Censoring the Classics

This was originally published at http://uco360.com/blogs/censoring-the-classics/ on Jan. 13.

Some say the classics never go out of style, but they do. However, one reason something is considered a classic is because its lessons are not only timeless but also get stronger with age, even if its language or technique becomes offensive or passé.

That is why Professor Alan Gribben of Auburn University and Alabama-based publishing company NewSouthBooks’ decision to edit the “N-word” and the word “injun” from Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” is an affront to the education of American students.

Gribben et al. may have good intentions for changing the “N-word” to “slave” (219 times) and “injun” to “Indian,” he said doing so will make them more appealing to students who are reading less than ever. However, it results in nothing more than a mousy attempt to censor and soften the sharp edges of racism that have shaped our country.

This is not just about censorship; this is about us confronting a disturbing past and having an honest conversation about race in America. This is about us valuing art and learning the lessons it provides.

Huck Finn, like all classics, offers a connection to a lost time and a small glimpse into the reality and lifestyles of our ancestors. They give us a historical context and subsequently provide new avenues for self-examination that may not have been originally intended by its creator. Changing Twain’s work allows us to ignore the work we need to do as a country to overcome racism.

Some claim this is not censorship in its truest form because Gribben has not changed every copy of Huck Finn and is simply offering students a safer alternative. Censorship can never be justified, in any form and having an “alternative” is pointless unless it is taught alongside the original.

With this ham-fisted logic we could gloss over the American Revolution as a quaint trade of power between Britain and the American colonies and change Shakespeare’s writing so that its not over-rated and wrought with incest and trite love stories. Why stop there? Let’s just burn all the books that make us uncomfortable.

Some argue that we do not need to read the “N-word” 219 times to know that it is hurtful. This may be true, but it effectively conveys the harshness of the word. I’m sure African-Americans did not need to hear the word every time they spoke to a white person to know they were subjugated and deemed inferior, but it drove home that point.

Twain chose every word for a reason. Words like the “N-word” provide students with the brutal reality of what was normal in interracial interaction at the time. Even though the two characters in the novel were friends, the element of race persisted. It was their truth, their reality. Removing the word removes the reality of racism and the over-arching lesson that cooperation and good can be achieved in the face of ignorance.

Stewards of education, like Gribben, should know to leave the truth alone and not edit the classics.

Revolutionary aid

Republicans on the hill are currently debating the best way to cut budgets across the bureaucratic spectrum. They are proposing a 16 percent cut to the State Department’s budget and a 41 percent cut to humanitarian programs.

Our national debt sits somewhere around $14 trillion, so there is an obvious need to get spending under control. However, reducing the State Department’s budget right now would be detrimental to our ability to help countries around the world, hurt our reputation and endanger our national security.

Revolutions are raging like tire fires across the Muslim world; we are at a critical time when the United States needs to look and do our absolute best. Everything our country has worked for since 9/11 is coming to a head. Cutting foreign aid would cripple us and our current and future allies.

This would be okay for some Republicans that fly the tea bag banner. Their libertarian posturing got them elected, but they are in the process of learning that while their ideology sounds good in speeches and looks good on paper, it only made sense 200 years ago, when our country was a fraction of its current size, and our interests did not span the globe. Today, libertarianism is an outdated and unrealistic stance.

Paul D. Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin, said in a New York Times interview, “I’ve got 87 new people who are just getting to learn the process, who are just getting to learn the issues … Everybody who comes in learning the budget finds out that things are more difficult than they at first seemed.” The view is always different from inside the machine.

If Republicans are as concerned about the deficit as they claim to be, they should have let the Bush tax cuts expire, not jeopardize national security. Those cuts will end up costing us more than $2.3 trillion. It’s simple math. When Bill Clinton raised taxes in 1993, it gave us a huge surplus that George W. Bush inherited and squandered.

Maybe some day we can stop meddling so intensely in global affairs, but to start now, by cutting foreign aid, would be chaotic. One could argue that the $70 billion we have given to Egypt was wasted on upgrades to Hosni Mubarak’s vacation home. Now that Mubarak is out, crimping the flow of aid would only allow the American flags to burn with more fervor than before.



Our role of setting up puppet regimes that help us with one hand and throw tear gas canisters at their citizens with the other is over. We should let the protests play out on their own, but we need to be standing by with as much money and advice as possible, not posturing with empty hands and pockets. Then, we can finally have some legitimate allies in the Muslim world, and possibly resolve some of our budgetary problems by ending two wars that have currently cost us a combined $1.1 trillion and 5,912 lives.

Your minimum is not enough

There are countless examples of the media failing the American public.

The most detrimental example of our time is the build up to the war in Iraq. If we would have had a properly functioning media at that point, it is likely that we would have never invaded that country.

However, hindsight is 20/20, and there are more recent examples of the media sticking its foot in its mouth and up the butt of America.

Last month, Fox Nation posted an article about a frustrated President Obama sending a 75,000 word email to the American people. It was a dramatic piece designed to illustrate Obama’s failing mental state. It was also originally written by The Onion, a satirical news site and it had zero factual information.

There was also a news story written about a man with the last name of Cummings who ejaculated on a TSA agent during a security pat down at the San Francisco International Airport. The story was picked up by media outlets in Germany and Dallas and disseminated across the web via blogs and social networking sites. This story was originally written by Dead Serious, another satirical news site.

Blantant examples like these, by some of the largest media conglomerates around, make me angry and embarrassed when I tell people I am a journalist. Yet, it is also these examples that reaffirm my belief that it is up to me, and my peers, to grab the industry by the hair, and drag it kicking and screaming back to respectability.

This belief is something I have tried to instill in the The Vista and its staff for two years. As college students it is easy for us to shrug off the seriousness of our roles within this publication and institution. Most of us are young, carefree and we don’t want to take too many things too serious. Nor should we. However, this paper and most importantly, our chosen career, is something that we should always hold above such sophomoric notions. Look what happens when we don’t.

We should take our time here seriously because we are only as good as our education, and our education is only as good as what we put into it. If we don’t at least take that serious, then we are wasting valuable time, money and energy.

This paper rarely gets the respect it deserves. I’ve sat through many classes where The Vista is ridiculed and critiqued with disdain and contempt by students, faculty and staff alike. Sometimes rightfully so, other times not. Regardless, my response has always been the same: what have you done to help? If you are a teacher, help educate the staff. Even if your field is science or something else completely unrelated to Mass Communication, help us learn. If a student criticizes The Vista, my response is sincere but always the same, “Thank you for your comments, we would love to have your help building this paper up to meet your standards. We cannot do it alone.”

To everyone at UCO, what are you doing to make things better? Whether as a student, a future worker in your chosen field of study, a Vista employee, an educator, or a UCO staff member, have you done anything other than the bare minimum lately? Have you done anything other than criticize? If not, you’re wasting time.

There have been many professors across the university that have helped, and many administrators that could not be more generous. There has also been times when, even with that help, The Vista has faltered. In the end we have come away better because of it, and that is the essence of education. For that, I thank you all.

However, to those who refuse to help us better ourselves, even though you are employed by an institution of higher learning, one that heartily thumps the bible of transformation and self-improvement, quit wasting our time. This is extended to those at the lowest level of administration and staff, all the way to those at the top. Give us an interview, treat us like adults, at least pretend you are happy to see us, realize we are different from the students before us and do your part to help us earn an education that is worth its weight in the money we pay. Regardless of your position on campus, you have a responsibility as a part of this institution to help students grow and learn.

This is my last issue as Editor-In-Chief of The Vista, with it I leave behind many emotions, many thankless hours, muttered complaints and yelled insults. I also leave behind more compliments and appreciation from people that I could not respect and admire more. I also leave behind the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had, and in my place remains the strongest staff the paper has seen since I’ve been here.

I also hope to leave behind a sense that we can all do more than what we are doing at any given second.

Compromise is key

Future House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio recently reiterated a point that most people already knew: Republicans will not compromise.


“This is not a time for compromise, and I can tell you that we will not compromise on our principles,” Boehner told conservative talk show host, Sean Hannity.

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana echoed similar sentiments on a radio show saying, “There will be no compromise on repealing Obamacare. There will be no compromise on stopping Democrats from growing government and raising taxes. And if I haven’t been clear enough yet, let me say again: no compromise.”

Sara Palin agreed on Fox News saying, “No, they should not compromise on principle. Absolutely not. That’s been part of the problem is those who’ve decided to go along to get along and make these compromises.”

Time will tell if this was simply election rhetoric or rigid ignorance, but we need to explain to our leaders that compromise is the key to progress, and we expect nothing less. We deserve nothing less.

A country of 300 million diverse individuals cannot prosper or accomplish anything unless we work together. We do not all want or believe the same things, so obviously none of us will get everything we want. The only certainty is that we must all sacrifice some things in order to achieve anything.

Compromise leads to a consensus. It gives us a foundation to build on and push from to propel us forward. Without compromise, the United States would not exist. It was the only way our Founding Fathers were able to draft the Constitution.

According to a CBS poll, most Americans understand this. Three-quarters of likely voters said that if Republicans take over, they should compromise on some things in order to get things done (66 percent of republicans agreed). Seventy-one percent of likely voters, including 79 percent of Republicans, said that Obama should compromise if his party loses the house.

Well, the democrats did lose the house and Obama has already extended an olive branch, but it is too soon for the republicans. It seems they want to relish in the "shellacking" they gave the dems and continue their collective chest beating a little longer.

That is why it is up to the voters to send another message: It is not time to relax now that the midterms are over. Don’t get cozy in the warmth of victory.

We need to contact our elected leaders, new and old, and demand that they work together. The only other option is to not work at all. Crossing our arms instead of reaching out our hands will not dig us out of this hole that we are all in together.

A bubblin' crude

After 65 days there is still a geyser of oil spewing approximately 798,000 gallons of black gold into the Gulf of Mexico daily, leaving obvious economic and environmental devastation.
The president has visited the area several times and even used this crisis to stage his first presidential address from the Oval Office.

However, when it comes to actually stopping the “spill” the government has thrown up its hands and passed the buck, letting BP try to resolve how best to stop the perpetual explosion of crude.
The only thing we hear from elected leaders on the right is what the Obama Administration is doing wrong and what the administration should not do.

Top Republican leaders like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, are voicing concern that the administration will use the crisis in the Gulf as a basis to pass energy reform legislation.
“With all due respect to the White House … our waters in the gulf are far more important than the status of the Democrats’ legislative agenda,” McConnell said. This is true, however, American presidents have the entire federal government at their disposal and can multitask.

Other republicans like Rep. Bob Latta (R-Ohio) have said that any attempt to pass energy reform would be a “job-killing national energy tax on struggling families and small businesses.” Similar things were said about child labor laws, minimum wage and food regulation.

Looking at the scope of the crisis in the Gulf and the myriad of other problems that we face because of our energy structure, the Obama Administration should use the disaster in the Gulf as an impetus to pass sweeping energy reform. If not now, when? If we can’t do it because of this, what will it take?

Scientist estimate that more than 50 million barrels of oil has gushed into the water a mile below the surface of the ocean. With the “experts” predicting the mess to continue until mid-August, the sea-life that live in the warm waters could be sipping on approximately 94.2 million gallons of the toxic Texas Tea before BP has a “relief well” in place.

The U.S. spends approximately $1.5 billion a day, more than half a trillion dollars a year, on foreign oil. We are currently engaged in two wars, both in the oil rich Mideast, that have cost more than a trillion dollars combined.

Including Obama, the past eight presidents have promised to break the U.S. of our dependence on foreign oil. There is footage of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 and Obama (that’s five republicans and three democrats), each identifying our problems and offering their different solutions.




Yet, 36 years later, we are still suckling the tit of terrorists sponsoring countries and finding dangerous ways to break through nature’s barriers (deep water drilling and hydraulic fracturing, etc), all so we can get our fix for an outdated energy source. In the words of Jon Stewart, we have redefined success and still failed.

Some people want more wind and alternative energy sources, others want more “clean coal,” and some say that natural gas is a bridge connecting all energy possibilities. Realistically, we need them all. We should utilize every possible option until we can build a clean energy infrastructure. There is not one solution, but “drill baby drill” is no longer the only viable option and no matter how loudly we chant it, it will not help us clean up the Gulf.

This past weekend Rahm Emanuel, the White House Chief of Staff, hit the talk show circuit to lay out the president’s agenda for energy reform. He said there were three key goals for energy legislation: reducing our dependence on foreign oil, investments in clean energy technology and dealing with carbon pollution.

Today the President is set to have a meeting with senators from both parties; their goal is to reach a deal on an energy reform bill. The senate needs 60 votes to pass, and according to CNN, there are 50 who want it, 30 who do not and 20 senators that are undecided.

We should let our elected leaders know that now is the time to change our energy habits, we should use the problems of the past and disasters of the present to secure a safer and healthier future.