Friday, December 2, 2016

Virginia school temporarily bans 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and Huckleberry Finn

"The parent, whose son is biracial, said that her concerns are "not even just a black and white thing."
"I keep hearing, 'This is a classic, This is a classic,' ... I understand this is a literature classic. But at some point, I feel that children will not -- or do not -- truly get the classic part -- the literature part, which I'm not disputing," she said at a Nov. 15 school board meeting. "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that."
The parent said her son, who was reading "Huckleberry Finn" for a high school assignment, couldn't get past a certain page in that story on which the N-word appeared seven times. 
A racial slur appears 219 times in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and 48 times in "To Kill a Mockingbird.""

27 comments:

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

They said that if Trump became President that book burnings would follow...

deborah said...

I heard bra burning :)

MamaM said...

The key words are "you can't get past that".

The truth is, she can't get past that.



Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Oh, I wanted to post this last night but it was too cold to go outside where I can use Wifi.

Please don't forget to use our Amazon portal and or send a direct contribution to keep me afloat.

I'm going to be starting a part time with UPS soon and there's a good chance I will be able to afford internet then.

Thanks everybody.

The Dude said...

Inward? That's a problem?

Oh, you mean that word you hear all the time in that crap you call music. So it's okay for one segment of society to hurl that word at each other, repeatedly, but heaven forbid that it shows up in a work by a dead white guy or girl. Fascinating set of principles you have there, Ms. Alleged-Parent-Person.

ampersand said...

Change the offending word to "My Nigga". Problem solved.

ricpic said...

To Kill A Mockingbird is a liberal tract. Would I have banned it? No. But then I'm not a liberty hating liberal. You wanna read liberal swill? Be my guest.

Huck was banned because reading the word nigger would - oh the humanity! - melt the snowflakes.

edutcher said...

The irony is the real hero of Huck is the black guy, but he has integrity, so they don't want to expose kids to that.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

What a shame because both books are a perfect tool and perfect moment to teach the history of how America has been able to move past the past. How things USED to be and how different they are now. Included in that history and sociological lesson could be some information about the people who gave their lives to free the slave, who gave their lives to protest segregation in the South. Why the Republican party came to be. Who were those who supported segregation and Jim Crow laws.

History....nah forget it. Let's just continue with the propaganda and hide our heads in the sand.

Trooper York said...

You really are a nutcase Little Debbie.

Do you really think I would support a guy who advocated bra burning?

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

Troop, hell yes you would. Then those customers would have to come back for more bras!

ndspinelli said...

I surmise the formerly adored Harper Lee and To Kill are now on the liberal shit list after, Go Set a Watchman. As I read it last year I kept saying, "There will be hell to pay." Of course Lee is dead so she has nothing to gain or lose. It is funny to read the hand wringing reviews by PC, liberal elitists.

MamaM said...

And the woman's son who's in high school and presumably old enough to be making his own choices with regard to friends, sex, what to wear, eat and drink, and where to poop is one of the "children"!

Puhleeze. Someone needs to grow up and it's not the kid.

I did wonder how and why a bra-burning reference turned up with the winky-poo. The cold weather must be slowing my brain.

Not so much though that I don't mourn a generation of children who'll now have no clue as to what a "chiffarobe" is.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

I see no pressing need for me to enter a judgment in this matter.

ricpic said...

OT - was listening, sort of, to Limbaugh while concentrating on something else and I think I heard him say something nice about Althouse, that she was KIND! I kid you not. This was in reference to her posting something critical of the Jill Stein recount fiasco. Kind and Althouse: that's surreal, man.

The great rh reported the development at Althouse. Claimed he was solving a math problem at the time he heard the Limbaugh compliment.

Darcy said...

Oh! I'm so glad I was strolling by here. I've just looked up "chiffarobe". I never knew what the Sam hill they were talking about. Now I do.

The Dude said...

I saw the movie when it was released and learned that word then.

In "O Brother Where Art Thou?" the character Penny McGill has the following conversation with Everett:

"-That's not my ring.
- What? Not your ring?
- That's one of Aunt Herlene's.
- You said it was in the roll-top.
- I said I thought it was.
- No, you said...
- Or under the mattress.
- Or maybe in my chifforobe."

"Chifforobes were first advertised in the 1908 Sears, Roebuck Catalogue, which described them as "a modern invention, having been in use only a short time." The term itself is a portmanteau of the words chiffonier and wardrobe."

And given the distinct lack of closet space in my 1951 house I could use a chifforobe. Perhaps I shall acquire one. But then Mayella Ewell might move in and have her acquaintance Tom bust it up.

Sometimes you can't win for losing.

The Dude said...

Oh, and hey Darce - good to see you. You will let us know where and when to send our wedding gifts, right? This is kind of a big deal around here.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

that she was KIND! I kid you not.

Seems perfectly consistent with Rush Limbaugh being a show business phony.

The Dude said...

Yeah, the kind of voter who would vote for Obama at least once and Hillary, too. Kind of a badword.

bagoh20 said...

Every election ballot should have a variety of racial slurs printed right at the top to protect the process from the incompetent.

bagoh20 said...

They wanted to burn them, but there was concern that some of the kids might not know that fire is hot.

chickelit said...

Chifforobes are a European thing. Over there, apartments and many houses lack closets. Regular Germans store clothes in chifforobes Schranks. An old word for a fridge is a Kuhlschrank (cool cabinet). It's a cultural thing.

ndspinelli said...

Can any you crackers bust up a chifforobe w/ one hand, like Tom Robinson?

chickelit said...

Robinson was able to bust chifforobes with one hand and diddle bustarubes with his lame hand.

Atticus had no clue

The Dude said...

I put my meat in the Kuhlschrank (five consonants in a row!) but it suffered from schrankage.

I am familiar with schranks, we used to see them in the antique trade. Very clever - they are enormous, but can be disassembled into movable size pieces and put back together in your next

Makes me wonder about the derivation of the name John Flammang Schrank. Must have been arson.

The Dude said...

House - your next house.