The "k-word"

The "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain is under attack again -- earlier this year it was in the Lakeville, Minnesota school district -- in St. Louis Park, Minnesota. Concerned parent, Ken Gilbert, read this book while he was a student in the 1960's in segregated North Carolina thus he does not want his child required to read the book in her 10th grade honors class.

As I noted in my original posting -- this type of censorship destroys the opportunity that Twain provided us to mock the racists in our world, yes the "n-word" is used extensively in this book but if people like Mr. Gilbert solely focus on that fact then they miss the entire point of the book.

No racism is never a good thing but black/African-Americans are not the only victims as noted in this story regarding how German immigrants were called "krauts" which was the k-word/n-word of the day so this racism inspired them to learn English --

http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/opinion/1160555732105360.xml&coll=2

Now my German ancestors and I were never enslaved like black Americans but I feel no offense when I hear the word "kraut" used today so the evolution of this term into a "neutral', even archaic one is encouraging. As Bill Cosby has said repeatedly today's black youths need to speak English not "ebonics" so perhaps the German experience in the USA is a lesson to consider -- if only HISTORY not Social Studies was taught in our public schools.

Todd