Don't censor Mark Twain's N word
By LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com
It is, perhaps, the seminal moment in American literature.
Young Huck Finn, trying to get right with God and save his soul from a forever of fire, sits there with the freshly written note in hand. “Miss Watson,” it says, “your runaway Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send.”
Huck knows it is a sin to steal and he is whipped by guilt for the role he has played in helping the slave Jim steal himself from a poor old woman who never did Huck any harm. But see, Jim has become Huck’s friend, has sacrificed for him, worried about him, laughed and sung with him, depended upon him. So what, really, is the right thing to do?
“I was a-trembling,” says Huck, “because I’d got to decide, forever, betwixt two things and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:
‘All right, then, I’ll go to hell’ — and tore it up.”
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http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/01/...ns-n-word.html#storylink=fbuser#ixzz1AYuJ0tlT