[political]

To Kill a Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn have been suspended from the curriculum in some Virginia schools, after a parent complained about the use of racial slurs.

Harper Lee and Mark Twain’s literary classics were removed from classrooms in Accomack County, in Virginia after a formal complaint was made by the mother of a biracial teenager. At the centre of the complaint was the use of the N-word, which appears frequently in both titles.

The woman who made the complaint said her son struggled to read the racist language, telling the Accomack County public schools board: “There’s so much racial slurs and defensive wording in there that you can’t get past that.” The challenge also appears to be motivated by the current political landscape in the US, as the mother told the board: “Right now, we are a nation divided as it is.”

As a committee has yet to discuss the future of the books, a permanent ban has not yet been placed on the two books. However, they have already been removed from classrooms in the district, a move the National Coalition Against Censorship described as “particularly egregious”. The NCAC slammed the action in a post on its Kids Right To Read website, writing: “By avoiding discussion of controversial issues such as racism, schools do a great disservice to their students.”

In a letter to be sent to the Virginia school board, the NCAC will point out that “each book enables readers to gain a historical understanding of race relations in America and invites them to examine race in the present day. Although discomforting to some, the racial slurs realistically depict American history and should be addressed under the guidance of a teacher.”

Books are at the forefront of battles over free speech across the US. In November alone, a mother in Tennessee led a campaign by parents for the removal of a school textbook they claim “promotes Islamic propaganda”; in Iowa, a proposed ban on Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower was successfully overturned after complaints about “graphic sex”; and in Washington State, a prohibition on “potentially frightening books” being read out at state-sponsored nurseries came under fire after it emerged that daycare providers had refused to read classics including Where the Wild Things Are.

Lee and Twain’s classics are high on the list of most frequently challenged Young Adult books in the US, according to the American Libraries Association. Also on the list are The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, four Judy Blume titles, the Diary of Anne Frank and Romeo and Juliet.

Reasons for challenging a book’s place on the curriculum vary, but religion and sex top the list, according to the ALA’s annual Banned Books Week list. In 2015, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time fell foul of parents for “profanity and atheism”, while the Bible received complaints against its “religious viewpoint”.

The Guardian

[One Degree]

Banning books, of course, is absurd. There is no reason students can not be informed of content and choose whether or not they wish to be exposed to it. There is a difference between 'required reading' and a book simply being in a library.

[Frollein]

It's only right that the "safe space" epidemic of universities is finally trickling down to schools and nurseries. You can't shelter the little snowflakes early enough.

[Suntzu]

Relax! The books are back in.

[Potemkin]

Books are at the forefront of battles over free speech across the US. In November alone, a mother in Tennessee led a campaign by parents for the removal of a school textbook they claim “promotes Islamic propaganda”; in Iowa, a proposed ban on Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower was successfully overturned after complaints about “graphic sex”; and in Washington State, a prohibition on “potentially frightening books” being read out at state-sponsored nurseries came under fire after it emerged that daycare providers had refused to read classics including Where the Wild Things Are.

Lee and Twain’s classics are high on the list of most frequently challenged Young Adult books in the US, according to the American Libraries Association. Also on the list are The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, four Judy Blume titles, the Diary of Anne Frank and Romeo and Juliet.

Reasons for challenging a book’s place on the curriculum vary, but religion and sex top the list, according to the ALA’s annual Banned Books Week list. In 2015, Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-time fell foul of parents for “profanity and atheism”, while the Bible received complaints against its “religious viewpoint”.

Some day, not too far in the future, America will ban literacy altogether. After all, people can learn everything they need to know from watching good, wholesome family shows on TV, such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairy, which will be repeated on an endless loop. Who needs books? And teaching kids about history should be banned as well. I mean, have you read a history book recently? I've never seen such filth, depravity and violence! History is bunk anyway, as Our Ford once so rightly said.

America keeps descending deeper and deeper into the Moronic Inferno, guided by the shade of Henry Ford....

[Decky]

How would anyone even notice if a book was banned in the US? Americans don't/ won't/ can't read anyway.

[Suntzu]

Obviously someone does. Have you read either one?

[Decky]

As a rule I try to preserve my mind from pollution by not reading works from the cultural wasteland that is the United States but I have read to kill a mockingbird, of mice and men and catcher in the rye (one of the worst books I have ever read in my life). I've never read Huckleberry Finn and I don't intend too.

[Rich]

After all, people can learn everything they need to know from watching good, wholesome family shows on TV, such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairy,

The Waltons, Little House on the Praire, (chokes in apoplexy), where were the mixed race relationships? Where were the gay relationships? No no no, the Waltons had a huge family and not one, I repeat not one of the children was transgendered. Come to think of it where were the Black actors, the Latino(a/ x)s, the Asians? Where were the people with disabilities? Where were the Muslims?

BTW I'm not an expert on literature, but wasn't Mark Twain the kind of guy who would be quite disturbed if he wasn't upsetting someone? I could be wrong but I was under the impression that avoiding offense wasn't Mr Twain's number one and overriding priority.

[Suntzu]

As a rule I try to preserve my mind from pollution by not reading works from the cultural wasteland that is the United States but I have read to kill a mockingbird, of mice and men and catcher in the rye (one of the worst books I have ever read in my life). I've never read Huckleberry Finn and I don't intend too.

Of the works you named, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is by far the best. In what sort of cultural wasteland do you live. I have to admit I have not read a great many authors who didn't not write in English.

[Decky]

The land of Shakespeare, Dickens and Tolkien of course.

[Suntzu]

Wasn't Tolkien from South Africa?

[Decky]

His parents were English and he lived in Birmingham from the age of 3 years old for god's sake.

[Suntzu]

About time for my annual reading of A Christmas Carole.

[Decky]

And then Oliver Twist and then Bleak House!

[One Degree]

Decky just in case you have not read Mark Twain's quotes. Mark Twain is a must read for everyone.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.
.
You can't depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.

If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.

[Decky]

I like the last one.

[quetzalcoatl]

After all, people can learn everything they need to know from watching good, wholesome family shows on TV, such as The Waltons or Little House on the Prairy, which will be repeated on an endless loop.

And everything we need to know about poetry from commercials:

[youtube]DQyOY-5LLmI[/youtube]

[Suntzu]

How 'bout a Porsche commercial?

[Red_Army]

Leave Decky alone, he loves the pictorial editions of Dickens because he relates to the cartoon depiction of Oliver Twist.

Mark Twain is beyond him, unfortunately. I think Decky gets upset when Twain viciously insults the monarchical system, because it is the system of his homeland and he is deeply proud of it.