Roger, that word was just as much a slur back when Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn as it is today. Twain meant it that way. If you in fact want to teach what Twain meant, then you need to include the word. Substituting "slave" is pitiful.
I actually don't think that's true.
It was a slur, yes, but its emotional impact then wasn't the same as its emotional impact today. I've been told repeatedly, by a number of different folks, that the emotional impact of the "N-word" is so much greater now than it was even, say forty years ago, that the book becomes almost unreadable to many folks today.
In any event, I would not call it 'revisionist history' in any realistic sense of the word. Certainly, nobody's ceasing publication of the original, nor attempting to say that any particular historical event didn't happen. If someone were to say that slavery didn't exist, or that all Africans came to this country voluntarily prior to the Civil War, or that slavery wan't really all that bad, that'd be revisionist history.
There is one potential benefit I see of this book. It's quite likely that this version of the book will be allowed in public schools that currently ban the original--and that, of and by itself, might give teachers the opportunity to open dialog on the subject. If I were such a teacher, I would begin my introduction to the book with "Today we are going to start reading
Huckleberry Finn. The version you're about to read is different from the one Mark Twain wrote in this way, and here's why..."
