Is it just me or is this just beyond insane.

Taking the word "nigger" out of Huckleberry Finn? Are you fucking kidding me? Mr "Mark Twain scholar" are you totally high? Surely you cannot possibly think that children in schools these days haven't heard it a million times in films, on television and in music. At least if they read the book they can actually see the historical place it has in the English language, understand the context and perhaps gain a better perspective on why it is such a slur.

I'm not sure what actually annoyed me most about that article; the fact they are removing the word from the book, or the fact everyone in the article and most of the comments can't bring themselves to say it despite its genuine place in the discussion. If you are fighting so hard to keep it, at least have the balls to use it in context.

This is just another case of parents/adults trying to play the "Now it's not our fault" game because they are too fucking lazy to deal with their own children and admit their mistakes.
They aren't doing any form of service. They will find out about this n word one way or another.
How do I know this? I was a kid once. I had to read And Then There Were None. When I had to do a book report on it, I discovered it was called Ten Little Niggers. Did I start running that word off at the mouth? Nope.
Besides, it's used all over the radio and television anyways and it's not as if anybody is trying to prevent that garbage from being heard or seen. So why the hell change what is considered to be one of the biggest children's classics of all time?
In fact, this scholar is anything but. He misses the point. That's like taking the word out of To Kill A Mockingbird: A story about how some dismiss racism and others target it. The word was used for a reason. Anybody could be a slave: Asians were slaves, Africans were slaves, even Caucasians can be slaves depending on where, when and the situation. This does not prove the point Mr. Twain was going for.
It's all cowardice and changing the wrong damn things. It's like changing the cookie monster to the vegetable monster. Are many American kids any less fat? Fuck no, because their parents are mindless cunts.
Such imbecilic bullshit.

I've not read "Ten Little Niggers/Indians/Then There Were None (delete as you see morally fit)" but I really feel like I should now. I totally agree on To Kill a Mockingbird (one I need to re-read, it's been too long), it would kill the entire story if you removed it from there. It was not intended to shock and appall, it's meant to convey a sense of the time period the book is written in.

Reactionary bullshit like this I feel is responsible for a lot of what I percieve to be wrong in the world. Like you said, parents bitch and whine about advertising junk food to kids, yet they are the ones in control of their children's diets. If you have a problem with your kid being fat, OWN IT, do something about it, stop buying the candy and the chips.

Likewise if you have a problem with your child's behaviour or use of profanity then don't try and hide from it, deal with it. Sit your child down, talk to them about language. I know "fuck" is probably the most versatile word in the English language, but there are many many more that can express emotions far more adequately.

Jesus, this turned into a whole other rant didn't it?

Dunno if you have ever read The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay. It's probably my fave book of all time, read it first when I was about 11 (remember doing an oral presentation on it in high school and I'd already read it at least once by then anyway).

For those who haven't, The Power of One focuses on a young boy named Peekay growing up in South Africa in the late 1930s, witnessing apartheid and racism first hand. It's very much a period piece, and is very true to its location in Boer South Africa. If they were to remove the racist terms (kaffir being the one that springs to mind) from The Power of One it would weaken it to the point of ridicule. You can't have a piece of literature that features true to period race relations in such a key role and not retain the language of the time.

My opinion on this is that it's bullshit. How dare they change someone's original writings. I mean seriously, why don't they just go change the bible while they are at it. There are things in that book that have been proven inaccurate but are still in it. This happening is a sign of the times. The radio show i listen to during the day calls it the "pussification of america" but I guess they can call it the "pussification of the world." The world is becoming so politically correct that its rediculous. some examples from the radio show is how now when 8 kids play musical chairs there are 8 chairs so no one gets left out. another example is how when kids play sports, they all get trophys. this has been going on for a while though cause when I was in soccer when I was younger, I got so excited because I received a trophy that said M.V.P. on it. My cousin was also on my team so I ran up to him in school and told him and then he said, "what?! I thought I was M.V.P.!" what we realized is that every kid who was on the team won M.V.P. this is rediculous. kids need to learn how to win and how to deal with losing. now back to this niggerdum. nigger is a word. If kids cannot deal with it, then they can skip over it.

You know what? I was so caught up in the fact they are changing the word for political correctness it hadn't even occured to me that they are changing a classic piece of literature.

Seriously? I'm reminded of the bit in Footloose (bite me, I like that movie) when they have a go at the books and start burning them outside the school. Is that what we'll get to next?

CiaraCobb wrote:You know what? I was so caught up in the fact they are changing the word for political correctness it hadn't even occured to me that they are changing a classic piece of literature.

Seriously? I'm reminded of the bit in Footloose (bite me, I like that movie) when they have a go at the books and start burning them outside the school. Is that what we'll get to next?

The thing is they changed nigger to slave. I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually changed it again to something like servant. Plus the only reason they are doing this is to sell books. Now schools will buy this book again just to not offend people!

An obscure way to boost a sector of the economy for certain...

Not book-related but on the same topic, I'm from Bristol which played a massive part in the slave trade and this reminds me of when they wanted to rename two of our most famous streets: Whiteladies Road and Blackboy Hill. We were appalled because you don't learn from history by burying it and erasing it and pretending it never happened. To me that was MORE offensive, that was like the city was trying to wash its hands of our part in the whole period, instead of leaving it intact as a testament to how far we've come: to begin with we were the biggest port in the slave trade, but later on we were also the first to refuse to continue to take part. As a port town we are also incredibly racially and culturally diverse and that is a huge part of our heritage and our present and something that we're proud of.

But also at the same time, until they mentioned changing them no-one batted an eyelid over those names, most people probably didn't even make the connection, they were just road names and people weren't really analysing them. I hate it when people create problems where there actually was none and political correctness is the worst thing for that - it makes things 'wrong' and shameful and secretive when there never needed to be an issue at all

Having grown up in Bristol I never even made the connection between Whiteladies Road and the slave trade history of the town, but that's insane. I understand road names/place names evolving over time through one thing and another, but that's craziness.