Good Bye Huck Finn

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Robert Toy

TAYLOR, Mich. — Mark Twain's classic "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" has been pulled from high school classes after a parent of a black student complained that a teacher had students read portions aloud.

There is only one black child in the English class where the book, which contains racial slurs, was read aloud and acted out, The Detroit News reported Thursday.

The book will remain on the shelves at Taylor School District's high schools. The district's curriculum committee will recommend to the school board whether the book should have a future in district classrooms.

"We want to be sensitive to how the children feel," said Lynette Sutton, assistant superintendent for secondary instruction.
Full Story: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,227043,00.html

*sigh*
 

dclary

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Huck Finn has walked the fine line of blasphemy ever since the 60s when book burning oddly enough became favorite activity of civil rights activists (yeah, I know, go figure).
 

WerenCole

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I have taken numerous literature courses on Mark Twain, including one that was specifically on Huck Finn. (Imagine a whole sememster of nothing but Huck Finn. . . it was probably the best semester of my life. . . really.)

Anyway, this conversation inevitably came up. As a class we determined that Huck Finn could be taught at a seventh grade level and in high schools, but that the content matter is truly a college level subject. We made our determinations not on the language of the novel (I don't have my stats with me but I believe the N word is used about 362 times) but the fact that there is a significant amount of violence, hypocrisy and social criticism that young people would simply not understand on a deeper level. Huck Finn can be decieving simple until you take a closer look at it. . . and often very beautiful.

Oh well. . . uppity school districts will always have this dilemma. .
 
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Why are high school students sitting in class reading passages aloud and acting them out in the first place?

Reading for high school students is for home. It's not the 2nd grade.
Plays are for the auditorium.

That's the real travesty here.

Thanks.
 
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The liberal P.C. police strike again.

Why do liberals hate Huckleberry Finn?

This might actually bring out more conservatives on Tuesday.

This story is gaining traction.

You're either for Huck Finn or against him.
 

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billythrilly7th said:
The liberal P.C. police strike again.

Why do liberals hate Huckleberry Finn?

The scary part is that "liberals" and "conservatives" are equal-opportunity censors. They just censor under different catch phrases. Liberals use "political correctness." Conservatives use "family values." Either way, they want to control thoughts and ideas.

Keep on writing and reading, folks. I suppose there's one positive way to look at this: Writing DOES matter. If it didn't, no one would feel threatened by the stories we generate.
 
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MeowGirl said:
The scary part is that "liberals" and "conservatives" are equal-opportunity censors. They just censor under different catch phrases. Liberals use "political correctness." Conservatives use "family values." Either way, they want to control thoughts and ideas.

Yep. It's amazing.

William Haskins actually said it best...something like..."the far fringes of both parties actually circle around and end up meeting at the same spot" or something like that after I mentioned how it used to be the far far lunatic right wing who was anti-semitic and now the far far lunatic left wing is also anti-semetic. (not YOU, Gaffer, the far fringes.)

Essentially, Haskins said all politics was on a circle and somehow the far fringes then meet up and are essentially the same..

Picture a circle...ahhhh, forget it!

I think you get my point.

Thank you. Thanks, Haskins. And thank God.
 

TheGaffer

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William Haskins actually said it best...something like..."the far fringes of both parties actually circle around and end up meeting at the same spot" or something like that after I mentioned how it used to be the far far lunatic right wing who was anti-semitic and now the far far lunatic left wing is also anti-semetic. (not YOU, Gaffer, the far fringes.)

No, I know of what you speak. There's a few areas where the far far left and far far right dovetail, some of them sensible (privacy laws, for instance - it's usually the war protestors worried about the FBI following them, and the gun nuts, hooking up to demand tighter privacy laws, not necessarily a bad thing), and some not so much (the "Israel is South Africa" bunch hooking up with the Nazis in their polite and not-so-polite anti-Semitism).
 

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billythrilly7th said:
Why are high school students sitting in class reading passages aloud and acting them out in the first place?

Reading for high school students is for home. It's not the 2nd grade.
Plays are for the auditorium.

That's the real travesty here.

Thanks.

Bull. Reading is for both places. Acting out scenes is a creative activity that helps engage the students and spurs higher order understanding and thinking.
 
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Then no wonder the Chinese are going to take over the world if we have that type of attitude prevailing in our high schools.

Learn how to cure cancer or build a rocket please, high schoolers.

And if you want to act and spur higher thinking join the drama club.

I believe it was Mr. Hand who said "Read and act on your own time."
 
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Ditto clintl and double sigh dittos Bob!!!!

These are non Rush Bimbo dittos incidentally
 

SC Harrison

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It's a shame that the deeper messages in Clemens' work are missed more than they are noted. Huck and Jim stay together not out of each individual's selfish needs, but because they're looking out for the other. The wisdom and maturity these two exhibit while surrounded by a world that is rooted in greed, corruption, bigotry and idleness is one of the most uplifting stories of racial acceptance ever penned.
 
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SC Harrison said:

:rolleyes:

Please tell me you don't wear chopsticks in your hair and also have a doorman named Sammy that you call SamuEL?

Please tell me that.
 

SC Harrison

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billythrilly7th said:
:rolleyes:

Please tell me you don't wear chopsticks in your hair and also have a doorman named Sammy that you call SamuEL?

Please tell me that.

Young man, if you will pay close attention, the combination of contempt and disdain portrayed on my visage can be easily noted.

Now, run along and do whatever it is that you ruffians and scalawags do to entertain yourselves, and please refrain from hitherto darkening my doorstep with such inane ramblings, lest I be forced to summon a constable. *sniff*
 

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Mr. Twain's Notice and Explanatory to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:


"NOTICE

Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

By Order of the Author

Per G. G., Chief of Ordnance

EXPLANATORY

In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods South-Western dialect; the ordinary "Pike-County" dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a hap-hazard fashion, or by guess-work; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.

I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.

The Author"
 

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To be honest, I was more upset when KCAL pulled Charlie Chan and Hong Kong Fooey from their cartoon library for being racially insensitive.

I'm guessing that's gonna kill my plans on bringing Chico and the Man back.
 
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dclary said:
To be honest, I was more upset when KCAL pulled Charlie Chan and Hong Kong Fooey from their cartoon library for being racially insensitive.

That's how I felt when they pulled Felix the Cat for being catist.

Is "catist" even a real word?

I think they might just be making this stuff up now as they go.

Felix was a wonderful cat.
:(
 
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clintl

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astonwest said:
They'll take over because everyone worries too much about our students' self-esteem...

The self-esteem thing is mostly an urban myth, based on what I've seen in the schools I've been around the last few years.
 
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