Banned Book of the Day: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

"Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it." - Mark Twain

Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn couldn't catch a break from the very beginning.  As early as 1885, the book was locked out of library collections for using slang - imagine, the scandal of a book that used "sweat" instead of "perspiration"!

Today, this kind of reasoning seems crazy.  But Huckleberry Finn is still getting heat today.  A school in Arizona was sued for making the book required reading, and a recent publication of the book has censored certain words.

So what's the fuss?  This book is a classic; why a lawsuit to keep it out of schools?

The answer is: the "n-word."  Commonly used in Twain's time, the term has incredibly offensive connotations today; the parents of Tempe, Arizona didn't want their children exposed to that kind of language.  The repetition of the word has been enough to make some English teachers hesitate to use Huckleberry Finn in class.

This debate is especially interesting considering Twain's strong disgust for racism; he would probably be horrified if he knew Huckleberry Finn was being taken as racially offensive.  

So what's in a word?  Should an entire book be dismissed for using language no longer acceptable today?  Is it better to censor the "n-word" out of the book and sanitize it by today's standards, or is it important to remember a terrible part of America's history when racism was a natural part of life?