Should We Chuck Huck?

Censorship is a violation of our First Amendment, the right to freedom of speech. “Censorship is the suppression of ideas and information that certain persons- individuals, groups or government officials-find objectable or dangerous (Definitions). At the moment there are a plethora of books being banned from our school districts for its “racial references” (Censorship). Doug Saum, an English teacher at Robert McQueen High School says, “A book is an inanimate object and holds no opinions.” If we are to be censored out from the word “nigger” used in Huckleberry Finn , then should we all stay ignorant to our American history?

Every year Saum teaches almost a whole semester dedicated to a single book that many people in America are trying to ban from our society, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . “Written in a now vanished dialect” (Racism), this book “is the 4 th most banned book in schools according to Banned in the U.S.A. by Herbert N. Foerstal” (Kelly). It all started in the 1950’s when schools began desegregating; black Americans have raised objections to Huckleberry Finn and its effect on their children (Racism). “Told from the point of view of a runaway fourteen-year-old, the novel conglomerates melodramatic boyhood adventure, farcical low comedy, and pointed social satire. Yet at its center is a relationship between a white boy and an escaped slave, an association freighted with the tragedy and the possibility of American history. Despite a social order set against interracial communication and respect, Huck develops a comradeship with Jim for which he is willing ­against all he has been taught­ to risk his soul” (Racism).

“The novel remains the only one of the most taught works in high school to treat slavery, to represent a black dialect, and to have a significant role for an African American character… Add to this presence in the novel of the most powerful racial epithet in English the word appears 213 times and it is evident why Huckleberry Finn legitimately concerns African American parents sending their children into racially mixed classrooms” (Racism). Although the word is used in context to the time period people feel offended. After the first few chapters the students would notice the presence of the word numerous times, Saum will then advise his students to read Nigger, by Randall Kennedy, this book explains how the word should be described. When asked, “How do you feel about the word nigger used in Huckleberry Finn ?” he responds, “It’s a word like any other. It has a history. If we are to be educated we should check our superstitions at the door when we engage in the work of education. When Huckleberry Finn is no longer widely read we will know the idea of America is dead.” By this last statement I believe that he meant that if America is to ban Huckleberry Finn , then maybe the idea of America being “the land of the free” isn’t so free after all. As Saum begins to educate his students, he makes sure to clarify that the word isn’t used as hate speech, but as a way people talked in that time period. Saum explains that “Sam Clemens realized the ugliness of racism and wrote to expose it for what it is, a bankrupt approach to living which has outgrown its usefulness.”