Well I think it’s ridiculous to get rid of the word nigger from The adventures of Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer. It just shows that people have no respect for the work of art. And what do they achieve by using the word slave instead? A time will come when someone might find that word slave offensive as well.
I think people like Roger Ebert are mad. You need to change the mindset, if you’re so very offended by the word nigger. Although I agree nigger is a racially insensitive word, but they don’t realize that they would ruin a great work of art. I don’t think any writer would approve of it.
Huck Finn is a masterpiece & yet it has been challenged by the world from time to time. Being politically correct will not change the world. There are far bigger things to worry about rather than raping a novel, cause people cannot stand a certain word.
Don’t you think school kids need to know about the real world & how things were at that time? We need to wake up. It’s like deceiving ourselves. And what the hell is less offensive word? The meaning doesn’t change by using pretty word. When a writer uses a particular word, there ought to be a reason. Slavery itself is offensive & we shouldn’t treat anyone as a slave. But in order to know how bad things are, we need to know the truth…how slaves were treated at that time. By using the word slave, the concept of slavery doesn’t become any better. We are just lying that things were not bad in the past. And For God’s sake, even today people use the word nigger! It’s like using the word love child rather than bastard & presuming that it doesn’t sound that bad. Although it’s the same thing but people are not that nice in any age. Spiteful tongues are alive even today & they were not different 100 years ago.
Doug Mataconis very rightly said:
“Huck Finn is an historical novel for us now. It’s a window into a past that some would say we haven’t fully confronted. Whitewashing (an ironic term for fans of Tom Sawyer) the racism out of Twain’s novels is whitewashing the past, it’s sending the message that hey things really weren’t that bad, when in fact they were that bad, and worse.”
I really like one of the comments:
“Anybody who attempts to degrade anybody because of moral indignation is no better than those they are degrading - no matter what word they use - they're just better at convincing others that they are.”
I think it’s very annoying for the writer when you try to fuck with his work. Many a time, people don’t understand as to why something is written. In both these books, it’s quite obvious that the word nigger must have been common at that time. Some closed minds have problem with everything. If they can’t take a particular thing, they can just fuck it, but no, they would make a noise & make sure the work of art is mutilated beyond recognition. Editing 2 books would not change the things that happened in the past. It just proves that we want a better past & so it’s okay to alter it to some extent.
Last but not least, these are some pertinent question that idiots need to ask themselves:
“Would you rewrite Shakespeare? How about T.S. Eliot? Would you change the words of Maya Angelou? If you didn’t like what Malcom X had to say would you attempt to rewrite what was said in new textbooks? Then why change the words of Mark Twain?”
One more thing. This is what Roger Ebert tweeted in response to New South Publishing’s announcement that the N-word which appears in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a total of 219 times would be deleted : "I'd rather be called a N***** than a Slave."
And Roger Ebert got some very nasty tweets lately. You can’t call it constructive criticism. Actually his wife is African American. Anyhow he apologized immediately after being besieged by extremely harsh criticism.
"You know, this is very true. I'll never be called a N***** or a Slave, so I should have shut the **** up," Roger Ebert tweeted.
