Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Schools continue to grapple with 'Huckleberry Finn'
Philadelphia Inquirer ^ | 12/11/15 | Justine McDaniel

Posted on 12/11/2015 7:32:03 PM PST by markomalley

After The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in 1885, the book was boycotted in some places in the United States for portraying friendship between a black man and a white boy.

"In its time, it was derided and censored," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, deputy director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, which tracks challenges to books.

Today, Mark Twain's classic - about a boy who flees his abusive father and travels down the Mississippi River with an escaped slave - is still sometimes challenged in American schools, but for nearly the opposite reason: its liberal use of the N-word and perceived racist portrayals of black characters.

This week, a Montgomery County school removed Huckleberry Finn from its curriculum after a group of students said the book made them uncomfortable.

(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.philly.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; US: Pennsylvania
KEYWORDS: 1885; 1stamendment; banned; blackkk; bookburnings; books; education; freespeech; huckfinn; huckleberryfinn; imherehuckleberry; marktwain; pc; pennsylvania; safeplace; samuelclemens; waronfreespeech
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last
To: markomalley

The part with the duke and the dauphin was tedious.


21 posted on 12/11/2015 7:50:06 PM PST by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: eyedigress

“Liberals have a big problem with reality, whether it be now or ever”

They are “progressive”, or “forward looking”, because they don’t want to examine or even admit to the existence of the bloody trail of ruin that was caused by them in the past!


22 posted on 12/11/2015 7:53:49 PM PST by The Antiyuppie ("When small men cast long shadows, then it is very late in the day".)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG
There are defects, for sure...the part near the end when Jim is a prisoner goes on way too long (Tom Sawyer has to go "by the book" in the proper way to free Jim).

The chapter about French is a hoot. Jim out-argues Huck even though Jim is wrong and Huck is right, as any reader will immediately realize. Once when I was in Europe I saw an English reader for high school students taking English as a foreign language--it had that as their selection from Twain.

23 posted on 12/11/2015 7:56:05 PM PST by Verginius Rufus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: TontoKowalski

I’ll take your word on this. Books I have are all non-fiction in the era.

Eliminating the works of Samuel by the left is something I will never understand.

History is where it all begins. It is who we are.


24 posted on 12/11/2015 7:56:31 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]

To: Mears
Reading the novel as a vehicle to convey a hidden meaning is what was done in that era. You can teach the time, the country and look for meaning beyond the n word. And you are right the f work is in every song, killing cops is in every song and we are worried about a great novel?

Liberals are fascists. They might call me a bigot, racist, muslim doubter but they are the true fascists.

25 posted on 12/11/2015 7:57:51 PM PST by Kozy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: Verginius Rufus
Those poor foreign students! I can only imagine.

Like Baron Nucingen speaking broken Alsatian French in Balzac's "La Comédie humaine."

26 posted on 12/11/2015 8:02:04 PM PST by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

What a sorry-assed world we live. Clemmons wrote of life he lived and observed in his era. Huck, Tom, Injin Joe , and Jim were my childhood friends. (Forgive me Aunt Polly, you were the practical and grounded adult). I read and re-read Clemmon’s books many times as a youth. Those that take political umbrage to Clemmon’s books are so lacking in intellect and literary understanding. These are the same idiots that took our Stephen Foster’s music without a murmur from the unwashed. Shame on us! I am still extremely pissed that I could not find an un-edited , “politically un-correct” copy of “Tom Sawyer” or “Life on the Mississippi” to give to the grand children. Try searching for “Song of the South” featuring Uncle Remus. Good luck with that!


27 posted on 12/11/2015 8:04:03 PM PST by fuzzthatwuz
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: BuffaloJack

What would that appraise for? curious


28 posted on 12/11/2015 8:05:32 PM PST by uncitizen (Pray for Donald Trump)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

And those @$$hole$ don’t have a clue that “Nigger Jim” was a GOOD GUY. And that Huck never felt that he was any better than Jim. Sam Clemens was ahead of his time. Obama is WAY behind the times!


29 posted on 12/11/2015 8:09:24 PM PST by JimRed (Excise the cancer before it kills us; feed & water the Tree of Liberty! TERM LIMITS NOW & FOREVER!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
heather has 2 mommies photo: Heather Has Two Mommies heather.jpg

There is other literature they'd rather "grapple".

30 posted on 12/11/2015 8:11:09 PM PST by Snickering Hound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

Maybe we should nitpick Shakespeare and Homer. I’m sure there is a lot of material there. Some one is suing the Met for showing the Classical Art depiction of Jesus as racist?


31 posted on 12/11/2015 8:11:26 PM PST by Starstruck (I'm usually sarcastic. Deal with it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG

Here are ten great American novels that students should read; Moby Dick, the great American novel ever written, my favorite the ultimate struggle of good and evil; East of Eden; Catcher in the Rye, Huckleberry Finn; Scarlet Letter; Great Gatsby; Grapes of Wrath, Old Man and the Sea, Catch-22, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Some others are Gone with the Wind, On the Road, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, All the Kings Men, Red Badge of Courage.

Read and learn what was happening in America and how we were formed. The good, the bad and the ugly.


32 posted on 12/11/2015 8:13:59 PM PST by Kozy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: Kozy

I haven’t read most of those.

I did like “Young Goodman Brown.”


33 posted on 12/11/2015 8:19:15 PM PST by MUDDOG
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 32 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

Exactly the same as ISIS blowing up Palmyra.


34 posted on 12/11/2015 8:20:10 PM PST by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

Just call it a hiphop novel.


35 posted on 12/11/2015 8:24:29 PM PST by bigbob ("Victorious warriors win first and then go to war" Sun Tzu.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: eyedigress

I drank my safe space ;)


36 posted on 12/11/2015 8:29:11 PM PST by leaning conservative (snow coming, school cancelled, yayyyyyyyyy!!!!!!!!!!!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: leaning conservative

Always buy extra safe spaces when in town.

Your credits come from combat.


37 posted on 12/11/2015 8:37:52 PM PST by eyedigress ((Old storm chaser from the west))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 36 | View Replies]

To: eyedigress

“Eliminating the works of Samuel by the left is something I will never understand. History is where it all begins. It is who we are.”

You answered your own question; they are removing the WASP contributions to the founding & building of this country from memory, and replacing it with history starting with the end of slavery, focusing on Jim Crow, women’s suffrage, and the Stonewall riot. The WASPs, like Tolkien’s elves, are disappearing, and being replaced with people who could never have built this country (and are quite content to flush it down the tubes).


38 posted on 12/11/2015 8:43:09 PM PST by kearnyirish2 (Affirmative action is economic warfare against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: FlingWingFlyer
According to the commie libs, “the churldren” are a hell of a lot smarter than we are.

Really. Every time I hear a teacher say, "I learn more from them than they do from me," I think, "Then you're an idiot."

39 posted on 12/11/2015 8:44:46 PM PST by Jeff Chandler (I shot Schroedinger's cat with Chekhov's gun.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: MUDDOG
Go read Old Man and the Sea. Just an old fisherman and a marlin and never giving up. A tale of man's strength to survive.
40 posted on 12/11/2015 8:45:08 PM PST by Kozy
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-70 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson