Upcoming ‘Huckleberry Finn’ edition replaces ‘n-word’

A new edition of Mark Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn” is being published in February, replacing the “n-word,” which shows up 219 times in the original edition. Instead the publisher, New South Books, uses the word “slave.” New South’s editor-in-chief, Randall Williams, told The Takeaway that removing the racial slur isn’t censorship.

However, in a society where kids encounter this word in so many different contexts, including pop-culture, among friends, and in the “real world” – does the move to edit Twain’s masterpiece make sense? David Wall Rice, an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at Morehouse College in Atlanta explores the complex situation.