Dumbing down of America or showing sensitivity?

[WTF]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I'm curious, what factoids have been totally erased from your daughter's books?

Point

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html

Counterpoint

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index....ok-controversy

Originally Posted by Iaintliein

Words are intangible abstractions. They have force but no weight, not because of what they are but because of what they represent. Some words like the one "who's name we do not speak" have come to represent something inherently evil in the mind of right thinking people. But in the end it's just a word. And anyone, of any color or background over the age of 10 has been called worse unless they grew up in an acrylic bubble.

Originally Posted by Iaintliein

The problem is that if you hide the word, you obscure what it represents. Other words are intentionally misused almost daily for the sake of political correctness and or political expediency. Most discussions on political forums ultimately devolve into arguments about semantics because people think the words are what matter instead of what they represent.

Over sensitivity has only one result, irritation!

Just my opinion, of course.

And a very well written out opinion it is, captures how I feel.
.

Originally Posted by DickEmDown

This forum is awesome, I need to visit more. WTF, why didn't you tell me about it???

Originally Posted by DickEmDown

Carry on gents....I'm out


Edited: Personally, I consider myself "Black"...I was just using the Politically Correct term, funny huh?

I agree with my black brother DED! LOL

Look the rules say we can't write it, so why would we push that? There are other words to use to get the point across.

I actually agree with the concept of replacing 'slave' for the 'n' word to actual get more folks to read the book.

[discreetgent]

Originally Posted by WTF

I actually agree with the concept of replacing 'slave' for the 'n' word to actual get more folks to read the book.

Aside from whether or not I agree that any replacement is valid I am doubtful that it will get that many more people to read it; the original run is 7500 copies hardly enough to make a difference.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by discreetgent

Aside from whether or not I agree that any replacement is valid I am doubtful that it will get that many more people to read it; the original run is 7500 copies hardly enough to make a difference.

Gotta start somewhere dg!

But seriously do you at least not concede that the 'n' word and all its baggage may have something to do with Huck's demise in schoolyard teaching?

[discreetgent]

Originally Posted by WTF

But seriously do you at least not concede that the 'n' word and all its baggage may have something to do with Huck's demise in schoolyard teaching?

I don't. I really don't feel it has had that kind of impact. (Mind you I have no empirical evidence one way or the other.)

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/fea...001.blake.html
http://terrehaute.community.tribstar...64774&d=512560
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...031700560.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8693397.stm
http://forums.military.com/eve/forum.../4710098642001 (For DFW5)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...y-1929320.html

Just to list a few...

I have to admit I didn't read all that shit, but what I skimmed look more like difference in opinion rather than changing "facts". One could just as reasonably say that the other team had previously changed history to fit their world view and the new team is changing it back.

I don't know how to break this to you, but real historical facts (e.g., Columbus landed in the new world in 1492; Charlemagne was Emperor from 800 to 814; etc.) usually aren't in dispute. But history is more about opinions and interpretation that it is "facts".

[MOCHAakaMOCHA]

Both....now not a fan of the n-word for more than obvious reasons but yeah I think it's PC run amuck.... it's both dumbing down and in this case actually being toosensitive.

It's stupid to replace the n-word with slave in this book...it just is. Are they going to do it to like every book with that word in it? Come on. Of course the n-word is inappropriate but so is replacing it with the word slave ....it just....feels wrong.

Originally Posted by discreetgent

PC run amuck?

New edition of Huckleberry Finn which substitutes the word *edited by staff-derogatory racial remarks DED* with slave

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/books/05huck.html?hp

[pjorourke]

This makes as much sense as rewriting Alice Walker's works to replace Ebonics with the King's English.

[charlestudor2005]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

If you think it's bad in NH, you should live in TX like me where the content of textbooks is determined for the whole country. And things that I consider to be important US history and US priorities and beliefs have been totally erased from the books. Gotta work overtime to teach my daughter what she should learn at school.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I have to admit I didn't read all that shit, but what I skimmed look more like difference in opinion rather than changing "facts". One could just as reasonably say that the other team had previously changed history to fit their world view and the new team is changing it back.

I don't know how to break this to you, but real historical facts (e.g., Columbus landed in the new world in 1492; Charlemagne was Emperor from 800 to 814; etc.) usually aren't in dispute. But history is more about opinions and interpretation that it is "facts".

I agree, which is why I talked about the content.

[I B Hankering]

Fundamentally, the book was written to capture and convey the attitudes and morals of a segment of American society in the 19th century. If you change the words to reflect the attitudes and morals of a 21st century audience; why bother to study the book? It ticks me off that this academic is too squeamish to teach reality. Imagine a pre-med student trying to learn biology from a teacher, e.g., a PETA advocate, who objects to dissecting frogs, and other animals, to advance human knowledge.

Originally Posted by pjorourke

I don't know how to break this to you, but real historical facts (e.g., Columbus landed in the new world in 1492; Charlemagne was Emperor from 800 to 814; etc.) usually aren't in dispute. But history is more about opinions and interpretation that it is "facts".

I agree, but if you choose to include one but not the other, that makes a difference. Context is another important issue. Many students today are being taught that Columbus was a 15-16th century Hitler. I dare anyone to show me where Columbus made plans in 1492, or earlier, to sail across an ocean, discover a New World and then exterminate the indigenous population.

And how is a sixteen year old supposed to decide which issues are more important; when, for example, my kids’ textbook devotes equal treatment to both Elvis Presley and "Herman" [sic] Plessy, Plessy v. Ferguson. In case you are wondering, I think Homer Plessy’s case is a much more important topic.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

This makes as much sense as rewriting Alice Walker's works to replace Ebonics with the King's English.

rotflmao

[WTF]

Originally Posted by I B Hankering

And how is a sixteen year old supposed to decide which issues are more important; when, for example, my kids’ textbook devotes equal treatment to both Elvis Presley and "Herman" [sic] Plessy, Plessy v. Ferguson. In case you are wondering, I think Homer Plessy’s case is a much more important topic.

Thank ya, Thank ya very much.

[pjorourke]

Originally Posted by charlestudor2005

I agree, which is why I talked about the content.

So let me get this straight. You liked the old slant on history, but don't like the new one. Kind of like watching Fox vs. MSNBC -- neither one is more right than the other.

[Guest042611]

I'm horribly disturbed by this story. I have nothing to say that hasn't been said, but geez, this is frustrating on many levels.

[MOCHAakaMOCHA]

Originally Posted by pjorourke

So let me get this straight. You liked the old slant on history, but don't like the new one. Kind of like watching Fox vs. MSNBC -- neither one is more right than the other.

Ohhhh dunno about that....Fox ehhhhh

[Raphael]

Originally Posted by DickEmDown

"Those who do not know history are condemned to repeat it"...


Although I agree with most on this thread, ECCIE does not allow any derogatory racial remarks


#2 - Derogatory racial remarks are simply unacceptable, period. Disrespect another's ethnic background and you will most certainly regret it.

How about practicing what you preach? I am sick and tired of the xenophobic slurs on the French in Houston.

The OP did not use a racially derogatory term. He used the first letter only, with stars. So did the great lawyer Johnny Cochrane many times during the OJ trial, whern he accused Mark Furman of using the word that starts with that letter, now censored away from eccie as well as from the novels of one of America's greatest authors, Mark Twain, whose novel, Pudd'nhead Wilson, must be deemed anti-racist as it recognizes (and appreciated) the existence of aristocracy among P*** of C***.

What is DED going to do next? Is he going to censor all news clips, speeches and interviews of Martin Luther King and other civil rights leaders, who throughout the sixties used a word that is no longer accepted today, i.e, the spanish term that describes a color that is the absence of light and not a color, school teachers of all racial, national and ethnic background assure us?

Trust me...I do.

If you did DED, your buddies from the Houston lynch mob wouldn't be free to drive away fro Houston each and all who do not care to join that clique of flamers, insulters, and spewers of ethnically-derogatory slurs.