Dear Fellow Yazoo Country School board Members, .
I am writing this letter to you today to place my vote on the topic of should The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn be taught in our eleventh grade English classes. First of all I would like to make clear that avoiding the facts of what America was like then will not just simply make them disappear. Some Americans think this is the way we should deal with the issue of black versus white that Mark Twain brings up in his novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Others choose to be ignorant and want their kids to have no knowledge of the acts that went on back then. The fact of white people abusing, enslaving and calling black people names is a very heavy subject and should not be taken lightly but it is important to make our kids aware of what went on. In Twains writing there are important life lessons, as well as heavy subjects but also valuable facts and information for a students maturing minds. I am a history teacher on the board of Yazoo Country School and feel like every student should read this book for the following reasons.
First and foremost this novel should be in our curriculum to make known and educate our children about how people of a difference race were treated back then. Even though this problem is not so serious right now there are still people who will never forget it. Now some parents and even teachers are weary of this novel because of the overabundant use of the word "nigger " so loosely. But what they might not consider is the fact that Twain wrote this book in 1884 when the word "nigger " was used all the time, and not like it is now. We need to remember that times have changed drastically since then and for the better. I remember my parents telling me stories of their friends having black slaves and how it was so common just to use the word "nigger " all the time and not think twice about it. We do not do that now and our kids need to know that but they will not care if they don't know how it was used back then.