It was recently announced that the publisher of Mark Twain’s Huck Finn is reissuing the book with some minor tweaks – it will remove the 200 hundred or so mentions of the n-word and replace it with the word slave. The reasoning behind changing the work lies in the fact that the n-word is so controversial that the book cannot be included in high school reading lists. Removing the word will reinstate the book – and the publisher makes some money on the very notorious tome with its now fixed non-PC language.
The n-word elicits too many questions. Too much conversation. Too much…thinking. Children of age 15, or so, simply can’t comprehend the context in which the hideous word is used. What a crock! Let’s dumb down America’s youth even more. Let them continue to teach themselves how to communicate on multiple social media platforms but fail to teach them how to participate in a conversation that requires critical thinking. No wonder the U.S. is ranked 30 something in the world in education.
It’s too bad Mark Twain doesn’t have a say in all this. His book is now in the public domain therefore, eligible to be “tweaked”. So does this mean anything in public domain is subject to change? A hateful, but often used, word can be erased from history? A time in history told by one of America’s most prized citizens can be altered in order to avoid uncomfortable questions? Sheesh. Thank god there are still documents that can be read in its entirety – like The Constitution.
Oops. Bad example.