School district dumps To Kill a Mockingbird because of complaints
The coming dark age: A Mississippi school district has removed To Kill a Mockingbird from its reading list because it “makes people uncomfortable.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” has a long history atop banned books lists, but here’s a new reason: the 20th century classic about racism in small-town Alabama “makes people uncomfortable.”
The Biloxi School District in Mississippi removed the novel by Harper Lee from an eighth-grade reading list after receiving complaints about the book’s language, the Biloxi Sun Herald reported. “There were complaints about it. There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books,” school board vice president Kenny Holloway told the paper.
I suspect the complaints were because the book used the slang for blacks common at the time and historically correct but absolutely banned from use today. The people complaining probably never read the book, and also likely haven’t the faintest idea what it is about. Worse, for the school board VP to go along with this ignorance is shameful.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
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"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The coming dark age: A Mississippi school district has removed To Kill a Mockingbird from its reading list because it “makes people uncomfortable.”
“To Kill a Mockingbird” has a long history atop banned books lists, but here’s a new reason: the 20th century classic about racism in small-town Alabama “makes people uncomfortable.”
The Biloxi School District in Mississippi removed the novel by Harper Lee from an eighth-grade reading list after receiving complaints about the book’s language, the Biloxi Sun Herald reported. “There were complaints about it. There is some language in the book that makes people uncomfortable, and we can teach the same lesson with other books,” school board vice president Kenny Holloway told the paper.
I suspect the complaints were because the book used the slang for blacks common at the time and historically correct but absolutely banned from use today. The people complaining probably never read the book, and also likely haven’t the faintest idea what it is about. Worse, for the school board VP to go along with this ignorance is shameful.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Educated does not mean smart!
School boards are elected positions. Just sayin’.
Figures, that’s my favorite book, beautifully written, I probably read it at least 3 times.
Nothing wrong with me, never made me “uncomfortable”, but I do make others uncomfortable, maybe there’s a correlation? Nah.
but absolutely banned from use today
Rap music shows that it is selective outrage.
Mr. Halloway’s comment, ..”and we can teach the same lesson with other books” ought to scare the heck out of anyone who has read Fahrenheit 451. He may not be throwing the match but he is surely enabling the ones who will.
Tommy-
excellent cultural reference!
(He is throwing the match.)
Fahrenheit 451
opening intro
https://youtu.be/x9iyKI2pJbE
5:33
This is what I expect (but not hope for) when I hear the phrase
“We need to discuss race relations” What I have found to be the reality of this phrase is that only the discussion desired by one side is acceptable.
As with To Kill a Mocking Bird the discussion is uncomfortable – it should be. Everyone should be uncomfortable in these discussions but should face the subject matter. We should confront it with open, honest and true discussion – not with effective censorship.