Written by Cassandra DeMario

To:

Dr. Alan Gribben
336 Liberal Arts Building
Auburn University
Montgomery, AL 36124-4023

Dr. Alan Gribben,

I’m sure this is not the first letter you’ve received, nor will it be the last, but as a pre-service teacher I feel it is my obligation and privilege to enter the great debate you have started. I agree with you that there is offensive language within Mark Twain’s novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Students exposed to the repulsive N word may be offended, like your daughter was.

In the introduction to your version you write, “We may applaud Twain's ability as a prominent American literary realist to record the speech of a particular region during a specific historical era, but abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day readers.”

This is absolutely true. Modern-day readers do have this reaction. However, isn’t this the effect we want? As a future teacher, I want my students to understand that obscene words have literary merit. Readers are supposed to be disgusted and feel awkward about the words and subject, because that is the desired effect of the author.

As a literary scholar, you are probably aware of the obscenity trial against Lawrence Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” in 1957. During the trial, many literary scholars proclaimed the poem had no literary merit. The rhetoric was argued as repulsive, offensive, and unnecessary. However, the judge overseeing the trial, Judge Horn, deemed that the work has “redeeming social importance.” This set the precedent that repugnant language can be a valuable part of writing.

When I get to teach my students how to write a personal statement or write creatively, they will not be censored. I will teach them how to use language and when they can use certain conventions. They will be able to use obscene language if it enhances the meaning of their work, just as Mark Twain did. It’s important for students to know how to use obscene words because the writer’s job is to hold a mirror up to society. This is what I want to teach my students to do, but how can I if they believe obscene words should be omitted like you do? It is important for me to teach that the use of offensive words is a literary choice and tool to develop constructive work. Censoring our rhetoric will only devalue language and how it is used.

You are aware that the offensive words being replaced are important to this country’s past rhetoric. But do you know that these words are also important to today’s rhetoric? Students hear the N word in music, television, and movies all the time. Comparing the use of the word in Twain’s novel to how it is used in media today would be a great way to teach rhetoric, and explain how it changes over time.

Keeping literary works uncensored gives teachers the opportunity to show students the value of rhetoric and creative choices. They can learn how powerful rhetoric can be, and how they can use it in their own writing. I implore you to rethink your position on this issue, and realize the importance that obscene rhetoric has in writing and the teaching of writing.

Sincerely,

Cassandra DeMario

With the new editions of one of America's greatest writer's two most famous works, censorship infringes upon the freedom of speech rights that Mark Twain fought so vehemently for in his lifetime. 

Apparently, with the Amendments to the Constitution, Americans have the freedom of speech until we die, at which time someone else can deem something you've written to be inappropriate, and since you cannot defend yourself, that someone can then censor the text. 

This is the alarming reality that is thrust upon the new year in the US.  NPR has just today released an Associated Press article (NPR.org) on the calamity that NewSouth Books, and Mark Twain scholar Alan Gribben, are bringing about in Alabama.  It seems that no one in America is mature enough to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn or The Adventures of Tom Sawyer that Mark Twain originally wrote.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the fourth most banned book in the US, despite the fact many of the terms that cause it to be deemed inappropriate, were in fact used in a politically correct sense for the time, and it was published in 1885.  In the spirit of Mark Twain I say FUCK political correctness altogether.  The reality is this:  the story has Huck Finn, a young boy, as its protagonist in a world where "nigger" would have been said more than the 219 times that it appears throughout the work.  Twain depicts a real world that his young male adventures in, and he does not sugarcoat one of America's greatest works of fiction.

The reality that characters of slaves, such as the escaped "Jim", or characters of Native Americans, such as "Injun Joe" should be censored to children of any age over six is absurd.  Why can a historical book of fiction, that correctly depicts a world that the protagonist lived in over a hundred and twenty plus years ago, not be realized as a historically accurate account of fiction by students in middle schools and high schools?  Are Americans too stupid to be explained that the term "nigger" that is used by Mark Twain was by no means meant to be derogatory in any way?  Did not Mark Twain seek to bring about sympathy for our African American brothers and sisters (and far ahead of his time I might add)?  Would our young students still be offended if the historical works were explained to them from the onset?

Alan Gribben is working with NewSouth Books to release editions of Mark Twain's writing that will exclude the "N-word" and also change something as innocent as "Injun Joe" to "Indian Joe" and make "half-breed" into "half-blood".  Why?  "Injun" is clearly written this way to invoke an accent and not insult anyone.  What is next?  Are we to take every instance of violence that is seen through the eyes of a child, such as Huck Finn, and then censor that?  Clearly our parenting and teaching do not factor into out kids' moral behavior as much as 19th century adventure stories written by perhaps the greatest American author and artist of all time.

I thank God that I grew up in New York at a time where I was allowed to read Mark Twain's masterpieces.  And I read them uncensored.  I hope that people will wake up, remember the First Amendment and speak out, so that my future children can also read significant pieces of literature uncensored. 

Please continue to email Gribben about this atrocity and continue to spread the word that censorship is mortally harmful to art and literature in particular.  He says that people email and complain, but skirt the issue because they do not use the "N-word"; well I say that if "nigger" is not meant in a derogatory matter then by all means include "nigger" in the emails to this farce of a Twain scholar.

The solution is not to censor the books so that schools do not ban them, it is to get the schools to open their minds and teach the uncensored American classics.  Should others govern the way we live our lives?  I have a feeling Mark Twain would have said, "Fuck no!" to that.

By R.J. Huneke