'To Kill a Mockingbird' will be removed from ninth-grade required reading list in Mukilteo

[ripcord]

Source: KING5

"To Kill a Mockingbird" will be removed from the Mukilteo School District's ninth-grade English/Language Arts required reading list.

The Mukilteo School Board unanimously approved a resolution Monday night to remove the novel from the curriculum. The novel remains on the district-approved list and is not banned.

Written more than six decades ago, "To Kill a Mockingbird" tells the racially-charged story of a Black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. It won the Pulitzer Prize and is studied in high schools across the country.

Mukilteo received one request to remove the book from the district's curriculum saying the "n-word" is used more than 50 times with no context about its negative connotations.


Read more: https://www.king5.com/article/news/education/to-kill-a-mockingbird-required-reading-mukilteo/281-ceb3134c-4d40-4127-9930-cc15f2f58f59

---

I haven't read the book in decades but isn't the whole thing context about its negative connotations?

[obamanut2012]

1. Isn't this WA state?

Ugh. I worked with someone from Eastern WA a few years ago, and he didn't last long here. He was probably at the Capitol J6.

[leftyladyfrommo]

12. There are good people in Spokane. My brother lives

there.

[Dan]

26. East and Western Washington...

Like Night and Day.

[Sneederbunk]

33. Mukilteo is western WA.

[Dan]

34. I know, but I was responding to the comment about Eastern Wa,

And the follow up about Spokane.

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Censorship

Is not a good thing.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

8. I'm going to differ with you on this one. Removing something from a required reading list is

not the same as banning it.

-- Is the book still on the shelves in the school libraries? As long as that's true, then students can check it out.

-- Is it still on a list of books students can read to fulfill a so-many-books-per-semester requirement?

I don't know. I'll hold out for more details.

HTH

[JustAnotherGen]

15. There's so much food for thought

That won't be tasted. They will NOT be checking it out - mark me on that.

I mean - read that book when I was 9 or 10. There's nothing wrong with it. That's how people spoke then. A classroom is precisely where it should be discussed.

I'm waiting for them to start banning Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

[olegramps]

65. I agree. It is a de facto ban and just another example of back slide that is taking place.

The real question is will people awaken from their apathy soon enough or watch blindly as their freedoms evaporate. The question "Could it happen here" is mute, it is happening here. Welcome to 1930's Germany that went through the same transition as the "Good, law-abiding" citizens, in total oblivion daily carried on. Just as today, there were those who raised the alarm only to be ignored and were crushed by the fascist machine when they obtained total power.

[JustAnotherGen]

72. You are speaking my language

I see direct parallels between the Weimar Republic (pre-hitler grabbing power) and the USA. People said - oh okay. Well I guess there's another way of looking at this.

The truth is -people used that language in America (not just the south) and I've been called an n-bomb more than a few times in NJ in the past few years.

Out of context by the way - just to 'use the word'. *sigh*

[PatSeg]

28. Good point

[Buckeyeblue]

29. I agree. As long as the book is in the library I'm fine.

I think the novel is overrated, to be honest. If you are going to have students read a book about racism towards African-Americans it should be by an African-American writer. Toni Morrison won Noble Prize. Harper Lee spent the rest of her life hiding from people.

[JustAnotherGen]

73. Except

It won't have the context and discussion if they read it themselves.

I understand your point on Toni Morrison or a black author - but I could say - have elementary school students read Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry . . .

Or would segregation be too much for them to handle?

A few years ago they released the book that was actually the prequel to TKAM - and read back to back . . . it shows polite racists, people who were willing to 'look the other way', supposed 'good people' in the White Citizens Council, etc. etc.

As I stated above - I was in grade school the first time I read the book - and it's one that as a black little girl in a mostly white town in the North East - triggered a LOT of questions to my parents.

Why can't they allow the black students to read it?

[Buckeyeblue]

77. Good points

I'll be honest, I hadn't considered what a African-American student's perspective of the novel would be. It certainly would open open up a different world (or maybe not so different). And I agree that could make for a great class discussion.

Ironically enough, my sophomore brought the book home yesterday. It'll be interesting to see what he thinks.

[DemocraticPatriot]

92. The book was written for a white audience,

as were most books in those days...


Of course now it would be targeted by the GOP's anti-CRT offensive,
or banned in Virginia because it might make white people feel "uncomfortable"...


The language may of course be offensive to African-Americans today, but it was the language of the time especially for racists whites in the south. I consider it to be an historic and very important novel, written just before the climax of the civil rights movement, and transferred into a great movie as well... Some critics in this thread say "it was not well written", but that is hardly the point.

I must dig it out of my book collection and read it again. I have ten crates full of books... where the hell is it? lol

[DemocraticPatriot]

93. Unfortunate.

I gave this book to my mother as a birthday present, decades after its publication--- the same mother who insisted that our family attend an African Methodist Episcopal church in the mid-sixties....

[ificandream]

39. The real question ...

... which we don't really know from the story is why they removed it. I suspect we can guess why. In which case, this is bullshit.

[JustAnotherGen]

71. Article states because

N word without context.

So - they won't discuss it in class - just read it on their own, without discussion, and without context.

[gab13by13]

3. Pretty sad.

[gab13by13]

4. Will the movie also be banned?

[Gregory Peccary]

37. Article says the book was not banned, just removed from required reading

Still sucks though

[gab13by13]

5. I think the Old Testament should be banned.

[Paladin]

6. Shameful. (nt)

[jmbar2]

7. They should ask for student input on these decisions

The kids could probably explain it to their dumbass parents better than anyone else. They are smart enough to understand the "context"!

[cbabe]

11. Students spearheaded the change and were outspoken about their views to remove.

[sinkingfeeling]

22. Got a link to this information that was not in the article?

"The recommended change was proposed by the Instructional Materials Committee. The committee is comprised of about 20 teachers, librarians, administrators and parents."

[cbabe]

36. Thepostmillennial.com Jan. 25

‘Seattle area school board remove tkam from reading list due to racism’

Black students objected.
Black superintendent agreed.

Book is NOT banned. Simply removed from required reading list.

Still looking forward to substitute titles?Fiction forum kick-in?

[cbabe]

9. Mulkiteo is north of Seattle. Politically

mixed.

Book still available in school library. Teachers can still teach at their discretion.

Students and teachers object to the book as upsetting and shocking. The book was meant to be upsetting and shocking.

I never thought it was a great legacy book or even that well-written. Definitely a book of its time.

But once a title becomes part of the canon it becomes impossible to criticize or replace.

Even if the reasons for removing the book are wrong-headed, hopefully a better book discussing the same themes will be chosen.

Suggestions?

[DemocraticPatriot]

89. Replace it with 'Uncle Tom's Cabin'!

A book that was never upsetting or shocking to anyone

[AllaN01Bear]

10. who the heck do you think you are telling what we can and cant read.

id just read it after school. and who are these yahoos wanting to ban books since the 1950s .

[rurallib]

47. the notoriety probably just pushed a lot of kids to read it

when they might have not read it.

[AllaN01Bear]

48. i was just thinking about that too also. Evil minds think alike .

id get the book after i left school to read it.

[2Gingersnaps]

63. I read the book in the early 70's after having watched the movie.

My Uncle was 15 years older than me and he would visit on Sunday, turn on the TV and fall asleep stretched across the floor, that was when I would get to watch the good stuff. My older sister was brilliant and had a great reading list, To Kill A Mocking Bird and Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee were the defining books of my childhood. I would not have had that type of exposure anywhere else. And for the record, I know why they get banned. Bury My Heart made me cry until I threw up, I could not believe humans were capable of that level of atrocity. But I understood Mockingbird because we lived that in central Ohio, the "separate but equal" lie that even a kid could see was a lie.

Those books made me read history outside the classroom, because I was taught the lie in the classroom. And this is what banning books is about. They exposed me to other peoples lives, gave me empathy, I grew up in the "right is right, and wrong is wrong, and then there is what we really do" environment.

I am still pissed about Wounded Knee because Ohio is rich in Native heritage, and I sure never learned it in school. We killed what we did not understand, our culture values material wealth, and I still maintain their culture is far more socially rich, far more humanly connected than ours, until of course they "killed the Indian to save the man." Yes, that really was the sign that missionaries put over the door at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.

[AllaN01Bear]

67. i too was initiated to the injustices of this country at an early age.

[DemocraticPatriot]

91. Reading 'Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee' made me so angry, I fantasized

about being able to go back in time, and assassinate General Sheridan and sundry other US Army officers and genocidal politicians-- and to take up arms with the natives....

(Sheridan was a great military officer and patriot while he was helping to put down the rebellion of the southern traitors--
it is rather too bad that he survived that war to encourage and endorse genocide against native Americans, later. He should have died a hero at the battle of Five Forks!)

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Context? That's what teachers are for, duh. Literature, math, they are nothing without context

And, as the Original Poster points out, they ARE context.

[Mz Pip]

14. I read it in high school

Freshman year Honors English. That was just a few years after it was published.

Thus won’t stop people from reading it. If anything, it will just make kids more curious about it.

[ripcord]

24. I was thinking about this

I read it in the early 70s and it wasn't as much of a shock as it would be nowadays because there was more overt racism in our daily lives than there is now.

[Atticus]

16. I won't even try to couch this in "nice" terms: this is the kind of ignorant SHIT you get

when you permit "parent power" to block ANY reference to or discussion of racism.

Mockingbirds get killed.

----Atticus

[Lucky Luciano]

23. What would someone going by "Atticus" know about this?

[Atticus]

38. "The one thing that doesn't abide by the majority is

a person's conscience".

-----Atticus

[intheflow]

80. You obviously haven't read the article in the OP.

Teachers put this forth out of concern that the book is dated and is presented apart from historical context. It's not a parent-led movement to ban CRT, it's a movement by educators to bring the curriculum up to 21st Century standards that are DEIB-informed. (DEIB = Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Belonging.) It's a book written during the Cold War as a fictionalized white memory of something that happened when they were a child during the Depression. There are much better novels written in the intervening 60 years since publication that illustrate the evils of racism. books written by Black people, from a Black perspective, that aren't set 100 years ago so that the white kids in the class can feel like they're sooooo enlightened now that racism is over.

[Atticus]

81. Uh, did YOU read the article? It clearly states that the classic novel was removed

from the reading list "following a complaint from one parent". So, your "movement by educators" was initiated because a novel offended ONE person.

There may be valid criticisms of the manner in which the book is discussed ( i.e., lack of context), but your condescending criticism is undeserved.

[intheflow]

84. Well, you're right and you're wrong.

I did read the article and then deepened my understanding of the story by reading a local news report about it that is much more nuanced and contains much more context and many more facts. My apologies for conflagrating the two articles.

‘White saviorhood’: Mukilteo schools end ‘Mockingbird’ requirement

[Atticus]

86. Apology accepted. No problem. nt

[LizBeth]

17. One of the most profound learning tool for my privileged white son that

stays with him today. Ultra progressive, last year of law school and just wrote a paper sent in to be published by professor how pot profit should go to those disenfranchised. I have an in to prosecution office and he said, nope. I just does not want to put people in jail, even the bad guys. A lot of times, early development lead to it one way or another.

It was a profound book for son but in our house, we had this conversation from the youngest of age.

[CrispyQ]

18. They removed the book based on one request?

Is that what it's come to now?

[sinkingfeeling]

19. Ridiculous. Guess the person requesting removal has never read it. Atticus

explains the use of the 'n-word' as being 'common' and tells Scout not to use it.

[Lonestarblue]

20. The point of the book is not how many times the "n" word is used.

The point is the inherent injustice that exists in the US—injustice that still exists today, as witnessed by George Floyd’s murder and that of Amaud Arbery. The fact that a white attorney was the hero could be used by a teacher as a great discussion about why the author chose and how he might have been perceived by the community differently than a black attorney would have. It’s sad when we see such books being removed from a curriculum because most kids will not read them on their own.

[MenloParque]

21. Kids today are smart! They are defiant and understand censorship.

The smart ones will seek out what is being banned and will use their critical thinking skills to question the validity of the censoring.

[BumRushDaShow]

25. A little suburban town with population of one neighborhood here in Philly

~21,500.

[FakeNoose]

27. This book is in the public domain now

Besides getting it from any public library - for free - anyone can also download the free digital version from Guttenberg.com.

How ridiculous that these schools think they can forbid teenagers from reading it. Of course they're going to read it, now that it's forbidden. I remember when the great American classic Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" was banned by some backward communities because it had the "N-word." This is silly!

[intheflow]

30. It's not in public domain and not on Project Guttenberg.

It won't be in the public domain until 2035. See this LA Times article: The latest news on ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ shows how big corporations control copyright law

And here are the search results on Project Gutenberg: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/search/?query=to+kill+a+mockingbird&submit_search=Go%21

[FakeNoose]

32. OK I've gotten it from the local library, and read it several times

It will be in public domain before you know it.

[marie999]

31. Some of the novels I like best were banned from time to time.

Some books are banned just because other people don't want you to learn from them.

[intheflow]

35. So, because I'm a bleeding heart liberal antiracist, I'm not gonna get too up in arms about this.

I'm also a librarian. There are a LOT of conversations around TKAM being a dated novel due to the white savior aspect of Atticus Finch. Here's one from WaPo from summer 2020 (link from the Internet Archive to bypass WaPo's paywall): https://web.archive.org/web/20200722131224/https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2020/07/22/truths-kill-mockingbird-tells-about-white-people/

[NNadir]

40. I don't see Atticus Finch as a "savior." Tom Robinson dies. The operative point is that Finch...

...is a man who sees the flaws in his culture - the culture into which he is born and raised - and works, unsuccessfully, to fight against those flaws.

He is defeated in his efforts to have the culture rise above itself, but in defeat inspires a child to work for a better future.

Seen that way, the novel could be read by a citizen of any flawed culture in the world - and all cultures have flaws, some worse than others - and be inspiring.

The novel was not about Tom Robinson. It was about Atticus Finch, a heroic, if tragic, figure.

[intheflow]

45. "White savior" is a trope, it doesn't mean Finch saved Robinson.

Here's a good definition of white saviorism:

What is a white savior?

White saviors perpetuate the idea that "good" white folks have the authority and duty to swoop in and "save" the world, especially Black people, from oppression rather than following the lead of Black people, Dr. Melina Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, a local chapter of the larger organization, wrote in an email.

Abdullah, who teaches pan-African studies at California State University and has a Ph.D. in political science, says "good" white folks are people who posture themselves as allies and may or may not be deeply entrenched in anti-racist work. These aren’t the white people who shout racial slurs or defend "All Lives Matter" on social media. Rather, Abdullah says, they're the "not apparently racist white folks," such as those who firmly believe they're not racist because "their best friend is Black."

It's within this power dynamic of white privilege and dominance - plus the stick-figure depth of all the Black characters - that TKAM doesn't hold up in the 21st Century. I have no problem with it being taught in schools, a long a the issue of white saviorism is taught along with it. Otherwise, it implicitly reinforces white supremacist social structures.

[NNadir]

49. Well, I don't agree that Finch qualifies as an example of the "trope."

Dr. Abdullah's definition would suggest that any white person, either with authority or lacking authority, should question he or she has a right to act ethically without being "led."

I don't credit that view at all, and see it as rather simplistic.

As a simple reality, one may care, even at a deep level, about any number of issues, without being "deeply entrenched" in working on them. I, for example, am "deeply entrenched" in thinking about climate change, and I'm sure if I asked Dr. Abdullah if she thought that was a serious problem, without knowing anything about her, I'd guess that she'd agree that it is. Maybe she'd tell me she drives a car that gets 40 miles to the gallon because she cares, or better, that she rides a bicycle to work. Should I criticize her if, however, she is not "deeply engaged?"

There is an anthology of writings by 60 women concerned with climate, from which I've been reading excerpts, All We Can Save. Some of the women whose excerpts I have read, certainly attribute entire the problem to white male privilege and include expressions of anger for, among other things, failure to acknowledge the primacy of indigenous people's rights and respect for the culture. I certainly have some sympathy for these realities, but I do not think that if I devote the rest of my life in "deep engagement" with indigenous rights that this will have any effect on climate change.

Of course, I'm an old fat beneficiary of White privilege, which I don't deny, so clearly I am precluded from saying anything about anything, because while I feel strongly that I abhor racism, I have not "deeply engaged" in the problem but have chosen to invest my time in other deep engagements.

If it were in my power to address every dire circumstance in the world, from poverty, to racism, to climate change, to microplastic pollution, and even pancreatic cancer, none of these problems would exist. However, as something less than a superman, if I "deeply engaged" in all of them, my contribution to all of them would be nil, since I would have exhausted myself beyond capability to address any of them.

"To Kill A Mockingbird" is a book about individuals in a culture struggling to see beyond it, and the literary device of putting it in the eye of a child is effective. It would take away from the book if the child was all perceptive, all knowing, and could see a deeply formed cultural view of the Robinson family.

When I was in college, a literature course I took as part of my distribution was on Shakespeare. My (Jewish) professor assigned The Merchant of Venice as a play to be studied. The play certainly displays the contempt of the Christian World toward the Jews in late 16th and early 17th century Europe. The "happy ending" is that the Jew is defeated. And yet, comparing the play to Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, my professor - I've forgotten his name but I remember what he taught - pointed to the subversive message.

I remember he thundered Shylock's lines from Act 3:

"I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?"

He put the text down and said quietly, "If this was a standard Elizabethan 'Jew Play,' my friends, these lines would not be there. This my friends, is subversive."

Would it be subversive now? Of course not. In fact the play is, to modern eyes, anti-Semitic, rabidly so. The Jew therein is largely a caricature, an odious one at that, the villain. But Shakespeare's Jew asks whether a Jew bleeds when you prick him. That this was subversive in its time helps us understand those times and with it, the roots of European anti-Semitism. (Edward I had expelled all Jews from England in 1290 and it is very unlikely that anyone in Shakespeare's time and place had ever met a Jew.)

I find your description of "To Kill A Mocking Bird" to be rather narrow minded in a literary sense and more than a little supercilious in a cultural sense, inasmuch you deny the right of a person to struggle with the attitudes of her own culture without first knowing everything and anything about another culture.

We all want a better world, but it too much to expect that any one worldview actually constitutes a better world. If we ban all literature from a poorer world, the one Harper Lee described being such a world, we won't know at all what a "better world" is. She is describing a world in which lynching, legal or extralegal, was normal. If we don't know about these kinds of worlds, where the normal is criminal, how can we question ourselves about what we think is "normal?"

[Ingersollman]

64. One

of the best posts I've ever read. Kudos.

[intheflow]

69. Sorry you feel that way.

Last edited Thu Jan 27, 2022, 03:27 PM - Edit history (4)

Dr. Abdullah's definition is the leading opinion among Black scholars. When Black people say white people don't listen to them and/or discount their experiences and perceptions of society, this kind of whitewash is exactly what they're talking about. As a white person, I understand loving TKAM, I loved it, too, when I read it in junior high in 1978. But it remains true that the main action in the story - a Black man on trial for allegedly raping a white woman - turns the narrative focus from the main action the plot revolves around to a white savior who swoops in to save a Black man from injustice.

More on the subject of white saviorism, by both Black and white people:

Now We Can Finally Say Goodbye to the White Savior Myth of Atticus - New York Times (no paywall)

6 HARMFUL CONSEQUENCES OF THE WHITE SAVIOR COMPLEX - Sojourners

The White-Savior Industrial Complex - The Atlantic

Oscar loves a white savior - Salon

What a White Savior is and Why it's a Problem - EverydayFeminism (short video)

[NNadir]

74. Well, you're "deeply engaged," in Dr. Abdullah's definitions.

This is your choice, of course, to be so.

In my field I am required to interact with academic authorities on a host of subjects having nothing, or at least little, to do with issues in racism, and I accept some authorities on subjects more than others.

It's not like I'm unaware of racism; one of the most compelling books my son bought me for Christmas a few years back was The Half Has Never Been Told. I actually broke into tears reading some portions of it.

The point of the work is that modern wealth derives from a history of slavery; the point is well made. I often discuss the point in conversations in my circles of leisure and even while socializing in business.

However, if in your, or in Dr. Abdullah's opinion, I am just another white racist because I regard my support of "To Kill a Mockingbird" as a piece of important literature as "not listening" to her, I cannot help it that I don't have time to seek Dr. Abdullah's or for that matter your, approval. If Dr. Abdullah believes that only black people can participate in righting the wrongs of centuries of slavery and the following centuries of racism, that the "savior" must be a "black savior" that's fine with me. I'd rather than no savior be required at all, but that's an ideal world that doesn't exist. I will not object to her efforts but neither am I required to embrace her viewpoint.

In "Plain Brown Rapper," a now old book (1976) by the lesbian writer Rita Mae Brown that I read many years ago when I was heavily involved with a gay woman, I recall reading, as a white heterosexual man, that she was shocked to discover that allies who were, like me, white heterosexual males, existed.

I'm sorry that I don't have the inclination or time to listen to Dr. Abdullah, or even to be "educated" by the multiple links you've been good enough to share with me. I made clear what I see as the value of "To Kill A Mockingbird" to be.

What concerns me more about whether or not "To Kill a Mockingbird" is of cultural value, which I believe it is, irrespective of what Dr. Abdullah thinks, even though I don't have time to listen to her, is the following data released this morning at the Mauna Loa Carbon Dioxide Observatory

January 26: 420.52 ppm
January 25: 419.19 ppm
January 24: 419.80 ppm
January 23: 418.96 ppm
January 22: 417.51 ppm
Last Updated: January 27, 2022

Please don't feel sorry for me; and I won't feel sorry for you in not understanding what my concern means to the planet all of us, all races, inhabit.

I am perfectly happy that there are people to fight racism and to struggle with how to fight it, and even who may have the privilege of fighting it. I'm certainly no "White Savior" myself. If, by focusing on another topic of broader import, and not being "deeply engaged" with Dr. Abdullah's concern about "White Saviors." I am somehow morally deficient in Dr. Abdullah's eyes, your eyes, or anyone's eyes, there isn't much I can or am willing to do about it.

[intheflow]

76. First, I have not called you a racist.

And even as I absolutely agree with you about the importance of climate change, to think that THAT's divorced from racism is an incomplete understanding of how and why our planet got in such peril. White culture that values profits over people - and especially people of color - continues to play out. Take Hurricane Katrina and the 9th Ward as example. Katrina was a massive storm, arguably the strongest we'd seen in the US up to that time, and intricately linked to climate change. Meanwhile, the Black population in NOLA was living in the 9th Ward because those lowlands/marshlands were the only place freed slaves were allowed to live after the Civil War. They were relegated to the worst, least-productive land in the region because of their race, nothing more. And of course we know the response to Katrina was systemically racist, too. So again, I'm sorry you can't wrap your head around the multiple realities that point to a deep and continuing investment in white systemic racism to the detriment of POC. Calling out white supremacist culture is in no way the same as calling you a racist. JFC.

[cinematicdiversions]

90. It is a bit racist to call it white culture only though.

Japan certainly is its own culture as is China. And both those countries are modern industrial nations (Japan has been for what 150 years now)

I find focusing on whiteness seems to ignore large parts of the planet.

[intheflow]

97. Well, I'd agree with you except

for the fact that our current environmental problems were greatly exacerbated by the invention of cars, invented in the West. And while the Japanese may have been industrialized 150 years ago, their industrialization was based on what they were witnessing in Western (aka, white, or Euro-descendant) nations. So, yeah, I called it white culture and that's exactly what I meant.

Here's the Britannica entry about the Meiji era in Japan. Note how it specifically says that Japan's industrialization was inspired by Western industrialization. https://www.britannica.com/event/Meiji-Restoration

[Raine]

85. 👍 nt

[cinematicdiversions]

59. Dr. Melina Abdullah is desperatly trying to hold on to racial views that simply do not hold up

in our modern age.

While obvious tribalism is obvious, her strange view of race and bluntly racist views if both blacks and whites belongs in a different century,

[intheflow]

66. Your trashing of a Black woman's experience and education is duly noted. n/t

[cinematicdiversions]

68. Really? you think she is correct to view through such a lens?

You don't find that type of orthodoxy myopic in this day and age?

I disagree with her POV and her premise. I am not trashing either her experience or education. I just think she is being narrow-minded on this particular subject.

[intheflow]

70. She is completely aligned with contemporary antiracist theory and action.

See my response to NNadir for more on the subject. Continuing to revere white literature while dismissing the perceptions and experiences of POC who read it continues to perpetuate white supremacy culture.

[Atticus]

87. Also duly noted is that you, a white person, have hitched your intellectual wagon

to the frail and limited concept of "white savior myth", citing "Dr. Abdullah" as the ultimate arbiter of what color one's skin must be in order to make valid comments on racial problems that confront all the "tribes" in this nation.

After reading your several comments in this thread, I find further exchanges would be a waste of my time.

Enjoy the rest of your evening.

[intheflow]

98. I never cited Dr. Abdullah as an ultimate authority,

Last edited Wed Feb 2, 2022, 01:47 PM - Edit history (1)

I found her description to be aligned with my understanding of what white saviorism is, based on many, many books and articles I've read over 25 years working for racial justice. She is not an "ultimate authority," she is one of an ocean of antiracist activists and scholars who have accepted this definition as a valid racial critique. I doubt you actually read my other posts because you would have seen my linked list of articles describing white saviorism, from those marginal, racist rags like The Atlantic, Sojourners, and Salon. Here are some more that you won't read so you can continue to spout uninformed opinions:

Why Hollywood’s White Savior Obsession Is an Extension of Colonialism (Teen Vogue)

How 'white savior' films like 'The Help' and 'Green Book' hurt Hollywood (Business Insider)

To Kill a Mockingbird, The Help, and the Regendering of the White Savior (James Madison University)

Working through the Smog: How White Individuals Develop Critical Consciousness of White Saviorism (Merrimack College)

HHRJ Online Symposium 2012: Avoiding the Trap: Aspirations, Anxieties, and the Appropriateness of Mass-Mobilization Awareness Campaigns (Harvard Human Rights Journal)

THE VASTNESS OF “WHITE SAVIOR” THEMES IN WESTERN MEDIA (Northeastern University)
^^^ Definition from this article: "White Savior Complex – mindset for a white person to provide help to non-white people in a self-serving manner. The role is considered a modern-day version of what is expressed in 'The White Man’s Burden' by Rudyard Kipling."

Enjoy the rest of your day!

[Mysterian]

41. In the first place, God made idiots. That was for practice.

Then he made school boards.

--- Mark Twain

[Raine]

83. True! 👍 nt

[Jack-o-Lantern]

42. Coming soon, book burning.

[murielm99]

43. Has anyone read

"The Day They Came to Arrest the Book," by Nat Hentoff?

[Ford_Prefect]

44. This is one more step in muzzling thought. "Lame! Lame! Lame!"

It serves the purpose of silencing the ideas underlying the story. That IS the intent.

[stopdiggin]

46. sounds like the impetus here was not quite

what a lot of posters are projecting ...
students - teachers - superintendent - (and yes, parents) ...

"It was clear from the comments received that there are many legitimate and thoughtful opinions about this novel and its place in school curriculum," Bradford told the outlet. "The students who shared their experiences and thoughts with the board were especially compelling in their reasoning that there are other novels that can teach similar literary conventions and themes without causing further harm to students."

Most of the time we would be in favor of students with constructive input about curriculum.

[NH Ethylene]

51. There is nothing wrong with updating a reading list to demonstrate similar concepts.

Hopefully this book will be replaced with one that similarly illuminates historical American racism.

[stopdiggin]

55. yeah. I think a lot of the outrage here is

misplaced (and probably misinformed). This change doesn't seem to have sprung from ill intent .. or any desire to muzzle ideas or discussion. And the title is still on the 'approved reading' list. We're not really talking 'book banning' here. (IMO)

[NH Ethylene]

88. I suspect many have not read the article itself. n/t

[Turbineguy]

50. I wonder how many people

were inspired to take up the law after reading about the exploits of Atticus Finch

[Evolve Dammit]

52. We've gone back to the 50's folks. 45 was the puss under the ripped off band-aid; all out now

[WhiskeyGrinder]

53. To Kill A Mockingbird is a white-savior narrative that is outdated. It sounds like this was a

thoughtful decision from everyone involved.

[erpowers]

56. Not a White Savior Narrative

I do not see "To Kill A Mockingbird" as a white savior narrative.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

62. Okay, but it is tho.

[intheflow]

78. Thank you.

I replied the same upthread and the white fragility spat back at me was quick and hearty. Why do so many white liberals think they are exempt from racist culture because they voted for Obama? JFC, just try to see things through Black people's perspectives - especially when Black people tell us how they perceive the white narratives white people revere. TKAM was great for its time, but that was 60 years ago. Try to keep up with the times, white people! SO many great literary books that cover the issue of racism written by POC. Why must we cling to this Cold War book? (smh in white person)

[CTyankee]

99. I stopped in some of my writing and decided I would read as much literature written by black authors

as I could find (the subject was the Harlem Renaissance). I was amazed at the wide variety of subtopics of the phrase Harlem Renaissance. I read only black authors and each one had a vision of their own. It was an amazing experience. I decided I could not write about the Harlem Renaissance. The subject was more vast than I had thought.

[intheflow]

102. What a great story, CTyankee!

Last edited Wed Feb 2, 2022, 01:33 PM - Edit history (1)

I started reading Black authors in earnest about 5 years ago, when I got a job at a city library in a Black community. I figured, I'd spent about 40 years up to that point reading white authors almost exclusively because that's what my white circle of friends and peers (and the publishing industry) all talked about. I mean, I'd read some stuff by POC authors, classics like Their Eyes Were Watching God and David Walker's Appeal, but not a lot and nothing contemporary. Now when I read books by and about white people, they often seem flat. I'm up to about 60% of my reading is by Black authors, 20% is by other POC authors (Latino, Native American, and Asian/Asian-American), and 20% white. My life is so much richer for it!

[CTyankee]

103. Exactly. You are a fine example of cultural exploration and finding riches beyond what we think

possible. The Harlem Renaissance was an excess of riches. Like you, that experience changed my life and certainly the way I see my own writing on art history. And where art and music converge, it is incredibly rich. Do you know the California artist Ernie Barnes? He painted scenes of African American life. One that I have written about is his work Sugar Shack, with Marvin Gaye. If not, I urge you to look at it and listen to Marvin's later songs, about his people and how the effects of deterioration of our environmental intersects with racism and racist policies that have led the black communities suffer more than white ones.

[intheflow]

104. Oooooo! Art and music recs thrown into book discussions!

This kind of post is what's kept me on DU, lo, these last 17 years. Now I'm off to look up Ernie Barnes! And also, where can I find what you wrote about him, Gaye, and Sugar Shack?

[CTyankee]

105. It's a portion of my book "The Gladdened Heart"- The ART of Music.

The manuscript is finished and now in the hands of a talented designer/editor. She is extremely busy now and will get to it a bit later.

PM me and I will send you a copy when it is finished. It deals with the intersection of art and music and how art has dealt with envisioning that which cannot be seen.

There is one section on a saint that was created by the church, St. Cecelia and she was a renamed goddess and appropriated by the early Christians. If you know the song Cecilia, it's about her. Paul Simon knew who she was historically and wrote the song purportedly because he was unhappy about running out of inspiration. Betcha you didn't know that!!

[intheflow]

106. .

That's one of my favorite Paul Simon songs and I never knew this!!

Please do let me know when it's printed. In addition to wanting to read it myself, I can get a copy or two into my library system. Depending where you are in CT (if you even live in CT), you might be considered a local author and thus, hold a hallowed place in stacks. Be happy to set up an author's event for you, too!

[CTyankee]

107. I am publishing privately (too old to shop my book around). That way, I can give my books away to

folks who are interested. Art history became my work in retirement and I was lucky enough to travel to Europe on several trips to do research. I'm planning a trip to Barcelona and Paris next fall and will be curating it for myself and my daughter. I have curated trips with a friend before this. My favorite was to Brussels, with side trips by train to Ghent and Bruges where you can see fabulous art (the Ghent Altarpiece and the Bruges Madonna by Michaelangelo). And the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels for its incomparable collection of Brueghel's works.

When the Gladdened Heart is ready, I'll be sure to let you know. My editor designed the cover (which I would never have thought of on my own). I tried to find it in the old email she sent me and somehow have it appear in this reply to you, but I have very limited skills in doing it and screwed it up...

Send me a PM with your name and where you would like the book sent and I'll get a copy to you. I just can't wait to see how it all comes out! I'll see if I can get my outline to you by PM here at DU.

Thanks for your interest! I'll be eager to see what you think when the book is done.

[jcmaine72]

54. We've come full circle.

I remember reading that the first time To Kill A Mockingbird was banned by a school board was in 1966 because it was deemed "indecent" and "immoral". The school was located in an especially conservative, traditional county in the deep South.

Funny how it's sometimes tough to tell the difference between one extreme and another. Their rationale for doing the things they do might be different, but the results are the same.

[pfitz59]

57. I lived in Mukilteo for 12 years

My sons both went to HS there. Beautiful, wealthy suburb north of Seattle. About 50-50 politically. Just reelected a new, former GQP Mayor who's a RW douche. TKAM is still listed as optional reading, just not required anymore. BTW - Mukilteo School District has 2 high schools, Mariner and Kamiak. Mariner, located in the poorer, east side of the district is 11% African American. Kamiak, in the wealthier west side of the district is 4% African American.

[AngryOldDem]

58. This country is full-bore off the rails.

In addition to this, I just saw where a district in Tennessee has banned “Maus.”

[Deminpenn]

60. Perhaps the district should pair it with the

original manuscript that was published a few years ago as "Go Set a Watchman".

[cinematicdiversions]

61. Honestly with the language used and the whole Me Too issue I am surprised it lasted this long.

Being removed off the required reading list is not the same in any way as banning an item. i think some of the posters are clearly confused.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

75. This is from the paper of record for Snohomish County. There's a paywall but you might get a one

article grace.

‘White saviorhood’: Mukilteo schools end ‘Mockingbird’ requirement

The book is not banned in the school district. The last book brought before the school board was by Maya Angelou.


MUKILTEO — It’s a new chapter for the Mukilteo School District.

Late Monday, the school board voted unanimously that “To Kill a Mockingbird” should not be mandatory reading for ninth graders.

What will replace the novel is to be determined, but it likely will be a book more reflective of coming of age in the 2020s, not the 1930s.

At Monday’s meeting, the board listened to public comments from about a dozen speakers, with nearly all supporting the novel’s removal from required reading. The book uses outdated and offensive dialogue in telling the story of a white lawyer defending a Black man wrongly accused of rape in Alabama.

-snip-

In Mukilteo, the book is not banned. If they choose, teachers can teach it.

“It is our position that this book should not be taught at all,” Ed Glazer, NAACP of Snohomish County education chairperson, said during the public comment session. “… Your teachers have said they do not have the competency to teach this book so it does not traumatize students in the class.”

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/white-saviorhood-mukilteo-schools-end-mockingbird-requirement/

[intheflow]

79. Thank you for including this other article.

It's a much better description of what went down in Mukilteo and the equity-and-belonging lessons we want to pass along to our students.

[Raine]

82. Ridiculous to do this. 👎 nt

[ManiacJoe]

94. No longer required but still optional.

Far too many people in this thread did not actually read the linked articles.

[cadoman]

101. if the Black woman in that video was a Republican, I think we just won the culture wars..

Did you even watch the report?

[cadoman]

100. not necessarily the worst thing -- what replaced it?

There are piles of classics that weren't covered in my schooling that I came back to later in life. Tess of the d'Urbervilles, The Three Musketeers, Wuthering Heights, The Screwtape Letters, The Gulag Archipelago, White Noise, All Quiet on the Western Front, and many more. It's actually a joy to visit the classics section because even in my middle years there's plenty I've missed that I can pick up dirt cheap.

In High School it was always the teachers guiding things and what they picked wasn't always fun or enlightening, but sometimes it was. Not every book will come to life and resonate with every student, and I think it's good to update the reading from time to time. Hell, maybe even put it up to a vote by the kids.

And for the record, I'm grateful Tess of the d'Urbervilles was never required.