Book banning

[Spongebob]

I wanted to open a thread about book banning in the US.  This came to my attention because the California education system decided to pull several classics from their curriculum of required reading.  They assert this is not a ban but rather a pause on these books as they investigate complaints they've received from families who's children attend public schools.  But this isn't remotely the first time this sort of thing has come up.  Among these books is To Kill a Mockingbird.  This is one of my all time favorite books and movies as well.  I've defended it in arguments as a true classic and work of art, but after reading a few articles about the book from the perspective of being black in America and educating students about racism, I now understand why there's good reason to pull this book and replace it with more appropriate books.  Understand, I never, ever advocate banning any work of art, but I do see why there are just better books out there if your purpose is to confront the issue of racism in America.  Although I'll never stop loving this book, I now agree that it's time to defer to something better for this purpose.  If the point is just to introduce students to fine, classic literature, then it still should be considered quite valid.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I’m unaware of the objections to TKAM you mention, but I’m going to presume that they’re baseless until proved otherwise.

On a larger note, I’m predisposed to object to any book banning whatsoever.

Boru

[arewethereyet]

When my son was young I read Tom Sawyer  to him.  The copy of the book was out of a collection I had as a child.  It was the original prose and had not been cleaned up to make it PC.  Since we were living in the backwoods of the South I used the language in the book to teach him that certain words aren't acceptable and why.  I also explained to him that he would hear people using the same words but that didn't make it okay.  We had a brief talk about how old the book was and how things have changed, or should have changed, since the time of the writing.  

It was done as an aside and we went back to enjoying the story.  I left it open to him to ask questions and we worked through any confusion he had.

I don't agree with taking a book like Tom Sawyer or To Kill a Mockingbird off the shelves.  They can be used as a teaching tool while still telling a good story.

Hiding a book, or anything else, from kids makes it that much more interesting to them in my experience. You can't keep those books from them forever...nor should you if you want to instill a love of literature.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

When my son was young I read Tom Sawyer  to him.  The copy of the book was out of a collection I had as a child.  It was the original prose and had not been cleaned up to make it PC.  Since we were living in the backwoods of the South I used the language in the book to teach him that certain words aren't acceptable and why.  I also explained to him that he would hear people using the same words but that didn't make it okay.  We had a brief talk about how old the book was and how things have changed, or should have changed, since the time of the writing.  

It was done as an aside and we went back to enjoying the story.  I left it open to him to ask questions and we worked through any confusion he had.

I don't agree with taking a book like Tom Sawyer or To Kill a Mockingbird off the shelves.  They can be used as a teaching tool while still telling a good story.

Hiding a book, or anything else, from kids makes it that much more interesting to them in my experience.

As you’re probably aware, I’m a HUGE Mark Twain fan. The fact that there are people who want to try to ‘improve’ on Twain makes me furious. 

Twain hated the ‘n’ word. He didn’t use it in his personal life and publicly unbraided people who did. But the idea of expurgating editions of his work to fit modern sensibilities is an attempt to gloss over the way people of that time and place actually spoke and the views they held. No one’s going to erase racism by erasing history.

Boru

[Spongebob]

Before the thread gets too far along, I want to reiterate that I do not support banning books and this thread isn't really about banning them so much as re-examining some classics in light of more recent, and probably better, works for the purposes of examining things like racism.  The title of my OP was not really accurate, but it got your attention at least.

Regarding TKAM, there are numerous articles in the webosphere, both in support of and challenging it's continued value as a teaching tool and up until just recently I was among those who advocated for it's continued use.  But no longer, because I have heard some very valid arguments.  These don't center at all on the use of vulgar words, although this has been the pretense to ban it from schools in the past.  Chief among them is the N-word and discussion of rape.  But those are actually important things to discuss with students, so in my view they don't invalidate this book.  What does, however, is how the entire story is presented and viewed from the perspective of a white child.  This and some dubious motivations for Atticus.  Not to mention the machinations used to protect a white man guilty of murder when such protection would never apply to a black man.  Black people are not really presented as real people in the book, they are props and we are basically told that they can only be saved by a white man of high intelligence and ethics (though as I said, Atticus is only ostensibly so).  For black students, this is a horrible message.  For white students it reinforces a familiar message of white superiority.  Please understand that no amount of criticism will ever penetrate my love for this book.  I own a copy and have read it numerous times and will continue to do so.  But I've come to understand that it's message, though presented in a work of high art, is just not the best way to address racism in America.  But that's just my opinion.

When educational bureaucrats decide to do things like this, I wish they would be more savvy about it so we don't have to listen to idiots on Faux News rant about free speech, as if the federal government had Harper Lee tied up in the school basement with duck tape over her mouth.

[arewethereyet]

There's a podcast I follow (can't wait for new episodes) that did a whole series on racism in movies such as Gone With the Wind and Disney's Song of the South (which has been pulled from circulation).

I remember seeing SotS when I was a kid and the things I took notice of was that it blended cartoons and live action and it had lots of music.

I think people should teach kids that when reading a book or watching a movie they need to be mindful of when it was written. The difference in time is important to grasp. They need to know not just the time setting of the story but the time that it was written. Banning such things is not the way to go.

[arewethereyet]

Before the thread gets too far along, I want to reiterate that I do not support banning books and this thread isn't really about banning them so much as re-examining some classics in light of more recent, and probably better, works for the purposes of examining things like racism.  The title of my OP was not really accurate, but it got your attention at least.

Regarding TKAM, there are numerous articles in the webosphere, both in support of and challenging it's continued value as a teaching tool and up until just recently I was among those who advocated for it's continued use.  But no longer, because I have heard some very valid arguments.  These don't center at all on the use of vulgar words, although this has been the pretense to ban it from schools in the past.  Chief among them is the N-word and discussion of rape.  But those are actually important things to discuss with students, so in my view they don't invalidate this book.  What does, however, is how the entire story is presented and viewed from the perspective of a white child.  This and some dubious motivations for Atticus.  Not to mention the machinations used to protect a white man guilty of murder when such protection would never apply to a black man.  Black people are not really presented as real people in the book, they are props and we are basically told that they can only be saved by a white man of high intelligence and ethics (though as I said, Atticus is only ostensibly so).  For black students, this is a horrible message.  For white students it reinforces a familiar message of white superiority.  Please understand that no amount of criticism will ever penetrate my love for this book.  I own a copy and have read it numerous times and will continue to do so.  But I've come to understand that it's message, though presented in a work of high art, is just not the best way to address racism in America.  But that's just my opinion.

When educational bureaucrats decide to do things like this, I wish they would be more savvy about it so we don't have to listen to idiots on Faux News rant about free speech, as if the federal government had Harper Lee tied up in the school basement with duck tape over her mouth.

Why does it bother you the book is written from the perspective of a white child?

It has to be written from someone's perspective.

[Spongebob]

There's a podcast I follow (can't wait for new episodes) that did a whole series on racism in movies such as Gone With the Wind and Disney's Song of the South (which has been pulled from circulation).

I remember seeing SotS when I was a kid and the things I took notice of was that it blended cartoons and live action and it had lots of music.  

I think people should teach kids that when reading a book or watching a movie they need to be mindful of when it was written.  The difference in time is important to grasp.  They need to know not just the time setting of the story but the time that it was written.  Banning such things is not the way to go.

A key thing to note about SOTS is that it was Disney itself who locked that movie away out of shame and there are a lot of very good reasons for doing so, the least of which is that the book it's based on was nothing less than a white man's theft of black cultural stories that made him some money.  I think anyone who produced a work of art should be allowed to sequester it if they so choose.  It would be like Mark Twain being embarrassed by a book of his and pulling it from a publisher.

---

Why does it bother you the book is written from the perspective of a white child?

It has to be written from someone's perspective.

Thank you for asking and it's a valid question.  For starters, Scout is a fantastic voice for a book, but probably not this book.  She's years ahead of women's rights but because of the time in which the novel was written, her voice and the tone of the book in regards to the real lives of black people in the south is extremely tame, so as not to offend anyone.  Lee can be excused for this but society has come a long way since then and even many books and films for children address important issues with more vigor.  In a way, I see the book as sort of two stories wedged together awkwardly; Scout's story and Tom's story (or perhaps Atticus's).

It's also impossible for us to see the book as a statement on racism when so little of the book actually addresses the topic because Scout is also dealing with questions of poverty, social niceties and friendship.  She's distracted from the most important issue of the book much of the time.  This works well with her story but does little to challenge views on racism.  And please understand that I view this book as a masterpiece, just not one that truly applies to the issue of racism.

I had one friend who criticized the book as "preachy".  He's an actual Alabamian and older than I am.  I rejected his criticism as misunderstanding the narrative and just focusing on key elements of melodrama in the book.

Another favorite author of mine is George Orwell and I still see the value of his books, 1984 and Animal Farm, as they relate to the nature of freedom and government, so I'm certainly not just opposed to books due to their age, but rather how well they address the issues for which they are selected.  I don't know what Harper Lee thought about her book being used to address racism; maybe she didn't like it herself or maybe she loved it.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Perhaps this is legend, but I heard that the Tarzan books were banned from schools because Tarzan and Jane weren't married, despite their having been legally wed in the second book.

I got a teacher fired when I wrote a seven page review of Stranger in a Strange Land (two pages required.). Evidently the material was too ... hot ... for 10th graders.

[Apollo]

There's a podcast I follow (can't wait for new episodes) that did a whole series on racism in movies such as Gone With the Wind and Disney's Song of the South (which has been pulled from circulation).

I remember seeing SotS when I was a kid and the things I took notice of was that it blended cartoons and live action and it had lots of music.  

I think people should teach kids that when reading a book or watching a movie they need to be mindful of when it was written.  The difference in time is important to grasp.  They need to know not just the time setting of the story but the time that it was written.  Banning such things is not the way to go.

A key thing to note about SOTS is that it was Disney itself who locked that movie away out of shame and there are a lot of very good reasons for doing so, the least of which is that the book it's based on was nothing less than a white man's theft of black cultural stories that made him some money.  I think anyone who produced a work of art should be allowed to sequester it if they so choose.  It would be like Mark Twain being embarrassed by a book of his and pulling it from a publisher.

---

Why does it bother you the book is written from the perspective of a white child?

It has to be written from someone's perspective.

Thank you for asking and it's a valid question.  For starters, Scout is a fantastic voice for a book, but probably not this book.  She's years ahead of women's rights but because of the time in which the novel was written, her voice and the tone of the book in regards to the real lives of black people in the south is extremely tame, so as not to offend anyone.  Lee can be excused for this but society has come a long way since then and even many books and films for children address important issues with more vigor.  In a way, I see the book as sort of two stories wedged together awkwardly; Scout's story and Tom's story (or perhaps Atticus's).

It's also impossible for us to see the book as a statement on racism when so little of the book actually addresses the topic because Scout is also dealing with questions of poverty, social niceties and friendship.  She's distracted from the most important issue of the book much of the time.  This works well with her story but does little to challenge views on racism.  And please understand that I view this book as a masterpiece, just not one that truly applies to the issue of racism.

I had one friend who criticized the book as "preachy".  He's an actual Alabamian and older than I am.  I rejected his criticism as misunderstanding the narrative and just focusing on key elements of melodrama in the book.

Another favorite author of mine is George Orwell and I still see the value of his books, 1984 and Animal Farm, as they relate to the nature of freedom and government, so I'm certainly not just opposed to books due to their age, but rather how well they address the issues for which they are selected.  I don't know what Harper Lee thought about her book being used to address racism; maybe she didn't like it herself or maybe she loved it.

This to me is just an argument actually to keep teaching the book in schools.  You can always learn new things from old stories. Sometimes what the story teaches you, sometimes what the story doesn't teach you, and sometimes how silly the whole story is to begin with and shouldn't have even been written to begin with!  But even that last case you want to leave it there just to prove that point.

If you just ban the story, you'll never be able to go back and look various arguments, however contrarian to each other, surrounding it.  I think the point of fiction is not as much about the morals it teaches you or nudge you towards certain direction, but rather how it stimulates fantasies in people's mind in various directions.