Conversation Starter: Should Publishers Remove Racial Terms from Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn?

What do you think of the new version of Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn” that removes racial terms?

The new book, released by Alabama-based publisher NewSouth, Inc. removes every instance of the n-word and replaces it with the term “slave.”

The greater Cascade community has its own experience with racial characterizations in historic works of fiction. Joel Chandler Harris wrote many of the Brer Rabbit stories on the front porch of his home, Wren’s Nest, at 1050 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd.

The home’s executive director and the author's direct descendant said he won’t be buying the new version of Twain’s classic.

“I’m not particularly interested in updated language,” said Lain Shakespeare. “But at the same time, disparaging that interpretation would be another form of censorship.

“They have a right to address the issue as they are doing,” he said, “just as I have a right not to read it.”

Brer Rabbit has engendered controversy over some language in those stories.

Walt Disney’s movie, “Song of the South,” remains unavailable legally in this country. Disney declined to release it for private buyers as a result of controversy of its portrayal of African Americans, Shakespeare said.

Twain’s book was edited by Auburn University’s Twain scholar Dr. Alan Gribben. Here’s what Gribben had to say about the altering the racial terms, according to a story published Jan. 5 by The Guardian, a newspaper in London:

"The n-word possessed, then as now, demeaning implications more vile than almost any insult that can be applied to other racial groups," he said. "As a result, with every passing decade this affront appears to gain rather than lose its impact."