Why has Huckleberry Finn been RECENTLY removed from some libraries and schools?

[Boojatta]

Anybody who has read and understood the book will recognize that it is a superbly written attack on traditional anti-black racism. The most obvious source of opposition to the book would be racists who hate African-Americans. Now, isn't it possible that some racists are clever enough to find a pretext for claiming that Huckleberry Finn is itself racist rather than anti-racist? Specifically, they can get people to focus attention on the book (but not too much attention), and they can claim that, because the dialog in it includes vocabulary realistic for the time and place where it was written, it is hostile to African Americans.

Two approaches are possible:

1. A racist can pretend to be an unsophisticated anti-racist, and pretend to be offended by Huckleberry Finn.

2. By selectively quoting short passages of the novel in the media, racists can provoke anti-racist members of the general public (who haven't read the book) to voice actual outrage. Such members of the general public cast themselves in a role that Lenin might have called "useful idiot."

Note: when I used the word "recently" in the title of this thread, I didn't intend to refer to events that occurred in 1885 or 1902.

[aSpeckofDust]

1. My guess? They are getting pulled for the rollout of it's revision. There was some big hoohaw ,,

a while ago about the book and the N word.

[jwirr]

2. It may be that more than one minority is mentioned in the book? I

seem to remember and "Injun Joe".

[Boojatta]

3. If we are to explain why the book has been recently banned from schools and libraries ...

do you think we should focus attention on passages that make reference to "Injun Joe"?

[no_hypocrisy]

4. I think it's a matter of waiting to see how many other libraries pull it before

the decision to pull it is made in certain libraries. That way the removal looks like following a "responsible" and academic trend. Which, BTW, is contrary to the concept of the universality of ideas in a library.

[AKDavy]

5. I think owning the book so my grandchildren can read

non-revisionist literature is the answer, so that's what I've done.

I don't care whether the book burners are kicking my door down with the Right or their Left boot, or whether their intentions are the best or the worst, censorship and social engineering my manipulating language and literature is Orwellian.

Shades of "1984" and "Fahrenheit 451."

My grandchildren will read the literature in its original form, and they'll be told that those reading sanitized versions are having a lesser experience.

[Warpy]

6. How long ago did you read it?

That book is an attack against all sorts of sacred cows, including religion.

That's why fundie panties are all in a wad. Some fundy finally read it as an adult.