(Homemade vegan sausage, lemony yellow finns, and baby arugula)

On Slate's Culture Gabfest last week, they discussed the announced revision of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which replaces the "n-word" with "slave."

The discussion brought to mind a conversation I had with the Kid, when he read Huck Finn at age 10. At that point, I was not sure he had ever heard the word. The only real possibility would have been if he'd heard it in a hip hop song or in a comedy routine when listening to internet radio. I'm not sure, but I think when we talked, he had not heard the word, so I tried my best to lay out its history, and the hateful ways in which it has been used. I wanted him to understand its historical and current use, and I wanted to make sure he wouldn't use it naively, accidentally unleashing a negative power he didn't realize it had. Because absent of context, it's just a word.

And I new he'd understood when he became all teary-eyed, and fiercely said to me, "It's like when Draco calls Hermione a mudblood! I hate him!"

Yes, my darling, that is quite exactly what it is like.