Book banning

[Rev. Rye]

I looked into the controversy, it seems that To Kill a Mockingbird’s view of racism is very white-centric, one where Tom Robinson’s passive as Hell and it’s up to Atticus Finch to try and save him, and, honestly, that’s a criticism that makes sense. The white savior narrative is kind of a hollow way of looking at racism and I can only assume it’s even more hollow if you actually are POC, but let’s face it, even that hollow view of racism is still far more enlightened than an alarmingly high proportion of the population are willing to accept.

But what I’ve been able to find, the controversy is less about removing it from libraries and more about trying to find ways to put it in a proper perspective (often by giving Go Set a Watchman more canonical importance than may actually be warranted, or by the more sound tactic of pairing it with a work about racism by a black author). And, on the issue of structuring lit curricula, well, there are literally thousands of great novels out there, and there’s so little time for a teacher to reach their kids. It only makes sense for teachers to try and change up the curricula to something that might strike a chord with the students. I’m reminded of the scene from American History X where Edward Norton’s talking with his dad about how his English class is teaching Native Son at the expense of some Victorian novel, I’m not even sure if they actually name one of the novels removed, and, while Dad is feeding his sons’ racism in ways I’m not sure I can post here, but, frankly, having read it, and seeing that the school is kind of a behavioral sink, the sort of place where, in the end, a black kid ends up shooting a white kid in the bathroom, the choice to teach that novel, of all novels, sounds like a good strategy.