Although my experience with school boards has always been from the side of parent, I would have to agree with Susan that the _Following the Equator_ quote is one of my personal favorites. I don't see how any discussion of race and slavery can avoid contentiousness from either perspective. As it should be. In teaching HF, I have found also that black students have fewer "problems" with the text than white students. I think that white students' uneasiness with the situations and language have more to do with seeing how in the past (and in some cases, still) the epithet "nigger" and Tom's trickery late in the novel stymied reconstruction and Civil Rights. I think it may also represent our impatience and sometimes anger at accepting guilt ("I never owned a slave, so why should I feel guilty about slavery?") Those who ignore history ARE doomed to repeat it (or at least fail to progress). Jan McStras