by Don Hall

The kneejerk reaction to the very concept of sensitivity readers going through a work of literature and suggesting changes in the language written by authors long dead in order to revise and soften the potential harm these books might cause others is to throw up my hands and bellow "What the everloving FUCK?"

Agatha Christie mysteries written between 1920 and 1976 have had passages reworked or removed in new editions published by HarperCollins to strip them of language and descriptions that modern audiences find offensive, especially those involving the characters Christie’s protagonists encounter outside the UK.

The edits cut references to ethnicity, such as describing a character as black, Jewish or Gypsy, or a female character’s torso as “of black marble” and a judge’s “Indian temper”, and removed terms such as “Oriental” and the N-word. The word “natives” has also been replaced with the word “local”.

In the new edition of the 1964 Miss Marple novel A Caribbean Mystery, the amateur detective’s musing that a hotel worker smiling at her has “such lovely white teeth” has been removed.

Puffin did something similar to the collected works of Roald Dahl and now Ian Fleming's James Bond is getting the wash-over. Many changes are to remove racist language. In Live and Let Die, Bond’s comment that would-be African criminals in the gold and diamond trades are “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought, except when they’ve drunk too much” has been changed to “pretty law-abiding chaps I should have thought”.

Others are to remove sexist language; for example a scene where Bond visits a nightclub in Harlem, and a reference to the “audience panting and grunting like pigs at the trough” has been changed to “Bond could sense the electric tension in the room.”

James Bond without sexism?!

Not dissimilar from tearing down statues of Confederate Generals or renaming high schools previously named for statesmen with shady pasts, this practice seems like a strange revision of history as well as an odd work around to actual censorship.

On the other hand and upon reflection maybe the practice has some benefit after all.

The first question is why engage in this washing of the past? Simple. To erase the reminders that people were solidly racist and sexist in attitudes back in the day. To eliminate references to fat people because fat people don't like being reminded they're fat and to cross out any notion that cripples were in any way less than the non-crippled. To keep these classics—which we know will continue to be read because they've lasted the test of time—more inclusive. No one black should ever be confronted with the horrors of slave owning white people and no woman (you know, the ladies without cocks) should ever remember a time when they weren't girl bosses and not seen as property.

The second question is why would this be a good idea?

Think of it. History exists to understand the past so we don't repeat the failures and celebrate the triumphs. The discourse of the sensitivity readers ultimately leads to an erasure of that history so that two generations from now, no one will even know how horrible writers, politicians, and scientists could be. Sure, these future generations will wonder what all the fuss was about concerning social justice and will only see the Civil War as a fight for the economic autonomy of the Southern states because references to slavery will be scrubbed clean. These generations will not understand who Harvey Weinstein was or hear about McCarthy and the HUAC. They won’t understand that blacks had to struggle through Jim Crow America and won’t be amazed when a guy whose legs were blown off in a war can play basketball because we’ll all be exactly the same.

They will be adult children. It will be the Disneyfication of history and literature and art. How grand ignorance will be. How easily other countries will dominate and control them.

"Mommy? Why did Hitler kill the Jews?"

"He was bad. He didn't like them."

"But why?"

"He was like Donald Trump except with better manners. Stop asking questions. Questions like yours are why we were so dysfunctional back in the early 21st century. Go watch your vintage Frozen and the re-release of Song of the South."

"Uncle Remus was just a kindly person of advanced age, wasn't he?"

"Yes. Now stop with the questions and go plug in. I need an opioid."