POLITICAL CORRECTNESS REVISES HUCKLEBERRY FINN

While there will always be some revisions of history based on conflicting versions of certain events, most historical facts are indisputable and should never be revised for the sake of political correctness.

Granted that the word ‘nigger’ is very offensive, not only to black people, but to many whites as well. There should be no place in the vocabulary of decent folks for the ‘N’ word. However, unpleasant as it may bee, that ugly word has had its place in the history of our country.

Case in point. Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is considered to be one of the most outstanding novels ever written by an American author. The book was actually an indictment of slavery and is recognized as such by most scholars. But the book has been condemned by modern day civil rights activists because the word ‘nigger’ appears in it 219 times.

Auburn University English professor Alan Gribben has found an Alabama publishing house that will publish his revised version of Huckleberry Finn. Gribben has substituted the word ‘slave’ for each of the ‘N’ words that appear throughout the novel. Gribben claims he did so only because the inclusion of the ‘N’ word has caused Twain’s book to disappear from the bookshelves of our libraries and public schools.

I doubt if all that many blacks were offended by the novel as Mark Twain wrote it before civil rights acitivsts started making a racial issue out of it. Gribben’s revision is a clear cut case of political correctness clashing with history. The book merely described the way things were during Huckleberry Finn’s time. History should never be revised for the sake of political correctness.

Gribben explained, “I found myself right out of graduate school at Berkeley not wanting to pronounce that word when I was teaching either ‘Huckleberry Finn’ or ‘Tom Sawyer.’ And I don’t think I’m alone.’

Hmmm, so Gribben did his graduate work at Berkeley. That explains it! Berkeley is this country’s cradle of left-wing academic radicalism.