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[rep the dems]

In a recent assignment for English class, I had to write a satire from Huck Finn's point of view if he were alive today. Naturally I wrote about the Republican Party, but that is not the point of the story.

In writing this essay, we were expected to use the same dialect that Huck would, but we were asked by the teacher not to include the word "nigger". She said that instead we could write "n--" or anything else we could think of with somewhat of a Huck Finn feel to it. We were warned that if we used the word "nigger" we would lose points.

While I did not necessarily agree with this logic, I decided to abstain from using the word figuring it really wasn't worth causing a problem over. A friend of mine, however, used the word three times, I believe, and thus lost about 10 points (as I recall).

My friend feels like I do, that these kinds of things should not be of major consequence if used in a meaningful way. He is not a racist. He thinks that if we are supposed to use southern dialect, then we should not be told not to say "nigger." However, he seems to ignore the fact that we had been told what would happen if we chose to say it.

I was thinking about this tonight, and figured what better way to get intelligent feedback than to post this story on DU. Since I am unable to post a poll, I'll simply ask, what do you think?