Significant Moment of the Day: Hanging out with friends from High School
It's funny how I can go to Europe for 4 months or study at school 6 hours away, but whenever I come home I never miss a beat with my friends from high school. Sure we've grown up and apart a little but whenever we get together we never run out of things to talk about...even after 4 hours. They make home all the more special.
Comment of the day: Huckleberry Finn said whaaaaaat? Guess you'll never know.
In modern America, being politically correct is second nature. Most people internally edit their comments, or think before they speak. Those who choose not to are generally termed crazy or Racist. But is always being politically correct really correct?
Did you know Huckleberry Finn is the 4th most banned book in schools? Yep. Huckleberry Finn.
The explanation behind this, is that the book is racially charged and offensive. That it's use of the N-word and other derogatory terms degrade students and their learning. Yes, the terms shouldn't be used in conversations day to day because of the history behind the words. But by not exploiting high schoolers to the terms from the historic point of view, isn't this somehow inhibiting them from knowing and therefore avoiding said term?
Yes, the character Huck uses the word to demean Jim, a runaway slave. But only in the beginning. As the book progresses, the word in itself develops to mean something significant to Huck, into a term he understands. By cutting out this progression, you destroy significant character development, and the book in itself loses its deeper politcal/social meaning.
Maybe I'm completely off base. As Matt Blum says in Wired, "How can we expect children to learn real history if we sanitize it for them?" In the end, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a historic piece. Haven't we learned that you can't change history, but you can learn from it? Maybe schools should think of that before they start x-ing out the words.
Read more about the Huck Finn censorship here
Found this this morning. HA
It's ridiculous. In modifying the words, or changing them, we're therein re-writing our history and manipulating our past. Our children need to be exposed to these things, because even though they are horrible, they still happened, and we need to accept this as part of our history to continue to move forward. Absolutely ridiculous.
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