A disturbing trend, actually two, has reemerged in southeast Michigan: a school district has banned an American classic and nearly all school districts have cut their fine arts departments to stave off ever-decreasing state aid.
I know; neither problem is new or exclusive to southeast Michigan. When budget-crunching time comes, schools can’t sacrifice calculus to save improvisational drama. After all, calculus makes students into productive, desirable employees (notice I didn’t say “citizens”): the arts, depending on what generation and viewpoint you’re from, produces malcontents, beret-wearing beatniks, slackers, rabble-rousers or freethinkers.
The Taylor School District recently pulled Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from its classrooms after one parent complained about the extensive use of the n-word in the novel, The Detroit News reported last month.
Never mind that Twain was an ardent abolitionist; or widely considered to be the first great American novelist; or that Huck Finn has been extensively read, and taught, since its publication in 1885.
What about the students? What about their capacity for complex thought and creative exploration? Shielding them now will only hinder them — and their understanding of tolerance, injustice, history and creative endeavors — later in life.
As the arts continue to dwindle, so does exposure to the “real” history, literature and artistic representations of our heritage. I’ve always believed the old axiom that “Those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.” Given the rash of celebrity and political idiots spouting racial slurs, I guess we really haven’t learned from our past.
To be fair, I’ve never heard one board member, teacher, administrator or parent say schools shouldn’t have arts programs. As school districts are forced to make cuts, it’s clear that something has to be the sacrificial lamb — and the arts aren’t the jobs of the 21st century.
That’s why community groups that support the arts, such as FAME in Goodrich and The Thread Creek Players in Grand Blanc, are becoming increasingly more important to preserving the arts.
Last Friday, FAME invited Michael Mauldin, an acclaimed actor who has portrayed Twain since 1975, to perform the one-man play, “An Evening with Mark Twain.”
People of all ages enjoyed the wit, wisdom and satire of Twain as Mauldin recreated a Twain lecture. In an unorthodox second act, Mauldin removed his makeup and answered questions from the audience.
“This is where my heart is, what you are doing,” Mauldin said of FAME’s efforts to bring performances, workshops and classroom education to the community. “The arts remind us of what it is to be human . . . Do whatever you can to support the arts.”
Although Mauldin didn’t discuss Twain’s views on slavery during the performance, he did address another of Twain’s contemptuous issues: when Mauldin said Twain became a reporter because “there weren’t any respectable jobs available,” the audience erupted in laughter.
Everyone’s a critic.

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