Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” – a book in publication since 1884 - apparently doesn’t qualify for the first amendment to the United States Constitution. It has…that word in it. “A 2011 edition of the book, published by NewSouth Books, replaced the word ‘nigger’ with ‘slave’” (even though being incorrectly addressed to a freed man) “and did not use the term ‘Injun.’ The initiative to update the book was led by Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben, who said the change was made to better express Twain's ideas in the 21st century." (CNN.com, 2011)

“Much modern scholarship of Huckleberry Finn has focused on its treatment of race. Many Twain scholars have argued that the book, by humanizing Jim and exposing the fallacies of the racist assumptions of slavery, is an attack on racism. (Fishin, 1997) Others have argued that the book falls short on this score, especially in its depiction of Jim.” (Leonard, et al, 1992)

Either way, it’s revisionist history. It’s been said that “If man doesn’t learn from history, then he is doomed to repeat it.” But as long as the revisionists are at it, since that phrase could be deemed sexist, the Revisionist would need to change it to some gender-neutral term like “they”, right?

Anyway, how on earth can we expect mankind to learn from history if it keeps getting polished up, cleaned up or rewritten so to be less offensive?

Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake here; I am not condoning racism. I'm not advocating a return to slavery. Far from it. I'm merely pointing out the cold, hard and sad fact that a lot of history is unpleasant and offensive. To avoid repeating those unpleasant, discriminatory, ugly, violent and obscene incidents in history they need to stay just that - unpleasant, discriminatory, ugly, violent and obscene.

To clean them up any so as to make them more sensitive, tolerable and palatable for study, simply makes them less unpleasant, less ugly or less obscene, nay it risks making an event as ugly as systematic racism and as obscene and vile as the Holocaust less feared and appalling and thus much easier to repeat. This is the danger of revisionist history.



References:

All above taken from Wikipedia, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” (but referenced individually below) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adventures_of_Huckleberry_Finn, taken January 25, 2011

Staskiewicz, Keith, EW.com, “New edition of 'Huckleberry Finn' to lose the N-word”, January 5, 2011, http://edition.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/01/04/new.huck.finn.ew/ taken January 25, 2011.

Leonard, James S.; Thomas A. Tenney and Thadious M. Davis (December 1992). Satire or Evasion?: Black Perspectives on Huckleberry Finn. Duke University Press. pp. 2.

Shelley Fisher Fishin, Lighting out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).