What Makes it Okay?

There are certain awful traits that have followed the human race throughout time persistently and have caused us more trouble that we realize. Pleasure is dangerous (which is probably why some doctrines advise to avoid it all together) since we will do anything to acquire it. The most satisfying form of pleasure is pride and it allows us to live a happy, seemingly fulfilled life until the day death do us part. It makes us proud to make fun of others and it makes it easier to exclude others if we do it by color-coding. Racial stereotypes are inevitable, you will hear thousands throughout your life and will have to suffer the consequences- and maybe even sometimes the advantages- of seeming or being a certain race. Ministrel shows based their humor on the racial stereotypes of African-Americans just like nowadays we enjoy the low-brow "Dumb and Dumber" due to its "dumb" protagonists and their misadventures that we feel superior to. These types of shows were considered a "racist caricature" by the author of "Blackface Minstrelsy" and us modern readers find it easy to see why it is wrong to generalize a race as dysfunctional. We find racial stereotypes funny because we identify with them and they don't seem wrong to us as long as it is all in good fun. Many comedians base their acts on racial stereotypes and many more musicians gain their audience through it and promote it. The fact that a certain race identifies itself as gramatically incorrect and economically inferior it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy everyone has helped to build. Accepting discrimination as comedy affects hte way in which we classify and judge people but there also has to be a limit to the ammount of evil we designate to aknowledging racial characteristics. Where is the line and how do we avoid crossing it?

N1Gg3®

"New Huckleberry Finn edition censors 'n-word'" by Benedicte Page talk about the censoring tat has been applied to the recent version of Huckleberry Finny by Mark Twain. Some say it's right and some say it should definitely be censored but either way, it is undeniable that the lack of the "n-word" is a modification to the original work and that it takes away from the intention of the author.

The "n-word", also known as "nigger" nowadays make us cringe and it has very strict rules about its use. If a non-african-american person were to use they'd be in trouble for racial discrimination but if a legitimate african-american uses it it appears to be socially accepted. That's the 21st century for y'all.

Back in the 19th it was okay to say the word and nobody would condemn you to seven year of bad luck if you said "black" or "coloured" instead of the new and improved denomination that was accepted at the moment. "Niggers" were slaves: worthless, soulless and sub-human. That same thought was what Twain criticized in his novel, showing the power of the denomination and how it lead "owners" to actually stop thinking of them as their human counterparts.

Those who are mature enough to be able to understand that the book was written more than a century ago and that people (hopefully) have changed since then will be bothered to find themselves with the censored version. It is shameless meddling of Twain's work and it affects the way the reader perceives the harshness of realitynotsolongago.

On the other hand, there are those who want to read the book but get hiccups every time they see "nigger" splashed across the page so they buy the "n___" version of the novel and live happily ever after. The "abusive racial insults that bear distinct connotations of permanent inferiority nonetheless repulse modern-day reader" (Gribben) who in my opinion has the right to be sensitive to racial issues, but should behave like a good reader and take the novel as literature. There, there... have a biscuit.