Fucking with History...Again You Bastards???

They say that history is written by the winners. therefore to the victor go the spoils. Yet there are some things that should not be changed simply because it dilutes that which is being purposefully altered. In regards to rewriting Huck Finn and removing the word "nigger" from it: pretending racism never happened and continues happening in America is a worse insult to the African American community than it is to acknowledge that one of the most influential writers of American Literature was just calling it like he saw it. The whole purpose is not for THIS generation to forget, but rather, future generations to never KNOW how a group of people were treated in the United States.

What average grade school child or high school teeanger can tell you of the monstrosities done to the Mayans/Aztecs and other native groups of latin America during the "Conquista?" very few if any, i can guarantee that. the reason being is because they teach people little songs like "in 1492 columbus sailed the ocean blue" and forget to mention all the atrocities committed to others in the name of church and state. but i trail from my point. I dont state Twain was a racist (at least not towards black people. native americans, now that was another story), on the contrary, i've done massive research on the man and he was a brilliantly passionate yet, tormented soul. if the word nigger appears 200 plus times in his literature it can probably be safe to assume that it was spoken 10 fold on a daily basis in the time he was writing it. I agree with my friend Brian Lofing when he commented that the impact that single word has had on an entire group of people has altered their personal journeys for ever because of what the attachments are. 

Native americans are allowed to build casino's on their reservations and they are now "self reliant." that doesnt make up for what was done to them hundreds of years ago. im not blaming "whitey" for this. in my view, it is not a color issue, it is an issue of the first amendment of our constitution. Some would argue that censorship is necessary in order to create a more peace world where tolerance can be achieved. yet censorship, its very nature is INTOLERANT of views that are different from the status quo. Censorship is used to silence, it does not create, it eliminates free thinking. Comparing words such as "papist" and "The Romish Church" to the word "Nigger" is truly comparing apples to oranges. I do not believe that ignorance is bliss. and i do not think that intelligent people do either. if they did, why would they chose to become educated scholars, or even learned for that matter? it wouldn't make sense. 

i agree that derogatory terms are vile across the board and there was a time when being a catholic could get you killed in the first first centuries of the previous millennium. yet in modern history, i have never heard of a latin catholic, or irish catholic, or italian catholic, or [_insert ethnicity here__] catholic persecuted, denied basic rights, and traded as slaves. The African American community was treated much like the Undocumented community is treated in the US now, as second hand-lowered life formed individuals with little to no rights. but i trail off the topic. 

Huck Finn's impact does not lie in the usage of the word nigger, but it is my belief to remove the word is to deny what occurred. African Americans will never forget what was done to them in this country, much like the Japanese will never forget what we did to them during WW2, much like we shall never forget what was done to us on 9/11/01. pretending that it never happened 100 years from now, would be to spit in the grave of all those people that experienced those moments and made them part of their truth. its like those idiots that go around claiming that the Holocaust never happened. I'd known and broken bread with survivors, i've heard the horror stories. to forget is to deny.