“Race matters in these books. It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century,” publisher Alan Gribben told Publishers Weekly  in an article published on its website earlier this month.

Thank you, Mr. Gribben, for the reminder that we live in an embarrassingly politically correct world. It is because of this that we’ve now changed Mark Twain’s two great classics, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” to reflect that we’re uncomfortable with the history of our nation’s errors.

Does anyone else see one of those slippery slope arguments making an appearance here? Today, let’s replace the “n word” with the word “slave.” And how about in 20 years, when the word “slave” makes everybody too uncomfortable, let’s change it to “hired field worker.” We can’t have our children knowing about that stuff, it’s totally inappropriate.

Oh wait. Shoot. You know what else makes me uncomfortable? “Schindler’s List.” I can’t handle the scene where Commandant Amon Goeth shoots innocent prisoners from his villa balcony.

We should probably go back and edit that scene. In fact, we should probably go back and edit the whole film. How about we remove all the guns and shooting? There, now it’s more kid friendly. But damn, there are still concentration camps. Let’s get rid of those, too. Oh, and the Nazis.

Perfect. Now we’re left with a Disney Channel-esque commentary on our history. Obviously, this is not what director Steven Spielberg and Twain were going for in the first place. They wanted to provide an educated and intellectual commentary on a very real, and perhaps uncomfortable, aspect of our past. But now, we’ve just boiled it down to butterflies and rainbows with happy endings.

But don’t worry; everyone will still understand the full implications of the Holocaust.

Yes, the “n word” makes people squirm no matter the context. But I think that was Twain’s point. And what right do we really have to change it to something that makes our conscience feel a little bit better?

We can’t always take back the things we have done in the past that hurt people, both intentionally and otherwise.

For instance, my sophomore year of high school, otherwise known as my rebellious emo stage, I never did my homework, sat in my bed crying over a Jimmy Eat World song and said things to my parents that I will always wish I could take back.

But even if I could take back what I said as a 15-year-old girl with bangs covering her entire face, I’m not sure that I would. Sooner or later, I realized that what I said actually had a meaningful impact on my life. So, I cut my regrets (and my bangs) out of my life. These realizations ensure that I will never act like that again.

Okay, so the “n word” is a little bit bigger than a girl yelling at her parents, but I think that the general idea is there. Twain knew what he was doing when he used that word. And deep down, I think Gribben knows what he’s doing by taking it out. He’s undermining a genius and propagating the walking-on-eggshells mentality that Americans have these days. You can’t change the past to make it more kid friendly, Mr. Gribben. No matter how many books you edit.

Note to my editors: If anything I’ve written here made you uncomfortable in any way, please, by all means feel free to change it. It’s not like I was trying to make a point or anything.