Posted on 01/19/2009 2:18:25 PM PST by Free ThinkerNY
Reporting from Ridgefield, Wash. -- John Foley figures he has pretty much maxed out on explaining to African American mothers why it's OK to call a black man the N-word -- as long as it's in a novel that is considered a classic.
For years, English teachers have been explaining away the obvious racism in Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." And for years, the book that perhaps best explains Americans' genetic predilection for hitting the road, only to later find themselves, has stayed near the top of many high school reading lists.
However, with an African American about to be inaugurated as president, Foley wonders whether 'Huck Finn' ought to be sent back down the river. Why not replace it with a more modern, less discomfiting novel documenting the epic journey of discovery?
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Does anyone even realize that there were Blacks that owned slaves?
LOL...yes, I thought that the moment I sent it. Have you read Twain’s “on the damned human race”? He states: “People don’t think, they think they think”.
LOL! You do the right thing. Keep up the good work!
There are two groups of such lunatics. One is an arm of the red menace, relentlessly worky to discredit, defame, and ultimately destroy all vesitiges of our culture. I think this guy is one of those. The other group , true bona fide gnumbskulls who are often unwittingly (talk about a double entendre) used to great effect by the former group, never grasp that the work is a brilliant satire of the highest order. Twain's treatment of Jim—arguably, the ONLY truly noble and and consistently just character in the entire work—is an INDICTMENT of slavery and the prevailing attitudes toward race in American at that time.
Kipling has fared even worse over the years and for the same reasons.
Give it time and Graves, Owen, Sassoon, et al., will be gone for their "glorification of the horrors of war" [sic]. In due course, I suspect Shakespeare and Homer will meet the same fate, too. Fables, parables, analogies and the like have no instructive value in the minds of such folks, because intrinsic morality and civility have no worth in their ideal of a mono-everything-matic “flat-line” society.
Meanwhile, The Color Purple, My Three Gay Dads, and all things Judy Blume are shoved into my third-grader’s mind daily.
While they're busy banning Huck, let us make sure we remind them to go after Twain's writings on jingoistic America and the subjugation via colonialism/"Empire Building" of its Spanish-American War “prizes,” too. (/rant)
Did they ever read Uncle Tom’s Cabin? Why or why not is the same language/stereotypes okay in the one, but not the other?
If they have no concept of ‘where they came from’, then how are they supposed to know how to get to where they want to go?
In point of fact, Twain’s books are a very good snapshot of the prevailing attitudes and language of the times and places prtrayed.
I would be more interested in hearing those same African American mothers explaining why it is okay for their kids and thair kids’ favorite rappers to use the same terminolgy at each other.
Twain accurately portrayed the racism of his charcters in order to mock them.
BOOM! Good one, MissEdie!
Thank you for this accurate description of the character development in “Huckleberry Finn.”
Could you perhaps e-mail it to Mr. Foley? He seems to have graduated with some sort of advanced degree in...uh...something, but has failed to learn the lesson any 8th grader of my day would have learned in second period English class.
Regards,
I have very good information that this doesn't come up very often at his school. Maybe that actually makes it a more sensitive issue.
Some years ago I read Huckleberry Finn to one of my kids and I became aware of another problem with this book. In a number of parts it reads as though Twain was rushing to finish a chapter, as if he just wanted to get a certain amount of writing done so he could go do something else.
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