By John Gilstrap
Well, it’s official. The keys to the asylum are now the property of the patients.
Just when I thought we’d hit the firewall of political correctness and Universal Nannydom, it turns out there’s farther to go. In an effort to protect the delicate sensibilities of our children (why is madness so often touted as protecting children?)—and, I suspect, to make life easier on overwrought and over-watched teachers who are so frequently thrown under the bus by their administrators—Auburn University English Department Chair Alan Gribben has rewritten The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, one of the great works of American literature, to remove the n-word and other “offensive” terms so that the generation that considers John Stewart to be a journalist won’t have to think too much.
Professor Gribben told USAToday, “When the young reader is staring at the word five times on a given page and the instructor is saying, ‘Mark Twain didn’t mean this and you have to read it with an appreciation of irony,’ you’re asking a lot of the young reader.” Perish the thought. God forbid that school become a place for, you know, thinking and stuff.
It’s interesting that he focused on irony, because Gribben went on to tell USAToday, “All I’m doing is taking out a trip wire and leaving everything else intact. All [Twain’s] sharp social critique, all his satirical jabs are intact.” Read that last sentence again. I shudder that he a) uttered this nonsense without irony, and b) he’s allowed to teach English classes.
By the way, the good professor is also sparing us the offense of the words “Injun’” (yes, the famed bad guy is now Indian Joe—better, I suppose, than Oppressed Native American Joseph), and “half-breed,” which will now be half-blood. You know, like Huck Finn and the Half-Blood Prince. Perhaps we can exchange the raft for a flying broom.
Tell me this isn’t happening. I’ll stipulate that the n-bomb is perhaps the most offensive word in the English language, and that I would never use it in my writing, but how can anyone be so presumptuous as to change the work of one of the greatest writers this country has ever produced? It’s not even a dead word, for crying out loud. (Listen to the radio stations that teenage boys are listening to, if you don’t believe me.)
As offensive as it is, and as evocative as it is of bad times in America, the n-word is, at the end of the day, a word, and context matters. I can’t think of a single case where that particular word is used to better effect than in Huck Finn. The whole book is a treatise against racism and Jim Crow laws. Surely the chairman of an English department knows this. Talk about your slippery slopes! In Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens routinely refers to Fagin as “the Jew” and trust me, he doesn’t mean it in a good way. Is it time to re-write that book as well?
Look, I readily admit that I don’t know how to teach an English class—I barely know my parts of speech, and I’m a lazy reader—but I know right from wrong, and this is wrong. Great literature is supposed to make you squirm and think. Teachers are supposed to embrace the squirming and transform it into learning moments, perhaps in spite of parents and administrators who are pre-wired to take cover if anyone takes offense. (One is reminded of the humiliating 1999 incident in which Washington, DC, Mayor Anthony Williams forced the resignation of senior staffer David Howard for using the word, “niggardly” (it means miserly) the appropriate way in the appropriate context during a meeting.)
In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Professor Gribben blamed his atrocity on the fact that such a great American classic is one of the most banned books in America, all because of the presence of the n-word. Now my head is going to explode. His mission is to enable book-burners.
Dammit, people of all colors are supposed to understand that Mark Twain was one of the great crusaders against racism. They’re also supposed to appreciate irony. And they’re supposed to be really, truly uncomfortable with some elements of history. That’s good for everyone, even the children.
When he wasn’t busy offending future soccer moms, Mark Twain was something of a philosopher. Among his many quotable quotes is one that goes something like, “the difference between the nearly-right word and the right word is the difference between the lightning bug and lightning.”
Professor Gribben is a bug.
Killzoneblog.com
Perhaps the single best Gilstrap post, ever, ever. And that is saying a mouthful.
How about professor of Unwriting? Writing a book is hard, dewriting is easier.
Well said, John G. It seems there’s always someone out there who thinks they know what’s best for us. For his next project, maybe Professor Gribben will take on cleansing the Bible, and shield us from all that sex and vilence.
Nicely penned.
Bravo!
Fine fulminating, John. I will give a bit of benefit to Prof. Gribben, who is a Twain scholar with a good reputation and, I think, motive: to keep Twain in high schools. But good motives do not always produce good results. This is such a case.
What schools are increasingly doing is censoring material that might “offend”, rather than teaching students to think issues through (as John says). So “teach the controversy” is the better approach. What a great opportunity this would be to tackle the whole issue and help students work through it.
See the African American Twain scholar, Jocelyn Chadwick, formerly of Harvard, who takes that approach in The Jim Dilemma: Reading Race in Huckleberry Finn. She argues against removing the N word from Finn, calling it counterproductive and immature, actually hurting a full confrontation with the nation’s racial past. Twain meant the book to be painful, Chadwick points out, and that very pain is the power in the novel.
How about a future where only underground academics will have original Huck Finn copies complete with Injun and Honkey. The Bible will be reduced to feel-good Cliff Notes. Once everything is only in digitized form changing offensive passages or words in books will amount to key strokes, or wiping out whole libraries using the delete key. No need for a Ministry of Proper Works, just a few hooligans with fingers.
Bravo, John!!
Tampering with past literature is tantamount to defacing the Pieta, or Mona Lisa, or rewriting Beethoven’s Fifth.
I applaud your outrage against this insanity. I vote that your blog be posted on the evening news and the front page of every newspaper (God, forbid, they, too, may be banished by dawn!) and magazine–including chidlren’s Hi-lights–in the country. I’m going to add this link to my social media pages to pass on your voice of reason. You have my vote, sir!
The good professor’s action offeneded me. His rationalizations offend me even more. Just another brick laid in the path to the dumbing down of America…
And we wonder why our children can’t compete? How can they if they aren’t taught to think critically?
Sigh…
Those problematic words have been removed, just like the obsolete sections of the Constitution that weren’t read at the opening of this year’s Congress. Increasingly in our public spheres we read, and hear, only what we want to read and hear. If it’s nasty or embarrassing we send it down the memory hole, a la 1984.
Here’s an interesting perspective from Rick Riordan, who is both a successful novelist for both kids and adults, as well as a former middle school English and history teacher (and former student of Professor G’s, interestingly enough).
http://rickriordan.blogspot.com/2011/01/huck-finn-controversy.html
I suggest we send the good professor the collected works of Juvenile — the rapper, not the poet — let him sit in a rubber room and censor THAT.
I <3 you.
Thank you, John, for saying so eloquently what so many of us are thinking. When discussing this online with a friend, he mentioned that Jim should no longer be a slave, but a non-consensual field worker.
The people perpetrating this cleansing put me in mind of some people in Germany in the late thirties, you know, the other n-word, the folks who would probably be referred to as semetically-challenged.
Awesome post. I agree. This is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Twain meant for the reader to be uncomfortable with the ‘n’ word. He wanted them to think. But I guess it’s too much to ask children to think anymore, to analyze rather than always look for the quickest road to Outrage Avenue. This is the same crowd that doesn’t want to give grades b/c it might hurt some poor kid’s feelings. And we wonder why our educational system is so bad?
The widespread agreement is heartwarming. I’m generally resistant to slippery-slope arguments as they tend to be too Chicken-Little-esque, but this is the kind of action that could too easily become a trend.
Mark, thanks for sharing the link to Rick Riordan’s post. I understand his point that it takes courage for Dr. Gribben to take this approach, but I wonder if his personal admiration of the man isn’t getting in the way of his reasoning. I think it takes far more courage to fight the good fight in the face of parental opposition and student discomfort than it does to sidestep the issues that cause the discomfort.
Jim, the fact that Jocelyn Chadwick is herself African American makes the message resonate more clearly. And the mere fact that it does is even more reason to embrace the larger lessons of Huck Finn.
Kathleeen, I’ll take all the publicity I can get! 😉
Patricia, ditto what you said.
Kathryn, I’m not sure I entirely see your point. The political theater of reading the Consitution from the floor of the House is certainly good fodder for debate, but that effort was not one of censorship, but merely to keep things current. (Why read about the establishment of prohibiton only to read about its repeal a few minutes later?)
Thanks for the words of support, Matthew, but I confess that you made me cringe a little. There’s a whole lot of distance between the the stated goals of Dr. Gribben, and those of the Nazis. I’m not suggesting that you didn’t already know that, but I just wanted to be clear.
John Gilstrap
http://www.johngilstrap.com
Well said, John. Changing the words in the great American novel by Mark Twain seems the same as painting a toothy grin on the Mona Lisa. Write on! I’m passing this post on to some English teacher friends.
What I’m saying is that as a society, when we don’t like the flaws in an original work, we excise them by editing or omission.
Regarding the Constitution, I think it would have been a valuable civic lesson for the public to hear a reading of the original document, plus its later amendments. It would have given people a chance to understand that the Constitution has changed through time. By not including the entire original document, only its current version, some people may not realize that the Constitution is in fact a living document, not set in stone by the Founding Fathers.
I agree. This is a travesty. I’m appalled at what this says about the educational system in this country. The whole point of reading the book is to provoke discussion about Twain’s intent, and by changing the words he wrote, that discussion is an empty exercise.
Of course it’s an atrocious word. But if we whitewash the past, how can our children know how far we’ve come as a nation?
First and foremost, I agree with Gilstrap’s post.
But I can’t believe most of you others do. These are the same people who lauded James Scott Bell’s post about not using the f bomb.
Now you’re all speaking out against cleaning up literature.
If you fail to see the connection between these two blog posts, I don’t think you’re thinking the subject through enough.
But the most truthful, crucial part of this whole post is when Gilstrap mentions that the N word is the most offensive of them all.
Taylor, to be fair, there is a difference between slicing up an established classic of literature (with the author long dead and unable to protest) and making a decision about what language to use in works yet to be written by those of us writing today.
People who say they don’t, as a rule, like F bombs in current books are not therefore saying they “like” the N word in Huck Finn. They simply recognize that it’s the book Twain wrote and that it should be left alone and discussed openly.
My niece says that they are doing this in her school right now. I asked if James Fenimore Cooper or Shakespeare was next on the school’s list… Then I asked her if they were going to be fair and start rewriting all of the rap songs to make them more “correct” (she thought that was fair).
Not only are they going to lose classics, they will loose the craftsman ship of language and pieces of language itself as well as the ability to discuss differences in language, time, history, and situations. Soooooo Sad.