NEW YORK, NY – According to Publishers Weekly, a new edition of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn will omit all uses of the ‘n’ word!
Readers have long complained about the use of racial slurs in Mark Twain’s novels. His book Huckleberry Finn had been banned in over 700 public schools across the country for its use of the ‘n’ word and phrases like “Injun.”
But after receiving too many complaints from infuriated readers, NewSouth Books, the publishers of Huckleberry Finn, have finally decided to remove the ‘n’ word from the book.
“We’re just giving the people what they wanted,” said Mark Firestein, CEO of NewSouth Books. “Readers wanted the ‘n’ word out, so we took it out. We also took out the words nevertheless, nitpicket, and nuts – just to be safe.”
The new edition of Huckleberry Finn will replace the real ‘n’ word with the phrase “equally-represented minority person” wherever it occurs. The word appears over 270 times in the text of Huckleberry Finn.
As expected, some readers are accusing NewSouth of censoring a literary classic.
“This is complete censorship,” said political activist Tori Allegeheny. “We can’t just sit by and watch as these corporate publishing companies alter our sacred texts. Next thing you know, they’ll try to take the word God out of the Bible!”
However, some educators say that taking the ‘n’ words out of Huckleberry Finn will allow minority students to better enjoy the book.
“I’ve known students who refused to read Huck Finn because of all the racist language,” said Mary Wilder, a 7th grade teacher from Kansas City. “They’re offended that a famous author would use such bigoted language. But if the publishers took that word out, I’m sure more students would want to read it.”
We at Weekly World News are constantly worried about the freedom of the presses to say whatever they want. Now its time for Weekly World News readers to help us decide: is the new edition of Huckleberry Finn a case of revision as usual or political correctness gone awry? Defamation of a literary classic or a well-needed improvement? Let us know!
I think the n-word should be replaced with
the less offensive "jungle bunnies" term instead.
After the new non offensive version comes out why don't we get Winston Smith to burn all previous editions of the book. It will then be like it never really happened. Hopefully after we forget our history we won't be doomed to repeat it. We must stop morons who believe in revisionism. This was part of our history, not a nice part, but a part none the less.
I know Ed Anger would back me on this, the 'n' word is the white man's word. Us white people invented it and if they want to take it away it only proves that they're thieves as well. Now it's time to compile a library with books that include the 'n' word to save American History.
That's just horrible.
I know this is supposed to be humorous, but seriously, it was by reading Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer that I first realized that some people in the time frame in which the books are set thought that blacks weren't actually people at all. There is a very powerful line in one of the books that I probably couldn't get away with typing here, but it shocked me into understanding that racism was/is real, not the joke I thought it was as a child. Dehumanizing blacks by calling them (the n-word) was important to being able to justify enslaving them. People should never forget that and reading these works with their racist portrayal of blacks is a visceral way for people today to understand how things were back then.