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Huckleberry Finn Censorship

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For many years, American society enslaved African-Americans, considering them to be absolute property. After their emancipation, they still did not possess the right to freely vote in numerous states. The lasting effects of this racially-marked history manifest themselves today in a wide variety of mediums, including television, music, police brutality protests, and in a controversy surrounding a two-syllable word—the “n-word.” With a major spike in American progressivism, a heated debate has ignited over the appropriateness of the n-word in literature, including its usage in Mark Twain’s world-acclaimed classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Centered around the journey of a young boy, Huckleberry Finn, and a slave, Jim, around the Mississippi river, Twain incorporates within it moral and anti-racial lessons through characters, events, and its unique regional …show more content…
The censorship of history textbooks, as is currently happening in districts around the country, “obliterates the genuine purpose of any history curriculum: to expose students to diverse and often conflicting perspectives, situate complex viewpoints in time and place and identify silences in the historical record,” (Lindberg, 1). Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, offering students an accurate look into the crippling racism of America’s past, also functions as a vital historical educational tool. Its usage of the n-word furthers its educational value by exemplifying students’ exposure to historical discrimination. Furthermore, the n-word strengthens students’ understanding of the derogatory attitudes held by American society towards African-Americans. As such, it betters their understanding of various perspectives held in American history. By removing the n-word, the novel’s educational value will be greatly diminished, similar to what has happened with the censorship of history

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