What the Huck?

Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit, it's back-to-back entries from me! I haven't done that for a while, but the issue is censorship, and I'm on that like mud on a pig. Also racism, and I'm on that like white on rice. (See what I did there?) I'm mixing metaphors, but that's not important now.

You've probably heard about a publisher's decision to censor Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In short, the word 'nigger' will be replaced with 'slave,' and the word 'Injun' will be replaced with 'Indian.' I actually revised myself there...I originally wrote 'edit' rather than 'censor,' and I think my revision is appropriate. This isn't a matter of editing something for offensive content; this is censoring a classic American novel because of a word that is now highly offensive.

I read an interesting piece on Politics Daily by Delia Lloyd concerning the Huck Finn controversy, and it served to gel my own thoughts concerning this. I already had an opinion, and it seems that most of my literary-minded friends share it: this is unwarranted and unwelcome censorship of a novel written only a couple of decades after slavery ended in our country. This is not just a classic American novel. It is a historic American novel because of its context. I did understand several of Ms. Lloyd's points, and left a comment there, but I want to address some of those issues here.

She mentioned that she and her husband bought an edited version of an Eminem CD for their 10-year-old son because of language.

There is, to be sure, a big difference between contemporary rap music and a classic of American literature. Or at least so my son thought when I posed this question to him. His view is that rap is an inherently angry genre and, as such, swearing is central to its aesthetic (word choice mine, idea entirely his). But he says that he can still enjoy a rap CD even when it's "sanitized"--it is, after all, still entertaining.

In contrast, he thinks that "Huckleberry Finn" is a book about social relationships. And so to remove the language in which those relationships are couched is both historically inaccurate and distorts the meaning of the text.

That is one smart kid, who seems to get what his parents don't. There is a big difference between a music CD and a classic American novel. If you take out the bad words in music, you're still left with some great music. (I'm never a fan of censoring music, but there is stuff that is probably age-inappropriate--that is up to the parents to control. Good luck with that. haha) If you censor Twain's writings, you are censoring and attempting to sanitize a piece of our history. A shameful history, but one that cannot and should not be forgotten. Lloyd wrote:

I remember a few years back, when one of the teachers at my daughter's school tried to get a group of 8-year-olds to understand racism by having all the white kids in the class yell all the racial slurs they could possibly come up with at all the children of color. Her objective was to get the students to see the idiocy and toxicity of racism. But the experiment backfired. The children were frightened, confused and horrified. And even here, in the less-than-PC U.K., the teacher nearly lost her job. It's not clear that you can do Twain--or racism--justice in the hour you get as a teacher to talk about this book.

Good grief, how is that acceptable? How is hurling epithets a teaching exercise in any way, shape, or form? And why was it the white kids throwing the epithets at the kids of color? If that was an experiment to teach the students about the idiocy of racism, I think it failed miserably and only highlighted the idiocy of the teacher. Why would this book be a matter of an hour of discussion? When we read books in my school, we spent at least a few weeks going through them and discussing them. Lord of the Flies, A Separate Peace, Of Mice and Men, Hamlet, Macbeth, and so many others. These were not works that could be discussed in an hour. Why is Huck Finn confined to an hour? It has many more implications and much more significance than warranting only an hour of discussion on it.

Last year, my colleague Mary C. Curtis wrote about talk show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger's use of the N-word, which she uttered so liberally during one particular on-air rant that the subsequent outcry prompted her to say she would retire. As Mary points out, "This is the word that people with ropes used as they lynched men and women for an afternoon's entertainment. This is the word craven politicians shouted to stoke racial fear. This word has been used as background music to terror."

Most certainly...but equating Twain's book, a contemporary account of the treatment of slaves and Huck's dangerous friendship with Jim, to Schlessinger's radio rant and inflammatory use of the word 'nigger' in order to boost her ratings is a ridiculous comparison.

In short, the N-word isn't just a piece of regional jargon that marks a particular moment in our nation's history. It's a hateful word. It's poisonous. And it's pervasive. Does all this mean that in the future, children should only consume the kindler, gentler Huck Finn 2.0 that Gribben [the person who is revising the novel] and Co. are peddling? I'm not sure. But this issue certainly isn't as black and white, so to speak, as some critics are making it out to be.

Yes, it IS a hateful word, and it's still in use today. I hear it once in a while, and it makes me cringe and it infuriates me. But strapping a paper strip on the book stating "Sanitized For Your Protection" is not solving anything. It is ignoring a very real, very significant, and very shameful period in our history. If we cannot rationally discuss this with our kids and with our students, we are only perpetuating the problem. Much like some of the Confederate groups trying to revise history and paint the Civil War as being about nothing more than states' rights, it is revisionist history. Huck Finn isn't just an ordinary novel. It is part of our history. It's the story of a young man finding friendship with someone that he isn't supposed to befriend because that is what society dictates.

If our students can't comprehend the full meaning of the book and its place in our history after a reasonable and rational discussion (one that lasts more than an hour), what does that say about us as an intelligent society?

Am I raising the bar too high?

Who wants pie?

We'll be heading out soon (a trip to Lowe's...I love Lowe's!), but I found a really interesting entry written by David Knowles on Politics Daily and wanted to do a quick entry of my own about it.

The title of the entry was "Just How 'Socialist' is America Now?" (You can read the full text here.) I keep reading and hearing about how President Obama is turning America into a Socialist nation, and maybe this pie chart will put things into perspective.

Nutwood Baby Boomer Edition

I recently started subscribing to a site called Politics Daily, and I'm really enjoying it. It's many of the writers that posted on AOL's Political Machine, plus a few new faces, and I like the quick analyses and perspectives. Earlier today, I read my favorite piece of the day, and I think it will be one of my all-time favorites.

Gary Sinise For President?

Dylan and Ethan Ris

Posted: 05/12/09

Over at the Daily Beast, columnist Nicolle Wallace figures that the GOP needs a Reaganesque figure to lead the party out of the wilderness. That means finding someone with Reagan's most important attribute: mid-level moviedom fame.

So after parsing the four Republicans in Hollywood, Wallace settled on Gary Sinise as the GOP nominee for president in 2012.

... Gary Sinise might be our savior. According to news reports, he's part of an underground group of conservatives in Hollywood-an act of bravery in itself. His stated belief in American exceptionalism might end up being a powerful contrast to Obama's "American apologist" mantra. The natural strengths that an actor brings to politics would come in handy to anyone going up against Obama in 2012. We will need an effective communicator who can stand toe to toe with Obama's eloquence.

We agree to support Sinise's candidacy, but only if Tom Hanks commits to following him around on the campaign trail shouting "President Dan! You got new legs!" at regular intervals.

I'm glad I wasn't taking a drink when I read that, because I would have done a spit take!

*****

It was nice and sunny today, so I sat out on the deck for a while. Ken was off today, so we got to spend some quality time with Mr. and Mrs. Lounge Chair! After I read Time's 100 most influential people issue, I finished a Ladies' Home Journal. This wasn't the same magazine that had the silly slumber party for adults blurb, and there was actually a very interesting article about generational conflicts in the workplace. I've talked about that with former coworkers, Ken and I have talked about it, and I believe he wrote an entry about it at some point. (I don't know where to start looking for it, or I'd link to it.)

It addressed three main groups: Baby Boomers, who make up 40% of today's workforce; Generation X, who comprise 36%; and the youngest group, the Millenials, who are 16% of the workforce, but growing. (The Matures are the other 8%, and that number is falling.) Ken and I are on the tail end of the Baby Boom (born in 1962), as are many of my former coworkers, and we've both experienced some of the conflicts mentioned in the article. I think the thing that got to me the most was the sense of entitlement that many young workers seem to have now--a feeling that they should get everything they ask for, that they don't want to work weekends or holidays, and that they should never have to work overtime.

Disclaimer: I'm coming at this from a healthcare perspective, so your results may vary. I was also privileged to work with many fine younger people who didn't feel that way, but I've also worked with some who did.

This was especially hard for some of us who had been in healthcare for a long time. We felt that we had "paid our dues" by working multiple shifts, plenty of weekends, lots of holidays, long hours, etc. After over 20 years of working, I was still working every other weekend when I stopped working. You can imagine how maddening it was to hear some younger people come in and say, "I'm not working every other weekend" or "I can't work those hours."

The article goes on to talk about the things that the various generations can learn from each other, and there are some good lessons there. Us Baby Boomers can be a little on the rigid side, and have a feeling of "Hey, I had to do this, so you do, too." I think we need to get beyond that, because technology and attitudes are changing, and younger people don't necessarily want to be defined by their jobs. They have many outside interests and value their leisure time. Perhaps workplaces need to be a little more flexible when it comes to accommodating hours, flex time, etc. This doesn't always work in healthcare, because so much of it is hands-on, and round-the-clock.

I also think that Gen X-ers and Millenials need to recognize that there are some things that they can't just walk in and do. Sometimes experience is necessary, and can take years to develop. Respect the knowledge of those who have been doing the job for years; there is much they can teach you, and they usually have a pretty strong work ethic worth emulating. I would also suggest that they reconsider multiple piercings in the workplace, especially in a healthcare setting--the less hardware and fewer holes you have, the less your chance of infection, or passing an infection on to others. Clothing itself can be a problem, as older workers sometimes don't approve of more casual attire. When I worked in Indianapolis in the 90's, my favorite attire was leggings and a long T-shirt. A group of older workers put together a new dress code, and decided that leggings shouldn't be worn. That was silly, and leggings and long shirts or tunics are very common now.

It's definitely an interesting dynamic. We would all do well to recognize our differences, but try to understand each others' strengths. As goes the workplace, so goes life, eh?