School district pulls 2 classic novels off required reading list, citing racial slurs
MINNEAPOLIS -- District officials in Duluth, Minnesota, schools have removed " To Kill a Mockingbird " and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" from the required reading list because of racial slurs in the books, CBS Minnesota reports. Michael Cary, the district's director of curriculum and instruction, told The Duluth News Tribune the books will still be optional reading and available in the school libraries, but they'll be replaced next year by other books that touch the same topics without language that makes students uncomfortable.
"We felt that we could still teach the same standards and expectations through other novels that didn't require students to feel humiliated or marginalized by the use of racial slurs," Cary said.
While administrators said that no single incident prompted the reading list change, there have been complaints about the books' use of a racial slur in the past.
According to the newspaper, the president of the local chapter of the NAACP praised the district's decision.
"There are a lot more authors out there with better literature that can do the same thing that does not degrade our people," Stephan Witherspoon said. "I'm glad they're making the decision and it's long overdue, like 20 years overdue."
"To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" had been required reading in Duluth's ninth- and 11th-grade English classes.
Tags
Who is online
183 visitors
Not sure why there is a push to remove materials that might offend someone. There are a lot of writings over the ages that offend people. Are times different now? Yes. Should we hide the past because it might hurt someone's feelings? No. To me, following this course of action eventually ends up with people burning books.
It's not a push to remove the materials. It's just not forcing students to read them.
How is it prohibiting students from reading them when the books are available in the library?
Hmmmmm - wonder if mummy and duhddy have listened to the lyrics of the songs (??????) their kiddies are listening to - curious minds want to know.
If you don't want to hear racial slurs, not using them yourself is a good place to start.
No shit, Sherlock, but we aren't talking about parenting. We are talking about a school district removing required reading books that are known classics all to shield people form seeing something that might offend them. I guess we don't want kids to know that we evolved form a less enlightened age.
"If you don't want to hear racial slurs, not using them yourself is a good place to start."
That would be a good lesson for our "entertainers" to learn.
Show me my racial slurs - please.
"To Kill a Mockingbird" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn"
AGAIN ?
When did Liberals get this idea that Censorship is a good thing.....as being a Good Thing !
Who is actually "Proud" to be some kind of "Snowflake" anyway.
They really need to remove that word "Tolerance" from their vocabulary and their campaign posters.....Toot Sweet ! They've shown, over and over, they can't live up to that mantra of theirs.....for Fucking Decades !
To Kill a Mocking Bird is one of my favorite books...it is a classic.
These novels provide important lessons from history.
Perhaps portraying a good white man like Atticus Finch is the problem.
This is so wrong.
Maybe somebody should tell the NAACP they still have the word "colored" in their name.
They were written in the language of the time, a case of PC running amok perhaps. Although book banning is nothing new, just a tool of the ignorant.
When reading the seed, all I could think of was 'Replaced by WHAT?' This isn't the first school district across the country that has removed these same books. It seems that none of those district cited what their replacements would be for those classics.
So I searched for an answer and came up with this:
I must admit, though I am a bibliophile, I have only read "Snow Falling on Cedars" [can't remember it though]so I can't make any decision on whether these books would 'teach the same lesson'. I will say that I remember all three of those classics quite well and have read all three more than once. I'll have to dig out my copy of "Snow" and re-read it.