OT School district pulls 'To Kill A Mockingbird' from reading list; 'makes people uncomfortable'

By The Associated Press

"To Kill a Mockingbird" is being removed from a junior-high reading list in a Mississippi school district.

The Sun Herald reports that Biloxi administrators pulled the novel from the 8th-grade curriculum this week. School board vice president Kenny Holloway says the district received complaints that some of the book's language "makes people uncomfortable."

Published in 1960, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Harper Lee deals with racial inequality in a small Alabama town.

A message on the school's website says "To Kill A Mockingbird" teaches students that compassion and empathy don't depend upon race or education. Holloway says other books can teach the same lessons.

http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2017/10/mississippi_school_district_pu.html

 

#ittakesavillage
#nochildleftbehind

 

#WeAreTalkingAboutMississippi
#NoBanjoShallBeSilenced
#MakeOurCurriculumWhiteAgain

 

Um, you know it's because of the N-word, right? Somehow, I don't think your genericized redneck banjo-playing hillbillies care about using the n-word in a 50 year-old book.

It started in Virginia, that bastion of rebel banjos...because of a complaint by a "mother of a biracial teenager". Who got people to believe that at this point in our history, it's "hard to read racist language. "

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...d-virginia-schools-racist-language-harper-lee

 

I mean, in this thread you seemed to think that this was a good book...yet you're cool with people claiming that it's racist and needs to be censored?

Social Justice Warriors trying out out-PC each other, instead of using the book as -- gasp! -- a teaching moment...and now there start to be repercussions.

(Edit: not saying you are a SJW, that this mom and these people on the school board responding to a complaint or two by changing curriculum 'mid-stream' are, to the detriment of our students and future.)

 

I'm sorry, I thought we were having fun with hashtags that added nothing to the OP.

To Kill A Mockingbird isn't a good book, it's one of the great books in American literature. If that makes me a snowflake or racist or faggot or whatever, I don't really care.

 

I wasn't really having fun...more pointing out that actions have consequences. In this case, allowing the feelings of students "having trouble reading" to get curricula (based on "great works in American literature") tossed out of schools imparts too much power on a vocal minority (#nochildleftbehind , one of whose core criticisms is "Those who control the schools control the future."). Or the danger in having school boards taking a role in how Jr High Schoolers deal with "the current political landscape" instead of how they learn American Lit. (#ittakesavillage "captures perfectly Clinton’s vision of a multicultural America working toward a constructive goal - WaPo; emphasizes the shared responsibility that society has for successfully raising children" - Wiki)

I feel like you just joined the Dark Denny Side and don't know it. It puts you on the side of those who don't really care that a bi-racial junior high-schooler's mom thinks it's "hard for him to read" those words. It says it's not ok to ban one of the great books in American literature b/c a couple of moms felt bad and SJW school boards think it's ok to appease them, or that a school board bent on whitewashing history through guilt over the n-word is not the model to follow on how we should heal our racial divides.

 

Aren't good novels supposed to make you feel uncomfortable at times.

 

Score 1 for Brian.

My initial reaction is that it is one of the great books (and movies, too). It's AMERICAN, through and through. It spoke to the most serious of issues of race in the time of segregation.

You've got people from the most racist of places back then saying they want the book removed because of the N word? It's a sign of how far we've come.