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Adam Munich

Fri Jan 07 2011, 02:53PM

Registered Member #2893 Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242

"A new effort to sanitize â€œHuckleberry Finnâ€ comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twainâ€™s novel that replaces the word â€œniggerâ€ with â€œslave.â€ Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his charactersâ€™ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River."

The editing of historical text to suit what we feel is appropriate to todays society is akin to Nazi book burning. No difference at all.

dmg

Fri Jan 07 2011, 03:43PM

Registered Member #2628 Joined: Fri Jan 15 2010, 12:23AM
Location:
Posts: 627

I find it slightly funny how nigger is considered offensive while the other names or insults towards other races (whites, natives, etc etc) of people are considered not as serious or even are found humorous by todays society.
you don't see anyone freaking out over calling someone a cracker now do you?

people need to get over this crap IMO...

same concept. different collection of letters.

Adam Munich

Fri Jan 07 2011, 05:49PM

Registered Member #2893 Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242

I'd rather be called a nigger than a slave. Twain was ridiculing racist people in the book too, so this is really sad.

Wolfram

Fri Jan 07 2011, 07:03PM

Registered Member #33 Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 01:31PM
Location: Norway
Posts: 971

GBD wrote ...

I find it slightly funny how nigger is considered offensive while the other names or insults towards other races (whites, natives, etc etc) of people are considered not as serious or even are found humorous by todays society.
you don't see anyone freaking out over calling someone a cracker now do you?

people need to get over this crap IMO...

same concept. different collection of letters.

You don't think history has anything to do with this?

quicksilver

Sat Jan 08 2011, 12:16AM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Frankly this is NOT the 1st time Huck Finn has been pulled from schools in the US. In fact several books have been pulled for reasons running the gambit of "PC-offensive language" to issues such as religion & Civil War interpretation.
Even in universities, films such as "Birth of a Nation" were disallowed from study because of interpretation (in that case there was some point to the romanticizing of the KKK) but from a cinematographic perspective this was not done with "Triumph Of The Will".
Censorship is not uncommon: most any internet feed in certain ["Freedom of Expression"] countries will show this to be true.
"Political Correctness" has legs because of the often used "Slippery Slope" argument - in that, where does one draw the line in permissiveness?

klugesmith

Sat Jan 08 2011, 12:33AM

Registered Member #2099 Joined: Wed Apr 29 2009, 12:22AM
Location: Los Altos, California
Posts: 1716

Did anyone hear about the history book
banned by both Israeli and Palestinian education ministries,
because it presents both perspectives on facing pages?

Hazmatt_(The Underdog)

Sat Jan 08 2011, 01:11AM

Registered Member #135 Joined: Sat Feb 11 2006, 12:06AM
Location: Anywhere is fine
Posts: 1735

Then someone should make the BOONDOCKS Huck Finn where all they say is "NIGGA" througout the whole film. Oh and I guess the film would have to be made by a black person because if a white person makes it, it will be claimed to be racist by some jewish lawyer somewhere.

The world is mad.

Oh and I can say whatever I like about jews because I'm half, so it's my right to criticize.

quicksilver

Sat Jan 08 2011, 03:29PM

Registered Member #1408 Joined: Fri Mar 21 2008, 03:49PM
Location: Oracle, AZ
Posts: 679

Examining the Israeli / Palestinian issue may be a question of age & emotional maturity to be confident of seeing opposing sides of any discussion. Adults don't do such a damn good job of that either. In the reasoning, the Israeli book was pulled (IMO) for management & de-escalation of "hot-buttons".:
"The book, â€œLearning Each Otherâ€™s Historical Narrative,â€ is a joint Israeli-Palestinian production by the Peace Research Institute in the Middle East, funded by nongovernmental organizations and several Western nations, including the U.S. On the left-hand side of each page, it presents the history of the region through an Israeli narrative, and on the right-hand side, through a Palestinian narrative. A middle column is reserved for students to write their thoughts."

The repetition of anxiety, anger, or many forms of emotionalism a very real phenomenon and a book which sets up concrete thinking such as "I hate (blank) because someone I loved died at their hands" is a difficult thing to control & while it may be ideal to have empathy with others of opposing view points, the political end has exploited that phenomenon too much for it to be easily controlled.
Polarized political camps are extremely difficult to work with. It MAY be thought that this was "feeding the fire".

If we have such easily exploited issues such as verbiage, imagine what difficulty exists in the middle east, where TV cartoons for preschoolers are politically oriented, etc (See Saudi Arabia TV Cartoons, their content, etc).

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