Tom Sawyer - the madness of political correctness

The next thing will be re-writing history to a more politically correct version - or have thay already done that?

I'm of a few minds about this. On the one hand, I don't believe in censorship. And, although I've never read the book, from what I understand, some of the message of the book (I thought it was Huckleberry Finn, not Tom Sawyer?) which is against racism might be lost if they diluted or removed the racist words from the characters. However, on the other side, I also know that one of the words is very painful for some people to read, and they wouldn't be able to get through a book like that and might miss the good stuff because of that one word. I won't even write it, and will trust that others know exactly what I'm talking about. (And if anyone thinks being that affected by a word is silly, well, words can be powerful things. ) In fact, to call it a "politically incorrect" is totally misrepresenting things to an extreme. That makes it sound like a minor thing that only a silly over sensitive person would feel uncomfortable with. It's not a "politically incorrect" word. That's prettying it up. It's a vile racial slur. Can books have those words? Yes. It doesn't even mean the book or the author is racist. A character can use the words without speaking for the author or being someone the readers should agree with. There's also a case for accuracy. History shouldn't be cleaned up, and sometimes people did (and do) use that language. So, I don't have a problem with feeling that changing the book is wrong (although, as I said, I can see the arguments for it). But, as soon as the words "politically correct/incorrect" get tossed out there, it sounds dismissive of just how bad the word can be. It's almost like any amount of political correctness is too much.

This makes me so mad. That is just how people talked back then. I am firmly against racism, well any discrimination for that matter, however, books are an art-form and you just don't censor art. I don't know if they plan to use this new "revised" version in schools, but if my hypothetical children had to read it in their class, I would probably make them read the original version too. This censorship makes me appreciate the original even more.