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Slurs Should Be Banned In Schools

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To ban the book entirely was one solution to end this controversy. Last year, public schools in Virginia began a process of reviewing the book in order to decide whether it should be kept in classrooms and school libraries. This course of action started when a mother of a biracial high school student “filed a complaint with the administration, saying that her son had struggled to read a page in "Huck Finn" that was filled with racial slurs” (Beck). According to the mother, "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can 't get past that" (Beck). "So what are we teaching our children? We 're validating that these words are acceptable, and they are not acceptable by any means," she added (Beck). …show more content…

It is true that the heavy use of racial slurs within the book made it considerably hard for both teachers and students; The slurs made it difficult for students to read the book and for teachers to teach it. In the story overall, the N word was used about 219 times. The following sentence, “Miss Watson’s big nigger, named Jim, was setting in the kitchen door; we could see him pretty clear, because there was a light behind him” (Twain 4) is found in the fourth page of the book and it already has utilized the N word. Due to the use of such language, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is accused for being racist. But the author, Mark Twain, himself was opposed to racial segregation and the harsh treatment of blacks. So given his ideals, there must be a reason why he chose to incorporate racial stereotypes and epithet into his story. Mark Twain did not intentionally use racial slurs in order to be racist or for the words to be condoned but rather “the use of such language was intended not only to reflect American life in the South prior to the Civil War but to treat it in an ironic fashion.” ( "Federal Appeals Court Allows Huck Finn to Remain on School 's Reading

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