Political correctness isn't always correct.

With the recent hoopla about the changing of Huck Finn I wondered what would other books look like if they were summarily sanitized.

I read Richard Wright's Black Boy in seventh grade. Looking back, I have to admit, it was a defining moment in my life. It shaped my vision for the future.

I remember reading it and crying. Weeping inconsolably for the horrors such a small boy endured. I swore to myself I'd never be those people. Had this book been sanitized in the same way that they are considering with Huck Finn, I'm not so sure it would have had the same impact on me that it did.

I understand how the words nigger and injun strike a chord within folks. I really do, but does sanitizing them out of books, substituting slave in their place, make the intent behind the words any less vulgar? Does erasing them from history serve the purpose that it's meant to serve?

If those words had been taken out of Black Boy I may have grown up to be just as racist as some of my family members.

Whether it's Huck Finn or Black Boy, ignorance needs to be shown for the ignorance it is. Shine a light on it. Don't stuff it in a closet or erase it from history. If you do, there's nothing left to spur minds into thinking there's another way.