- Lots of people are pointing out why retroactively censoring Huckleberry Finn is a bad idea, but I think I like what Gerry Canavan says most:
If we’re going to retroactively censor Mark Twain, I’d say “slave†seems significantly more offensive to me than “n*gger†insofar as it accedes to the noxious proposition that some people can be slaves in the first place. People can be enslaved, of course—but no person is a slave. In my own rare writing and teaching on slavery I try to favor “so-called slave†and “enslaved person†in a quiet effort to highlight that slavery is not an essence but a structure of violent domination.
It’s not the fact that we’re still having this conversation that bothers me — we should have continued and open discussions about race — it’s that we’re still faced with people who think not discussing it, pretending the words we don’t like don’t exist, is the right way to go.
- In happier news, Nel Gaiman and Amanda Palmer are married. As Patton Oswalt writes:
Marriage of @amandapalmer and @neilhimself confirmed. Like the Hatfield/Coy War, the Nerd/Goth schism is laid to rest — by love!
- And in other amusing, geeky wedding news, Doctor Who‘s David Tennant is engaged to one-time co-star Georgia Moffett. As Peter David amusingly notes:
The Tenth Doctor is going to be marrying his own daughter who also happens to be the daughter of the Fifth Doctor and Trillian from the TV version of “Hitchhiker.â€
Most meta engagement EV-er.
- Speaking of Doctor Who, these one-of-a-kind nesting dolls may very well be the coolest thing ever. [via]
- And finally, Udo Kier…honestly, in interview, the man comes across like he’s playing an Udo Kier character — erudite, macabre, and often delightfully unhinged:
I cannot answer you, because it’s totally unknown to me what you just asked me, and also very boring.
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