That and this thread is screaming for this:Quote:
Originally Posted by RickJ
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That and this thread is screaming for this:Quote:
Originally Posted by RickJ
No it doesn't . It changes a word and in exchange you have one of the best works of one of America's greatest authors taught again in schools in exchange.Quote:
I do see it as a harm... because they are changing what is actually in the book to someone's politically correct idea of what SHOULD be in the book. That changes the Authors intent.
How many different revisions of the Bible are there ?
Isn't that more related to the original being in a dead language?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Nope most of the revisions I've read are 20th century versions.
Not the same... Who wrote the original Bible? Wasn't a single author there. And it spans several Milenia to boot. With huge changes in spoken languages over that time. And as you know... with the discovery of the dead sea scrolls they found how far off certain translations had become.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Mark Twain didn't speak or write a language that isn't easily understandible or even much different than most people of his region today.
Reason I say that is if you were fluent in any second language you would understand translation... and the fact it is never done literally because basic sentence structures between different languages vary a great deal. Its about learing the words and interpreting them as they might be used if it was originally english. That leaves room for interpretation AND error. None of the bible was written in Modern English. Unless you are mormon.
Do a literal translation of German or Spanish or Italian... you would ask what sort of drugs are they taking... because word placement and structure are far different and can approach jibberish.. I understand Russian and Arabic are far worse but I know NON of those.
That's true with the bible... not true with Mark Twains books.
I agree with you censoring some work that was written more than a century ago is total B/S. If n*gg*rs were n*gg*rs back then then it is a true reflection of that society, why sanitise it. Are you afraid the term will come back into general usage? Now if the term were to appear in a recent work you might consider changing it but what happened to free speech in the land of the free, not so free anymore? When you begin censoring books you are one step away from burning themQuote:
Originally Posted by smoothy
This argument is over the top. No one here is talking about burning Mark Twain. To me censoring means banning, and no one, no one is suggesting that Huck Finn in all its original glory be banned. The discussion is instead about making available a version with altered words, with the intent of making a work available to people who otherwise would not have a chance to read it. The question is this: Given that some school districts will not allow books with the N word in them to be part of the curriculum (as silly as many of you think that is, that's a fact), if you were the teacher would you (a) use a version in class with the word "slave" substituted for the "N word" 200 times (and I would add clearly point this out to your class), or (b) not offer the book at all? Those are the only choices many teachers will have.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
It would be preferrable to allow the teacher to demonstrate the racism contained in the attitudes of the people of the day and to do the job of teaching why this attitude is no longer acceptable. I wonder why people are worried about this word when the "F" is in common usage and is just as offensive. Is it guilt for the repressed racist feelings? Talk about double standardsQuote:
Originally Posted by ebaines
I completely agree with ebaines on this . The choice here is clear. IF you don't offer a somewhat sanitized version for the classroom you don't get it in the class room at all. What a shame !
Huck Finn is too important a work to be denied so there really is no option here.
Is it Huck Finn any longer?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Wikipedia says, "The book is noted for its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River. Satirizing a Southern antebellum society that had ceased to exist about twenty years before the work was published, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is an often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism."
I suggest that is still quite present in the work without the one objectionable word.
I grew up in the South hearing that word spoken every day by whites in either a scornful or joking way about blacks.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
I say omitting the "objectionable word" greatly dilutes the book's impact and moral.
In library grad school, in the censorship course, we were assigned to read a number of books including Heather Has Two Mommies. It would be the same with this book if the two mommies are made to be just good friends, not lesbians.
Then another generation of students don't get to read it... your choice;because you know the biggest reason for it being banned is that word .
I frankly don't get it . All they need to do is be up front about the revision ,have the editor write a prologue explaining the reasons for it.. and unleash the teachers . Nothing is changed except the fact that an offensive word is omitted from the text. Have you considered that the word itself has changed since Twain used it ? It was not anywhere's near the derogatory word it is today. The word slave ' is an easy substitute in the book ,completely in context.
I can determine without reading the word that Jim is the good guy and gentleman ,and the whites encountered are the scum of the earth.
What is more powerful?. the use of the word.. or Huck's realization that Jim is a human ,in contrast to what he has been indoctrinated to believe... and his ultimate decision to help Jim become a free man , despite what he believed would be damnation ?
And got to thinking
Over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn’t seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind. I’d see him standing my watch on top of his’n, ‘stead of calling me, so I could go on sleeping; and see him how glad he was when I come back out of the fog; and when I come to him again in the swamp, up there where the feud was; and such-like times; and would always call me honey, and pet me and do everything he could think of for me, and how good he always was; and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had small-pox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he’s got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.
It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
“All right, then, I’ll go to hell” — and tore it up.
It was awful thoughts and awful words, but they were said. And I let them stay said; and never
Thought no more about reforming. I shoved the whole thing out of my head, and said I would take up wickedness again, which was in my line, being brung up to it, and the other warn’t. And for a starter I would go to work and steal Jim out of slavery again; and if I could think up anything worse, I would do that, too; because as long as I was in, and in for good, I might as well go the whole hog.
Hell the blacks that cry the loudest use it more often today than Klansmen at a rally in the deep south ever did, and to me that's the height of hypocrisy... and that doesn't include what you hear them call Koreans and Latinos. And I have personally heard that more often than I ever care to.Quote:
Originally Posted by paraclete
And I actually do know someone that was at one time the Imperal Dragon. He softened his stance a lot in the years since as he got older. And it was him that told me that, and we are talking over 30 years ago. Sorry nothing more specific that might identify him. Wasn't me... I was a kid back then... a young one.
Who's banning it?Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Why go to all that trouble? Use the original edition.Quote:
I frankly don't get it . All they need to do is be up front about the revision ,have the editor write a prologue explaining the reasons for it
Did you see my list of 100 books earlier in this thread? Should we change all of those to reflect the concerns of the people who didn't like something in each book?Quote:
Nothing is changed except the fact that an offensive word is omitted from the text.
It wasn't derogatory back then because whites accepted it as a legitimate description of/synonym for black people.Quote:
Have you considered that the word itself has changed since Twain used it ? It was not anywhere's near the derogatory word it is today.
It's a cop-out.Quote:
The word slave ' is an easy substitute in the book ,completely in context.
The common use of the word in that time and society is the contrast needed when Huck realizes Jim is human.Quote:
What is more powerful?. the use of the word.. or Huck's realization that Jim is a human
Hello again, tom:Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
I didn't know that you were so pro PC.
excon
This will help introduce one of the greatest American books back into the classroom without severely compromising content.
As it stands now with your rigid position ,Huck Finn is among the top banned books in American classrooms.
Point is it shouldn't BE banned at all. Nor should the Bible be.
We aren't talking descriptive instructions for handballing, with illustrations.
Its Mark Twain... Hell, back when I was in elementry school we read it... and got our butts paddled if we misbehaved or balktalked to the teacher...
Today they can't read Mark Twain... and they can say and do anything they want short of bringing a gun to class... and if the teacher says anything they get suspended, not the student.
See some real problems there...
It should not be banned.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
Hello again, tom and smoothy:
Right wing, meet the Tea Party. It's going to be a fun couple years.
excon
Wonderful sentiment . I'm talking the way it is ;not the way it should be.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
Btttttttttttp.Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Going to take a few years just to fix the stuff Obama screwed up the last two years with Princess Nancy and Prince Harrys help via rubber stamp.
Just because WE on the right don't blindly believe everything we are told to beilve by the Messiah and his minnions... doesn't mean we aren't entitled to have our differences in opinion.
We all know you get excumminicated from the DNC for blaspheming the Messiah, or not doing or believing as you are told.
I may not agree with Tom on this specific issue but I still respect him.
Besides we aren't that far off . I'm just saying this issue should not be defined in the ideal .
Yeah it's great that books "shouldn't "get banned . But they are in our school districts ;and truth be told ,it isn't a consevative or liberal thing .
The real issue here is how do you get this classic ,which should be taught , into the classroom and satisfy the objections. To me changing the word n* to slave does not change the story one bit.
Look at the text books that go into the classroom now .They are heavily edited for content . Often the complete text of a piece of lit. is not even introduced to the student... only the excepts that the someone else decides is worthy.
Let's not exaggerate this into a book burning or some kind of insidious censorship .
Hello again, tom:
If changing a word to make it more acceptable to some people is good, then that's what we should do... But, it AIN'T good, and I didn't think you thought it was.
excon
You got to pick your battles . I'm not making a line in the sand on this if it means a generation of students don't get to read Huck Finn.
Political correctness just keeps getting more ridiculous. I was hoping it would run it's course and create a backlash but it seems to go on and on. I wonder if civil liberties will oppose this. These books were a product of their time and changing words is like erasing history and it is very wrong. Even in the very PC mid-90s, I had to read parts of "Mein Kampf" in university and there was no controversy about it.
This isn't university we are talking about . This is public schools and it is very much an issue .
I also observe that not once in this entire discussion has anyone outraged by the proposal used the word in question .
Why... didn't need to.
Don't use a lot of other words that are in the english language too. Don't feel they should be banned either.
Perhaps we should ban the work cracker... because Blacks use it a slander against Whites... and substitute the British word Biscuit.
Somehow Ritz Biscuits doesn't sound the same.
Or if you wanted a biscuit sandwich, how would you know what you were really getting before you saw it...
(an FYI, a Biscuit Sandwich typically is a fresh American style biscuit with a slice of baked Virginia ham on it with or without cheese) VS a cracker sandwich wich is usually cheese spread or peanut butter between crackers.
I've taught Pre-K through 8th. Fourth graders and up could handle it.
Heck... I bet you've heard far worse langue in those lower grades as well from those kids.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wondergirl
Actually, no. I taught at Lutheran grade schools. Even in our suburb, there were/are no concerns about use of bad language. Of course, if I drove east to 16th and Harding (Lawndale) where I had done my student teaching.. .Quote:
Originally Posted by smoothy
Here is original text.
Quote:
I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn’t see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we’d done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he’d got to be a slave, and so I’d better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she’d be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she’d sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn’t, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful nigger, and they’d make Jim feel it all the time, and so he’d feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a nigger to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I’d be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That’s just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don’t want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain’t no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven,whilst I was stealing a poor old woman’s nigger that hadn’t ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there’s One that’s always on the lookout, and ain’t a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn’t so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you’d a done it they’d a learnt you there that people that acts as I’d been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.”
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn’t try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn’t come. Why wouldn’t they? It warn’t no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn’t come. It was because my heart warn’t right; it was because I warn’t square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that nigger’s owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can’t pray a lie — I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn’t know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I’ll go and write the letter — and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
And here is the text revised . It doesn't change anything except now it will be read and taught in schools:
Quote:
I thought till I wore my head sore, but I couldn't see no way out of the trouble. After all this long journey, and after all we'd done for them scoundrels, here it was all come to nothing, everything all busted up and ruined, because they could have the heart to serve Jim such a trick as that, and make him a slave again all his life, and amongst strangers, too, for forty dirty dollars.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell him to tell Miss Watson where he was. But I soon give up that notion for two things: she'd be mad and disgusted at his rascality and ungratefulness for leaving her, and so she'd sell him straight down the river again; and if she didn't, everybody naturally despises an ungrateful slave, and they'd make Jim feel it all the time, and so he'd feel ornery and disgraced. And then think of me! It would get all around that Huck Finn helped a slave to get his freedom; and if I was ever to see anybody from that town again I'd be ready to get down and lick his boots for shame. That's just the way: a person does a low-down thing, and then he don't want to take no consequences of it. Thinks as long as he can hide, it ain't no disgrace. That was my fix exactly. The more I studied about this the more my conscience went to grinding me, and the more wicked and low-down and ornery I got to feeling. And at last, when it hit me all of a sudden that here was the plain hand of Providence slapping me in the face and letting me know my wickedness was being watched all the time from up there in heaven,whilst I was stealing a poor old woman's slave that hadn't ever done me no harm, and now was showing me there's One that's always on the lookout, and ain't a-going to allow no such miserable doings to go only just so fur and no further, I most dropped in my tracks I was so scared. Well, I tried the best I
Could to kinder soften it up somehow for myself by saying I was brung up wicked, and so I warn't so much to blame; but something inside of me kept saying, “There was the Sunday-school, you could a gone to it; and if you'd a done it they'd a learnt you there that people that acts as I'd been acting about that nigger goes to everlasting fire.”
It made me shiver. And I about made up my mind to pray, and see if I couldn't try to quit being the kind of a boy I was and be better. So I kneeled down. But the words wouldn't come. Why wouldn't they? It warn't no use to try and hide it from Him. Nor from me, neither. I knowed very well why they wouldn't come. It was because my heart warn't right; it was because I warn't square; it was because I was playing double. I was letting on to give up sin, but away inside of me I was holding on to the biggest one of all. I was trying to make my mouth say I would do the right thing and the clean thing, and go and write to that slave's owner and tell where he was; but deep down in me I knowed it was a lie, and He knowed it. You can't pray a lie — I found that out.
So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter — and then see if I can pray. Why, it was astonishing, the way I felt as light as a feather right straight off, and my troubles all gone. So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote:
Miss Watson, your runaway slave Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.
Hello again,
In the same way the wingers try to whitewash history by changing the words in Huck Finn, they did the same thing when they read the Constitution outloud...
It was SUPPOSEDLY a very patriotic event pushed forward by the wingers in congress... But, they LEFT OUT the part they didn't like, I suppose pretending that it didn't happen.. Kind of like they pretend black people weren't called niggers... But, it DID happen. Slaves were counted as 3/5th's of a person in our Constitution. And it's there for all to read (except outloud in the congress).
I thought PC (pretending) was something liberals did... No, huh?
excon
They read the part that was the law of the land today. You don't think the 3/5th clause applies today do you ?
If it was the Democrats that did it they would have left out the first and second amendments... because they don't believe in anyone else's freedom of speech... or having the ability to rise up against them when they try to declare the Constitution, unconstitutional. (yeah I know YOU are pro 2nd amendment unlike so many of your brothers)Quote:
Originally Posted by excon
Not quite. They had no problem reading the part about US Senators being appointed by their state legislatures, although that was changed by the 17th amendment. Or the bits about Presidential succession, changed by the 25th amendment.Quote:
Originally Posted by tomder55
The reality is they didn't read the part about "non-free" persons counting as 3/5 of a person because it woud have been an embarrassing TV moment - imagine the poor person assigned to read that out loud, and how his opponent would exploit that clip in ads at the next election. They also didn't include the two amendments dealing with prohibition.
We have slaves today? How can I get one... I'm tired of yard work.
I'm not serious... thats a sarcastic comment just to be clear.
Hello again, tom:
Of course not... But what was the purpose of reading it in the first place? Certainly NOT to pay homage to the founders. Certainly, not to honor ORIGINAL INTENT. If anything, you wound up pointing out that the Constitution is a living breathing document that GROWS with time. You confirmed that ORIGINAL INTENT has NOTHING to do with the reality of today...
Perhaps it's an unintended consequence.
excon
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