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Jan 5 2011 10:27pm
I need a little rant tonight after a disappointing defeat for team Canada. I figure taking a stab at a book and the American public not understanding the difference between racism and historical accuracy.

Here goes:

So I read in the paper today that the publishers of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the classic novel written by Mr. Mark Twain is now going to be censored. The "N" word will be removed in all parts, because it's a racist and terrible word that should never be spoken (unless of course you're ANY black comedian, or really ANY comedian besides a white one, but that's another story).
My question is WHAT THE HELL? Literature is a dying medium. Mindless American Icons have become authors, and people will read their books not for literary appreciation but rather for some media trend. This is getting ridiculous.
Snooki, Snooky, Snookie, (I don't care, I'm sure she has a hard time writing her nick name as well) has now managed to write a book. I'm sure the vocabulary is limited to party words, or words no larger than those in the Caillou series, but she has written a book and the media is in a frenzy
Sarah Palin, a pathetic figure in politics who was hidden in Alaska for a clear reason, being that her handicap is similar to GW Bush's, has also written a book and here we are destroying the works of a true author and figure in literature.
You ought to be ashamed America, Huck Finn is by no means a racist book, but simply a historically accurate one. The "N" word is by no means intended to be offensive in this classic, as it refers to the slaves, who were referred to by this outdated and horrible term. I don't have the book beside me, so I disregard the page reference and I'll give myself the honor of paraphrasing a small scene from the book.

Huck and Jim are discussing King Solomon. Huck is attempting to explain the point of the story while Jim is refusing to listen. Huck then says to himself (as the narrator) "You can't learn a "N" to argue"
Now will someone explain to me where this is racism? If that word clearly refers to a slave, then it should be just fine.
If you replace that sentence with the word slave, it now seems historically wrong and does no justice to the novel. Huck didn't free just any slave, he freed a black slave.
So let's look at that same phrase under the censorship idea.
"You can't learn a black man to argue"
That's racism my friends. Generalization at its finest..

Team Canada, you let me down. Huck Finn, you were a terrible inspiration for a terribly organized rant with little to no direction. But I feel better.
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Jan 6 2011 01:14am
I read about this, too. It really is a travesty when the whole point of the book is that Huck decides he'll go to hell to help Jim escape. Sad to say, though, political correctness is no newer than people reading trash. Ever heard of Collie Cibber? Henry Fielding skewers him and his pot-boiler crap back in the 1700's. Anyway, look on the bright side. If we all pretend that nothing bad ever happens and read our Oprah book club selections then we'll all have great self-esteem. Maybe next they can write Nazi's out of "Night" and the KGB out of "The Gulag Archipelago."
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Jan 7 2011 09:46pm
Censorship kills books.

Quote
For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencia of life in them to be as active as that soule was whose progeny they are; nay they do preserve as in a violl the purest efficacie and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous Dragons teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet on the other hand unlesse wariness be us'd, as good almost kill a man as kill a good Book; who kills a Man kills a reasonable creature, Gods image; but hee who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, kills the Image of God, as it were in my eye

-Sir John Milton, Areopagitica, 1664
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Jan 8 2011 11:25pm
Quote (Wakeskater77 @ Jan 7 2011 10:46pm)
Censorship kills books.


I want to vent in this topic, but you said it perfectly.
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