Huck Finn essay
...over 200 times in the book - mostly by Huck, but also by Jim and others.) People claim that forcing black students (especially) to read and hear the word used in English class legitimizes the slur. When supporters point out that the book is considered an American classic, parents ask why there are no required books, which use the word “spic”, or "kike" or other racist slurs. Others suggest that the character of the runaway slave Jim is made to look, act, and sound stupid. When he first finds Huck on Jackson's Island, Jim says," Doan' hurt me - don't! I haint ever done no harm to a ghos'. I alwuz liked dead people, en done all I could for `em. You go en git in de river ag'in, whah you b'longs, en doan' do nuffn to to Ole Jim . . . " Mark Twain’s infamous novel was quite a controversy in the 1800’s as well. Shortly after its publication, a committee that found it “more suited to the slums than to intelligent, respectable people” banned it from the Concord Public Library. Twain's use of dialect and first person narration from an unschooled child’s perspective was shocking to the cultural elite of the time. Several prominent newspapers also supported the verdict found in concord, according to The New York Times. Another Times article tells of a 1957 banning of Huck Finn through out New York elementary and middle schools. Twain himself even criticized those who left the book for children. This is a quote from a letter Twain wrote to Asa Don Dickenson, the head librarian at Brooklyn College. “I wrote Tom Sawyer & Huck Finn for adults exclusively, & it always distressed me when I find that boys and girls have been allowed...