Political Correctness Sucks - Part VIII

In my ongoing fight against political correctness I have found another topic to rant about.

Revisionism.

Poet and philosopher George Santayana said: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."

I believe this to be true. I also believe that the past must be remembered as it was and not as we would like it to have been. History is not subject to interpretation.

I'm sure many of us would like it if Hitler had never been born, but he was.

It would have been nice if Kennedy's trip to Dallas had been cancelled, but it wasn't.

I, personally, wish the Red Sox hadn't sold Babe Ruth to the Yankees...but they did.

Wishing something didn't happen is fruitless. If it happened, there is no way to make it un-happen - the only thing you can do is learn from it.

The politically correct crowd doesn't seem to get that. They think that revising history is the same as changing it.

Historical revisionism does have its place in the sense that often times new facts are discovered or new knowledge teaches us that what we once believed to be true is not so. I'm not talking about those things.

Academic revisions are necessary - politically correct revisions are ignorant.

What's stuck in my craw - specifically?

According to The Baltimore Sun there will soon be a re-release of Mark Twain's novels "Huck Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" in which the word "nigger" (which is used 219 times and 9 times respectively) will be replaced by the word "slave".

Let me state, for the record, I think "nigger" is probably THE ugliest word in the English language. I hate it, I never use it and I don't like it when others use it. I will also say that in my first novel, "Living the Dream," I used the word "nigger" twice. I didn't like doing it, but in order to convey the true character of the person using it, there was no other way.

That being said - to re-write two classics of American literature for the purpose of being politically correct is nothing short of sticking our heads in the sand.

Ask anyone who has written, or even attempted to write a novel, about their choice of words. It isn't accidental. A novelist uses the word he feels will convey the idea the best. Mark Twain himself once said that the difference between the right word and the almost right one was "the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning."

The word is in the books because it was a common part of the vernacular of the day, re-writing the book will not change that fact. It will also not help new and future generations understand the period. It is even conceivable to say that it could lead to a recurrence.

How will future generations learn about the attitudes and mind sets of the 19^th century if we continue to white-wash them out of existence?

Hitler and the Nazis burned books with "un-German spirit" by authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Jack London and Helen Keller - real radicals for sure. It is commonly accepted that this was a despicable act born out of hatred and ignorance. The Nazis were attempting to alter the thinking of the German people by preventing them from reading books that didn't fit the preferred attitude of the party and when we learn about it in history class it is in the context that it was wrong.

How is the re-writing of "Huck Finn" and "Tom Sawyer" different?

Another question to ask is "what's next?"

There have been countless science fiction books that mention "Martians"...suppose 125 years from now we actually have dialogue with the residents of Mars (if there are any) and we learn that in their culture the term "Martian" is the equivalent of "nigger". Would we then go back and change every book and movie that uses the word Martian to use the word alien instead?

Here's an interesting fact...the Bible uses the word "whore" repeatedly. Will there be a movement to sanitize it by substituting "working girl" or "lady of the evening"?

The man behind this atrocity is Alan Gribben, a 69-year-old English professor at Auburn University Montgomery, who will work with Alabama based NewSouth Books to commit this literary felony.

Gribben defends his actions by saying : "It's such a shame that one word should be a barrier between a marvelous reading experience and a lot of readers."

Since Huck Finn's publication in 1885, 200,000 copies are sold each year. 200,000 copieseach year. If my calculations are correct that would mean that approximately 25,000,000 copies of Huck Finn have been sold - so it would appear that "the word" hasn't stopped too many people from reading it.

Mr. Gribben claims he has received a flood of e-mails voicing disapproval of his plan. He attempts to defend his action by saying... "Not one of them mentions the word. They dance around it." According to him, this proves that "the word" makes people uncomfortable.

Is he serious?

Because nobody used the word nigger in their emails he takes it as a sign that their disapproval is half-hearted or insignificant?

University of Virginia professor, and Twain scholar, Stephen Railton said Gribben was well respected, but called the new version "a terrible idea."

According to Railton "The language depicts America's past and the revised book was not being true to the period in which Twain was writing."

Railton has an unaltered version of "Huck Finn" coming out later this year that will include additional material for schools to use in helping students understand the racism of the time.

That's the way it should be.

Instead of being politically correct and trying to put make-up on the scar...show the scar and explain how and why it happened so people can avoid making the same mistake in the future.

This article is the latest in a series of "anti-political correctness" articles. If you would like to read more of my articles you can find them here.

Thank you.