Out of the totality of written literature are those the very best books to teach people about the times and places they are set in?
The voice is not eliminated. No longer required and eliminated are not the same thing.
Reading lists get updated and toothless geezers winge about it. This has always been and probably will always be the case.
While I'm not yet toothless, according to this article from the LA Times re the Burbank 5, the books have been quarantined until further notice.
In essence, they have been effectively eliminated.
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-11-12/burbank-unified-challenges-books-including-to-kill-a-mockingbird
During a virtual meeting on Sept. 9, middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received a bit of surprising news: Until further notice, they would not be allowed to teach some of the books on their curriculum.
Five novels had been challenged in Burbank: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” and Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Medal-winning young-adult classic “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”
I've read 3 of the 5, and it was a long time ago, IIRC Huck Finn and of Mice and Men were assigned reads in 7, 8 or 9th grade. To Kill a Mockingbird was in high school.
But whether they are the best teaching materials I supposed depends on what is being taught. We are led to believe that racism and prejudice might have been the lessons here. and the teachers thought they were effective teaching tools in discussing the issue. perhaps greater sensitivity can be employed and giving the kids some context and spoilers as to what they might find offensive.
But banning books that some find offensive is the real offense.
And as the LAT article details many teaching orgs were firmly and loudly against the books being in lock-down.
No doubt they are toothless geezers.
That some in the community are offended by certain words or themes presented in the books is unfortunate. But the remedy to racism should be trying to understand it, discuss it, expose it, or read about it to see how it affects us today. Pretending it doesn't exist and we should not talk about it as it might offend someone or a lot of someones seems counterproductive to the presumed goal.
I'm squarely in the free speech camp and think the recent movement to restrain offensive ideas on college campuses is dangerous and stupid and somrthing the left should not remotely embrace.
the woke generation, like some of us geezers, should take a nap from time to time, as their brains could probably benefit from some sleep.
The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective.
Usually being the one of the few blacks in “A track” I can attest to feeling targeted when in discussing these books in the classroom.
But hey... I have everyone of those books on the shelf... except for the Cay. I hated that book.
The problem is these books teach lessons as if racism is a relic of the past of the bulk of these times are written from a white perspective?
And? So?
What they teach is that racism is an integral part of the past, and that there were white people who recognized this wrong and wrote books to bring that wrong to light.
That you wish to silence that white perspective of the past reflects your own current bigotry towards white people.
Teachers don't teach books. They don't choose books to preach a point if view. They use them to teach students how to examine a perspective. Those books reflect varied and relevant points if view when placed within the context of when they were written.
Any of these books can be used to teach reading, writing, and critical thinking about society then, and the challenges facing society now.
Think your Jewish Grandma would work to ban "Number the Stars" because it tells a Holocaust tale as written by a gentile?
Your argument here is weak.
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