Too honest for words

I believe I had already been born when Sammy Davis Jr. came to Spokane and the hotel where he entertained refused him lodging because of the color of his skin. When my son developed a friendship with a black child in grade school, neither of the boys would believe me when I told them about it. Only after his parents verified that things like that happened, and also happened to them as they were growing up, did either boy believe.

Now, I am told that a publishing house has printed copies of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer with the “N” word edited out.

My son and his friend, now in their 20s, will have Grandma and Grandpa to appeal to when their children don’t believe the stories of prejudice and discrimination. But with sanitized copies of the classics, how will their children convince my great-grandchildren?

Regardless of how well meaning the intention, sanitizing the classics can only serve the same purpose as attempts to deny the reality of Hitler’s Holocaust during World War II.

Art Seaton

Spokane