It really is an insult to peoples' intelligence. The word SHOULD be making people uncomfortable, and if it didn't we would be in trouble as a society. That's the whole point of why we read it in High School, to promote awareness. In my class we had to read some of those parts out loud and invariably the student would pause on that word, wondering if they should say it or not. That gives the teacher the opportunity to call attention to the fact that things were cruel and unfair back then and the students learn a valuable lesson, it brings up valuable discussion. To alter the words takes the teeth out of his anti-slavery, anti-racist message. It's just wrong to soften the language in the book so that a bunch of idiots can pretend that ugly things don't exist, and it doesn't help anybody or get us any closer to ending discriminatin by erasing the word in classroom, in fact it probably makes things worse.