Yay, censorship! The troops are having a blast!
Editor and Mark Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben has decided to censor Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and turn it into a soft, comfortable, politically correct book. In his edition, Mr Gribben replaces the word “nigger” with “slave” and also changes “injun” to “Indian.”
What he seems to fail to realize is that he’s sacrificing an important aspect of the book in order to make it suit prevailing sensitivities. Huckleberry Finn is a book with a strong anti-racist message (Huck helps his friend, Jim, escape from slavery), a work that’s supposed to make readers feel uncomfortable about racism. Making the story more comfortable goes against its very message.
History isn’t all bright and cheery and should be presented as it was. It’s not right to make uncomfortable history feel comfortable just so people aren’t offended by it. Censoring Huckleberry Finn is “a well-intentioned act of cultural vandalism and obscurantism that constricts rather than expands the life of the mind.”
I mean, what’s next, putting jeans on Michelangelo’s David because prudes might be offended?
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