Being Politically Correct in History Class, Or, The Huckleberry Finn Problem

It happens sooner or later to most historical documents. Due to an offensive term like "nigger" or "spic" being prevalent throughout the writing, a text will be altered to include more politically correct terms like "black" and "Mexican". While I agree that the offensive words should no longer be used in our modern language (I myself will not be using them for the rest of this post), this is one of the worst things to do to historical pieces of literature; it essentially is censoring how certain things were done before political correctness was as major of an issue as it is now. I am certainly not advocating for people to continue using the N-word or other racist phrases, but I feel that people are ignoring historical context when they do change words to be less offensive. However, it is inevitable that this will be happening to all historical documents at one point or another; a good example is Mark Twain's book Huckleberry Finn, where a large portion of the book's words (mainly the N-word) were changed to be more opening to readers of all ages.

So what does this have to do with making history "fun"? Well, it really doesn't; this topic expands farther and wider than most of the topics I've discussed here. A teacher has to be careful when using historical literature, otherwise a slip-up or wrong word could end up with a complaint that leads to a teacher losing their job, all because of Huck's friend Jim's unfortunate first name. Because of this prevalent problem, I've come up with a few ways to make sure that political correctness and historical context can be used side by side, without the negative connotations of the latter.

3. Explain the Context

What usually ends up happening in history class is that the students do not understand (or seem to understand) how language has evolved over even 50 to 100 years. Several words and phrases they know as "bad words" were at one point used almost as much as normal words; they simply don't know that the times, they were a changin'. If you have a book or speech that contains offensive language that you must teach to the class, don't get scared about repercussions. Just explain to the students about the time period this writing existed in, and say that while it now isn't considered the correct language, the people of that time "didn't know any better"(I put quotations around that statement because the people of the past weren't dumb, they just didn't expect the future, but this statement works to not get too many questions asked).

It is at this point that you could go in 2 directions:

2a. Read the passage with Original Language

After your explanation of context, you could then imply that the best way to understand the piece would be with the original language it contains. However, make sure you agree with your students beforehand on whether or not THEY want to do this. After all, they are the ones who are learning, and if they don't feel comfortable hearing the offensive language, you can...

2b. Read with Politically Correct Language

This is the option for those who decide that they don't want to hear the N-word every few minutes, and would rather be politically correct for the sake of others or themselves. Simply go in and replace all of the offensive words with the politically correct terms ("savage" becomes "native", etc.) and read this censored version for the class. I do not recommend this choice, though; I feel there is a certain sense of history lost with modern language translations, and while I can understand the purpose for it, it just all seems a little backwards to me. Wasn't the point of history class to learn these offensive phrases so we'd know they were offensive in the first place?

1. Address All Questions

Students will ask questions, for sure; they'll want to know why the language had to be changed and why you seem so nervous reading Huckleberry Finn. Just relax, and try your best to relay that the time period was different than ours, and this was the way almost everyone talked and wrote. However, if there are more questions that you feel that you couldn't answer, stress to the kids to discuss political correctness with their parents; they know best when bringing up their children (sometimes)!

In conclusion, I do not like how political correctness has invaded history class. But I can see the benefits that it can give to teachers afraid of the content and teachers of young students; if it makes it better to teach for you, then who am I to stop you? Just remember that history is history, and no amount of edited books will ever be able to replace what actually happened all those years ago.

-Pharaoh Noh-Tyep