The opinions expressed above are not mine. I recently read a book on banned cartoons and a whole chapter was devoted to SOTS:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... eimprovemz
Personally, I grew up in Mexico, where there was also slavery, both Black and Amerindian. But due to this mix and due to different historical circumstances the whole historical chapter of slavery is viewed differently.
In Mexico a new racial mix (Mestizo) was born of the Spanish and the Amerindian races (plus the Black race to a smaller extent, and only regional). The modern day Mexican sees himself as descendant of
all these races, and he sees himself as a descendant of both kings and slaves. That is not to say there is no racism in Mexico, of course there is. But
slavery itself is not a touchy subject: everybody shares the same background.
The average Black or White US citizen does not recognize this mixture, because for the most part the races were kept separate there, and America is seen as mostly as White America, though it is not: in reality it IS a melting pot, there is more racial variancy here than anywhere in the world. But the slavery issue remains (and is likely to do so in the future) a touchy one.
So you can see why I do not agree with the protests or the criticism of SOTS, it is simply not a part of my background. Yes, it was bad (both slavery itself and the movie's depiction of its consequences), but it is time to learn from history and to move on. By censoring what may be construed as potentially offensive material we also stop learning the lessons of the past.
And yes, Huckleberry Finn has been banned several times in US history. In a recent survey of attempts to ban books in the United States, the American Library Association ranked Huckleberry Finn the fifth most frequently challenged book of the 1990s.
Personally I do not find HF offensive either. Jim (the black character) is the smartest and most sensitive and most humane character, and Huck himself shows as lot of personal growth in his relationship with Jim. Tom Sawyer is the only character who, surprisingly, comes off as a manipulative jerk. But the main thing about the novel's treatment of the characters is that they are all shown as
individuals, not as representatives of the white or black races. Any characteristic the individual shows is shown as an individual's characteristic. Any allegations of racism in the novel are thus made invalid.
Recently I saw a version of Tom Sawyer (1973) in which Huck is barely a part of the story, and no black characters are portrayed
at all. This scares me more than SOTS, and I would think that the American people could see how dangerous this version is, (talk about whitewashing history!) a lot more dangerous than avoiding social relevance or commentary such as SOTS did.
