rebuffed, but they plan an appeal.
> By Dan Wascoe, By DAN WASCOE
> Last update: March 21, 2007  11:10 PM
> ...


Basically almost anything written by Twain is a classic (IMO). Now because of a word people want it removed. Might as well have a book burning and lets throw in a few hundred more books with the same word in it. 
I talked to a black co-worker about this at my job today. He thought it was stupid just like I did. He's read the book, (in his younger days) and he said he wasn't bothered by it and he still isn't. He told me he understands that's the way people talked back then, the word was a means to describe a man of color... back then in the deep south along the Mississippi river. Now, it's degrogatory...anywhere, and depending upon it's use and context it should be. 
I'd thought we'd grown up since the publication of the novel in 1885. Maybe we have... or I should say... MOST of us have. Some people are still thin skinned enough to let this bother them. 
Well, okay, but to judge a book simply of a word? As I remember it both Finn and Sawyer told a great story about growing up in the south after the civil war. 
Yet here, author   Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes: 





> This misses the point. Words are not value-neutral. They express concepts and ideas, and often reflect society's standards. If color-phobia is one of those standards, then a word as emotionally charged as "******" can reinforce and perpetuate stereotypes. It can't be sanitized by overuse. It can only send a signal to non-blacks that it's OK to use the word.
> 
> Even some black defenders of the "N" word have recanted. After a trip to Africa in the late 1970s, the comedian Richard Pryor stunned a concert audience by pledging that he would never use the word "******" again. Pryor, who had made a career out of using the word in his routines, softly explained that the word was profane and disrespectful.
> 
> ...





> Another author Charles Taylor, writes: January 22, 2002 | "I am addressing the contention that the presence of ****** alone is sufficient to taint ... any ... text. I am addressing those who contend that ****** has no proper place in American culture and those who desire to erase the N-word totally, without qualification, from the cultural landscape. I am addressing parents who, in numerous locales, have demanded the removal of 'Huckleberry Finn' from syllabi solely on the basis of the presence of the N-word -- without having read the novel themselves, without having investigated the way in which it is being explored in class, and without considering the possibilities opened by the close study of a text that confronts so dramatically the ugliness of slavery and racism. I am addressing the eradicationists who, on grounds of racial indecency, would presumably want to bowdlerize or censor poems such as Carl Sandburg's '****** Lover,' stories such as Theodore Dreiser's '****** Jeff,' Claude McKay's '****** Lover,' or Henry Dumas's 'Double ******,' plays such as Ed Bullins' 'The Electronic ******,' and novels such as Gil-Scott Heron's 'The ****** Factory.'"
> 
> And why stop there? To the list that Randall Kennedy provides in his new book "******: The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word," you could add Joseph Conrad's "The '******' of the Narcissus," Dick Gregory's autobiography "******" (with its touching dedication to his dead mother, "If you ever hear the word '******' again, remember, they're advertising my book"), the stand-up comedy of Richard Pryor or any historically accurate discussion of racism or the civil rights movement.
> 
> ...


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## Empty Hands (Mar 22, 2007)

The point of the n-word in the story isn't to portray "how people talked."  It was gratuitous even for the late 1800's.  Twain deliberately had Huck use excessive amounts of this word to contrast the attitudes of the surrounding culture, and Huck's own internalized attitudes, against Huck's realization of Jim as a real human being.  Without that word, a big part of the impact of the story is lost.  In the end, Huck would rather be damned to Hell than betray his "******" friend.

On another note, why are we going through this controversy yet again?  Will "Catcher in the Rye" be next?  Here's for the vain hope that people would have grown up a little in the last hundred years.


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## Cryozombie (Mar 22, 2007)

Oh, they should not ban the book, they should just re-write it the way Family Guy did and call him N-word Jim.​


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## bushidomartialarts (Mar 22, 2007)

much as i share macaver's concern, this sort of thing isn't worrisome to me.

huck finn, catcher in the rye, farenheit 451, anne frank...they all wind up on the chopping block in some school district every few years.  end result:  the motion gets denied and the media attention sells a few extra copies of the book.  if i were a smart literary agent, i'd be actively _trying_ to get books 'banned' in podunk school districts.

what concerns me more is the economic censorship that's creeping deeper and deeper into our culture.  albums and books get changed or banned entirely out of pressure from wal-mart or barnes and noble.  many ideas (some of which are reprehensible) aren't available because the large chains won't carry them.

the 'in school censorship' of the huck finn type doesn't hurt.  it gets too much attention, too many people get uptight.  besides -- the best way to get a teenager to read a book is tell them they shouldn't.  this other sort is sneaky, insidious and downright dangerous to the marketplace of ideas our nation is founded on.


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## shesulsa (Mar 22, 2007)

Empty Hands said:


> The point of the n-word in the story isn't to portray "how people talked."  It was gratuitous even for the late 1800's.  Twain deliberately had Huck use excessive amounts of this word to contrast the attitudes of the surrounding culture, and Huck's own internalized attitudes, against Huck's realization of Jim as a real human being.  Without that word, a big part of the impact of the story is lost.  In the end, Huck would rather be damned to Hell than betray his "******" friend.
> 
> On another note, why are we going through this controversy yet again?  Will "Catcher in the Rye" be next?  Here's for the vain hope that people would have grown up a little in the last hundred years.



Contextual usage is the argument and I agree.  However, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to delay the required reading of books with these now-unacceptable words until a higher grade and older age.


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## Empty Hands (Mar 22, 2007)

shesulsa said:


> Contextual usage is the argument and I agree.  However, I'm wondering if it wouldn't be a good idea to delay the required reading of books with these now-unacceptable words until a higher grade and older age.



The article in question involved a 10th grade girl in an Honors course.  I would hope they could manage when and when not to use unacceptable words by then. 

Generally though, I see no reason to restrict works on the level of "Huck" or "Catcher" past 6th grade or so.  Hiding words away and making them only available to the older just gives them a power and allure they don't need to have.  Younger than that, kids might have trouble with appropriateness.  Generally though, kids are smarter than we give them credit for.  I would have no problem with my kids reading any of these works at any age they expressed an interest.


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## exile (Mar 22, 2007)

Empty Hands said:


> The point of the n-word in the story isn't to portray "how people talked."  It was gratuitous even for the late 1800's.  Twain deliberately had Huck use excessive amounts of this word to contrast the attitudes of the surrounding culture, and Huck's own internalized attitudes, against Huck's realization of Jim as a real human being.  Without that word, a big part of the impact of the story is lost.  In the end, Huck would rather be damned to Hell than betray his "******" friend.



EH's point is one that countless exasperated critics have made over several generations. We know that Twain hated slavery and bigotry, and if anything goes out of his way to make it clear that Jim is Huck's moral mentor and, at times, real-world rescuer. Huck is the complete innocent (as vs. his opportunistic hustler friend Tom Sawyer), who uses the vocabulary his background has provided him to state truths that are very uncomfortable for that background. What Huck's repeated use of the N-word does is damn the smug society that that taught him that word, but failedbecause of his fundamental _goodness_to train him to the arrogant white supremacy that the word conveyed to those who used it. More than one critic has noted that one of Twain's themes, especially strongly expressed in _Huckleberry Finn_, is that culture attempts to corrupt the individual and often succeeds, but doesn't necessarily do so every time; in the end, some people rise above their upbringing. That's Huck.


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## Xue Sheng (Mar 22, 2007)

Let them change Huck Finn and what book do you think they will they change next. Could be just about any book they feel is offensive, ok now what do they think is offensive. The Iliad depicts violence, so lets edit that next, Just about anything by Hemmingway likely offends someone so why not edit that too. Oh and Poe, lets not forget Poe... he's too depressing and dark so lets say it was a Macaw instead of a Raven a Macaw is a much more colorful bird. oo oo and lets not forget Shakespeare suicide and death thats offensive.

Lets just chuck the lot and read books about smurfs okie dokie

Please oh please make these people go away.


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## Kacey (Mar 22, 2007)

There was a story I read years ago about banning a particular edition of "Little Red Riding Hood", not because of the words, but because the picture of Little Red Riding Hood showed a bottle of wine (appropriate to the time when that edition was published) in her basket.

For more information on banned books, visit the American Library Assocation (ALA) Banned Books Week site.


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## Carol (Mar 22, 2007)

Xue Sheng said:


> Lets just chuck the lot and read books about smurfs okie dokie



Mmmmm Hmmmm.  A community that's all men save for one woman.  Like THAT's gonna fly.


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## Andrew Green (Mar 22, 2007)

and a COMMUNIST community with only one woman at that.


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## Amazon (Mar 22, 2007)

Maybe next we should ban "Hardy Boys" books for excessive use of the word ejaculate.....


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## Carol (Mar 22, 2007)

Nancy Drew ejaculated also...


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## Steel Tiger (Mar 22, 2007)

In the UK some uptight group wants to have the Famous Five books (a long time children's favourite) rewritten because two of the Children are named, wait for it, Dick and Fanny.


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## Dave Leverich (Mar 22, 2007)

Lol, and Jalopy, I had to ask dad what the heck a jalopy was... It's funny how time changes what words are commonplace.


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## Jonathan Randall (Mar 22, 2007)

bushidomartialarts said:


> much as i share macaver's concern, this sort of thing isn't worrisome to me.
> 
> huck finn, catcher in the rye, farenheit 451, anne frank...they all wind up on the chopping block in some school district every few years. end result: the motion gets denied and the media attention sells a few extra copies of the book. if i were a smart literary agent, i'd be actively _trying_ to get books 'banned' in podunk school districts.
> 
> ...


 
Bingo!

_The Catcher in the Rye _was the most popular book in mother's all girl Catholic high school in the late 50's/early 60's. Why? Because any student caught with it was whipped with a strap by a sadistic nun. No, the didn't read it to get whippings, lol, they read it because it was FORBIDDEN!

Hey, better to _forbid _classics than junk. My mother's generation read _Catcher in the Rye_, my older sister's read _Flowers in the Attic _(genuine trash).


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## Grenadier (Mar 23, 2007)

_The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn_ is a classic work of literature.  By the time these kids are reading it, they've probably already heard plenty of racial terms, mostly from their peers, internet communities, etc.  

Trying to ban the book, claiming that it's racist, is ignorant, at best.  From what I recall, in that book, Jim was an outstanding character, and portrayed in a positive light, and considered one of the protagonists of the story.  

When I was a child, we read books that were written for the children, and yes, there were books that used the term "******" in it.  Even one of my favorites, _Sounder_, has the sheriff busting into the main character's home, and arresting the father of the boy, saying "There are two things I can smell a mile away.  One's a ham boiling, and the other's a thieving ******."  Then when the boy goes to visit the father in the jail, he's treated very poorly.  

Yes, the term was racist, but the way it was used was to teach us a lesson about how people were treated back then.  We strongly sympathized with the boy, and yes, even his father (who had stolen things from the smokehouse to feed his family).  If anything, such works of literature turned many of us who read those books, *away* from racism.  

Sometimes, these critics need to actually read the books, before deciding that they should be banned.  They're missing the message.


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## Kacey (Mar 23, 2007)

Grenadier said:


> Sometimes, these critics need to actually read the books, before deciding that they should be banned.  They're missing the message.



They should... but it's much easier to be outraged over a word than an issue, and much easier to ban a book than improve the situation that leads to the word having such a negative context.


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## Empty Hands (Mar 23, 2007)

Amazon said:


> Maybe next we should ban "Hardy Boys" books for excessive use of the word ejaculate.....



Jesus Frank, what did you do that for?!?


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## Touch Of Death (Mar 23, 2007)

Carol Kaur said:


> Nancy Drew ejaculated also...


Damn I need to read me some Nancy Drew.
Sean


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