Before you ban a book, try reading it

[ravenscape]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/356202_maxwellonline25.html


Here we go again. Parents are upset with language or a specific word in the books their children are reading at school. This time, as in many other instances nationwide, the offender is the N-word.
Darryl and Alytrice Brown, who are black, want Mildred Taylor's novel, "The Land," and Vicki Grove's novel, "The Starplace," removed from the accelerated-reading list at Turner Elementary School in Tampa, Fla. Their daughter, 11-year-old Ashyaa, who is in the gifted program, complained that both books contain the N-word.
In their misguided effort to protect their daughter from a word, these parents would deprive every child at Turner Elementary, now and in the future, of the opportunity to read these two excellent novels. I read both three years ago when I wrote about an attempt in Tuscaloosa, Ala., to remove the novel "Summer of My German Soldier" from a 10th-grade-reading list.


The parents in question haven't even read the books themselves. They object to the word, in the absence of any context.

My 7th grade honors English class read The Diary of Anne Frank. Several parents objected. The class spend one day brainstorming the points to make in a Letter to the Editor, then a couple of us wrote it up.

We finished the diary.

I wonder how such things actually play out these days.

[Worldtraveller]

Read it?? Are you nuts?? It has the word 'nigger' in it! *gets a bad case of the vapors*

Whew...that was close. :p

This kind of reactionary thinking, and the kneejerk impulse to simply ban something they don't like really frightens me sometimes. The good news is it's usually just a small number of bad, ignorant apples. The bad news so many just go along with the bad (loud ) apples.

I think I'm going to move to New Zealand. :)

Cheers,
Lane

[laughing dog]

I have a better idea: remove the parents.

[Worldtraveller]

I have a better idea: remove the parents.

It's apparently too late to have them 'fixed'.... :p

Cheers.

[Ray Moscow]

Well, Huckeberry Finn was supposedly banned in some schools and libraries over the "N" word, but anyone who read it would know that one of its main themes was to criticise slavery and racism. Huck finds, against all his cultural prejudice, that Jim was a very good human being (despite being an "N" and a slave).

[PostMortem]

:banghead: Fucking typical!!! What it boils down to is; "We are uncomfortable talking to our own child about such topics so we want any possibly upsetting ideas or topics removed from her life".

[ravenscape]

There are a few words that in almost any context (except a literary and/or historical context) are inflammatory, and nigger is certainly one of them. Some people for some reason can't appreciate the literary context. If someone has to have kneejerk reactions, this is slightly more tolerable than the opposite. The main problem is raising up future citizens and voters with a similar lack of contextual appreciation.

Then you wind up with people having to apologize profusely and even resign for the appropriate use of words like niggardly (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22).

[tjakey]

For the most part I am a free speech absolutist and against banning just about anything. But...what if its a really bad book and you just can't make it to the end? I read through the Qur'an once. No one should be criticized for not making it to the end of that horrid little bit of drivel. Still, I wouldn't ban it. (I might put a warning label on it, like a pack of smokes.)

[Daisy]

I read through the Qur'an once.I'm impressed with your tolerance of tedium mixed with absurdity.

[Monad]

I couldn't believe a lovely, life affirming and humanistic book like "Bridge to Terabitha" could be on the list of books there have been the most attempts to get banned. Really shows how ugly this reactionary censoriousness is.

[tjakey]

Lots of practice Daisy, I grew up reading the bible.

[Roy]

Read it?? Are you nuts?? It has the word 'nigger' in it! *gets a bad case of the vapors*

Do they ban dictionaries?

Roy

[Worldtraveller]

Read it?? Are you nuts?? It has the word 'nigger' in it! *gets a bad case of the vapors*

Do they ban dictionaries?

Roy
Don't give 'em any ideas!!

[Teshi]

I used to live in Texas. I'm a language teacher. It was a terribly conservative area.

I thought I was going to get in huge trouble for our reading selections, but none of the parents were paying enough attention/literate enough to know anything about the content of the books. I only had one complaint in my whole tenure: a parent wrote to let me know that if I caught her kid reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, (which was on the list for the remedial readers, and was by far the least objectionable selection there from a censor's viewpoint) I was to take it from him, as witchcraft is bad. Heh.

[BWE]

I read catch-22 with a group of 7th and 8th graders. I must admit, it was an interesting experiment. Luckily it worked out well. Over the 4 years that I've been teaching the class, I've had them read One flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Candide, Several Kurt Vonnegut books, Hitch hikers Guide, The time Machine, Of Mice and Men, Elmer Gantry, The Jungle, All quiet on the Western Front, 1984, and a host of other books. I'd have them read Another Roadside Attraction but I'm afraid the parents would object.

So far I've been lucky. It's an AP or honors type class so they are all good readers. Middle schoolers are amazed at stories of adults when life turns out to be messy. The myth of the suburbs is strong in America today I think.