Words have meaning.

I have been thinking recently of the group that seeks to censor Mark Twain's Huck Finn. I am deeply disturbed by this idea for several reasons. First, I am against censorship on it's face. So 'nuff said right? Oh, so very wrong.

To satisfy those who question my intention, the word to be censored is not part of my own vocabulary and if I hear it used in conversation I am quick to tell the offender what a bigot she it.

But that is not what this is about at all.

In the name of political correctness and sensitivity the words of one our greatest American authors would be altered. And in doing so the meaning changes.

In the context of Huck Finn, the word 'nigger' has a much more complicated connotation than the term 'slave'. The term slave does not always refer to someone who is black and the absolute oppression of an entire people is not inherently implied as it is with the term 'nigger'. The term 'slave' fails to convey the dehumanizing and torturous treatment of blacks in post-civil war America at the hands of whites.

Removing this term is absolutely revisionist history. Re-writing the words of Mark Twain robs our culture of a more realistic picture of southern society...the remnants of which still remain.

Is this a word that deserves any role in our current vernacular? NO. An emphatic NO. And the reason is that the word carries with it such deep offense that in the 21st century it simply doesn't belong. Not to mention there is no single word in the English language that can be directed at white people that comes anywhere within the same strataphere of carrying a similar level of offense.