Censored version of Huck Finn

I heard this discussed, very intelligently, on CNN last night (the panel included an SU professor!) 

The basic argument for altering the book (replacing "nigger," which appears over 200 times, with "slave") is that schools won't include the book because it's too controversial.  And secondarily, that people just don't read the book, because it's too upsetting (or something like that). 

The argument for not changing it is basically that a) it's art, and censoring art is a slippery slope;  b) Twain chose the word deliberately; and c) how can we understand the impact of that word, and the attitudes behind it, if we purge it from our history?

I really get both sides of this debate.  If people won't read it, then it has no impact at all.  But if you alter it so fundamentally, it ceases to be what it actually is.  Quite a dilemma.

And how perfect is this Quote of the Day that just arrived in my inbox:

"Every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side." - Ralph Waldo Emerson