Like a lot of folks, I’m still sort of dumb struck by the inanity responsible for the loss of the “n word” in the now infamous new edition of Huckleberry Finn. I think Ta Nehisi Coates has about the best commentary I’ve read on the subject in his “Nation of Cowards” post over at the Atlantic:

…the invocation of nigger by Twain is not a moral failing. But because of our needs, Twain isn’t good enough. Because we can’t handle the story of who we were, and evidently who we are, Twain must be summoned up from the dead and, all against himself, submitted before the edits of amateurs.This is our system of fast-food education laid bare: Children are roaming the halls singing “Sexy Bitch,” while their neo-Confederate parents are plotting to chop the penis off Michelangelo’s David, and clamoring for Gatsby and Daisy to be reunited.

Speaking of not being able to handle who we are, our country’s most famous legal document, the Constitution, was all set for its close up this week as the 112th Congress convened. The scheme to read the Constitution by conservatives a-flutter at the opportunity to demonstrate their superior fidelity to the founding document backfired quickly as an argument about which version was going to be read broke out in the House of Representatives.

Apparently, we can handle neither the word “nigger” in Twain nor “3/5” in the Constitution. Of course, while Twain meant to use the word as a powerful means of pointing out the pure evil of the institution of slavery (and the ignorance and racism required to maintain it), the fraction in the Constitution denoting those slaves was a cold compromise of legislative language. And I’d submit that is the truly shocking, racist word.

I suspect conservatives figured this out just a bit too late. Which is why it’s fun to watch them squirm uncomfortably before the recitation gets under way. Enjoy: