I sometimes wonder if people even bother to READ these books.
Yes, the book uses the N word. Yes, it’s a very insulting word.
No, you should NOT be desensitized to it!
But do people not pay attention to context? Hello, the book was written in the 1880s, and set in the 1850s! You cannot write a book about slavery set in the 1850s and NOT use the word “nigger”. As much as I loathe that word, I loved the book. You cannot judge a book written in the 19th century by our standards of decorum today.
People, guess what? History is very, very ugly. LIFE is very ugly. And sometimes, in school, we have to face this.
Yeah, Life’s unfair. I agree with Guin. However, I’m not going to stop trying to change what imbalances I can. Some may see that as “whining”. So be it… I’m still going to take action, whether it be by speaking up, or doing more.
If it is any consolation, Huckleberry Finn has always been controversial. Even when it was first released, it was criticized for what was then considered “harsh language,” so the controversy is nothing new for everyone alive today.
I remember getting to read it in class about 6th grade. A little above my reading ability at the time, but one of the students had an older edition with illustrations, the funniest picture was the Duke and Dolphin tarred and feathered.
IIRC, the only part of the book that made Jim stupid was the “Sollerman” debate with Huck. Other that that, Jim was about the most survival wise character in the book.
Argh. Did you see why the other books were banned? (paraphrasing)“teaching kids to be disobedient to authority”. Noooooo! Children should be taught to blindly follow authority and never have their imagination stimulated apart from in authority-sanctions manners.
And yes, it is just a word. If “nigger” meant “flower” and flower nigger, then people would be all for banning books with the word flower in them. It’s the conotations of the word that are important, although the acts of young american blacks (is that politically correct?) calling one another “nigger” is such an example of confidence; of taking back dignity lost through the conotations of the word; of making it their own and allowing it to be an insult to them anymore that it’s actually one of the few parts of rap culture I actually aprove of.
It’s still going to be in the library, it’s still going to be available to all students who wish to check it out. Why does it need to be required reading?
Nothing has to be required reading. But a book that is arguably the greatest American novel ever written, a masterpiece, seems to have just a little to recommend it, woontcha say?
The deeply ironic thing about the challenges to Huck Finn is the message of the book is so porfoundly anti-racist. It contrasts Jim’s strong humanity and decency with a wide variety of white people, almost all of which are apalling bufoons. Through his journey Huck struggles with how to deal with a slave who turns out to be a mentor and father figure much more worthwhile than Huck’s own debased father.
I don’t see how anyone who has thought about the book for more than a minute could find it racist. Indeed, its use of such a strong epithet, a much more loaded word now, perhaps even adds to its anti-racist message.
Ok not this case as I see the people complaining are black but I have heard many complaints from other people concerning HK.
I think a lot of people don’t like the fact that their forefathers were racist bastards. Yeah morality has changed etc. but racism is racism no matter how a certain society supported it. I’d bet the majority of slaves would have call their owners racist.
These people just don’t like facts about the past hitting them in their face. They don’t like that their great grandfather owned a cow that was slightly less value than the human being they had chained up in another shed.
Jim was a nigger piece of shit to most of the white people he met. The book shows the hatred and inequality heaped on black people in the US(no dig at the US BTW the world was like this, in fact the Irish in the US were pretty good at it themselves) in the past. It should not be banned it should be a mandatory read.
By the way it was part of the syllabus in my school. Ihad to read it when I was 12/13. It made me realise how lucky I was to be born white in 1971 in Ireland but also made me realise how big a cunt humanity can be.
It does. And every student can walk and check it out and read it to their hearts content. The book has anti-racist message. I know that. I knew it years before it was assigned reading because I got a copy and read it. Anyone can.
No one is trying to force students not to read it. What they are saying is that you should no longer force black students to sit through a horrible, embarrasing, humiliating, degrading hour of school every day for a month. Because that’s exactly what it is.
Though I think the teachers at my school meant well, and meant to teach that the book had anti-racist message, the kids in my school who hadn’t already read it on their own didn’t care and didn’t learn. They didn’t get into the prose of the book, they didn’t get the message of the book. They got no (or nearly no) benefit…at least nowhere near enough to balance against my having to go through that. Not just while it was being taught to my class, of course - but every single time it was taught to any class for all 4 years.
[quote] amarinth: If that book was assigned for class study more than one year, then someone should have notified the teacher. English departments are usually very careful about coordinating what is taught in each grade level. More often than not, that is decreed from “on high.” I am skeptical that it was taught all four years. At least one year is usually reserved for British literature.
It may have been very painful and humiliating for you to have to sit through studying Huckleberry Finn and I’m sorry that it was. But you can never know for sure what the benefits were for other people in the classroom. Sometimes kids will put up a big front – especially when they are getting the point.
Since the book is anti-racist, why did you feel humiliated?