This is what happens when the society becomes so childish and immature that they would rather ban something than to try and understand what caused the book to be written.
Once you start banning X, you will move on to banning Y sooner or later. Then it will be Z, and sooner or later the things you like and do in your everyday life.
I think it's more the sentiment shown through such actions that is the worrying part. "This is wrong, we need to remove it" is a terrible way of dealing with things/ideas/people you don't agree with.
The Confederate memorials that were actually erected reasonably after the war ended tended to be memorials to the people who died in the way.
I see no reason to take these down.
But more of the Confederate statues we now have were built long after that, and not as memorials to those who died. Most were erected around 1900-20, when Jim Crow laws were being widely enacted, and in the 1950s and 60s, when the civil rights movement was ramping up. They were built as symbols of white supremacy to send a message.
I see no reason to keep those up.
It wasn't just monuments that got built or change to oppose black civil rights. A similar thing happened with the Georgia state flag. It had long had a blue vertical stripe on the left and red/white/red horizontal stripes on the right. Then the left got what appears to be a Minuteman standing next to some columns that have banners that say "Constitution", "Justice", "Wisdom", and "Moderation". That was in 1902.
In 1906 they added "Georgia" to that and 1799, and made the design of the columns more stylized and uglier. (This also changed the way "Moderation" line wrapped, from "Moder" "ation" to "Mode" "ration", so you might mistake it for two words).
In 1920 that changed to a circular thing with "State of Georgia" and 1776 on the outside, and a simple blue and white set of columns with the Minuteman, and "Moderation" back to sensible line breaking. I think this matched or is similar to the state seal.
And then in 1956, with black people pushing harder for equal rights, Georgia replaced the right side of the flag, the part that had been three red/white/red horizontal stripes, was replaced with the Confederate battle flag. This was adopted amidst a slew of bills adopted at the same time designed to protect segregation and white supremacy. This was all in response to Brown v. Board of Education.
They partly got rid of that in 2001, going to a blue background with the columns/Minuteman seal things, and a banner below that labeled "Georgia's History", which had images of five small flags in it: the original 13 colonies flag, three Georgia flags (ending with the one with the Confederate battle flag), and the current US flag. Finally in 2003 they adopted their current flag: 3 red/white/red stripes with a blue inset in the upper left containing a circle of 13 stars around the Minuteman/Column thing, much more tastefully done than any of its past versions.
My musical taste got a solid push from an unexpected source. Some group of religious busybodies in the early 90s produced an absolute fire mixtape of songs they wanted banned.
I mean this with utmost sincerity: I legitimately never thought “socially progressive” people would advocate banning books. I guess we have many more lessons to learn regarding censorship and puritanism. I’m not surprised about that — I’m just surprised that it was the people I thought could be trusted to not make this mistake that seem to be doing so.
I'm a little sorry to pick on your comment, but hopefully you now see the danger of naievly trusting a group of people because they self-identify as the "good guys".
> I legitimately never thought “socially progressive” people would advocate banning books.
Are you kidding me? The US Progressive Left is heading down a path that has been obvious for years.
>I guess we have many more lessons to learn regarding censorship and puritanism.
No. This lesson has played out many times. We just ignore it, or somehow think this time we have out-smarted it. Or, we don't care, because this time we really are the good guys, and the other people are just really bad.
Scary part is that it does seem to be a part of the left's platform. Decades ago the left used to be the champions of free speech and the right wanted limits. Now that is reversed. Even the ACLU has questioned their commitment to free speech.
You know what they say, history doesn't repeat itself but it sometimes rhymes. I share your frustration, but I do think it's possible to eventually learn a lesson here... looking back at censorship in the past, it does feel like we're still at a relatively high point historically.
Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological battle. This comment is a clear example of what we mean by that phrase. Heading this way makes discussion much more repetitive and much less informative. That leaves a vacuum which eventually gets filled by nastiness.
His criticism is valid. A bit ideologically baited maybe but please, a simple statement of hard-to-negate ideas is what it amounts to. Who pushed for the removal of these books? Conservative Trump supporters? Nazis? Jehovah's Witnesses? No. It was people who would very probably self identify as social justice progressives with a leftward lean, and this sort of behavior is a notable part of a persistent trend that many different but in many ways similar cases bear out; namely, missing many forests because of their trees, by pushing for absurd things....... like banning "To Kill a Mockingbird" because it contains racially charged themes. despite it's very obviously anti-racist central message. Curious conversation does not and should not rule out plainly spoken criticisms of obvious stupidities, so long as it doesn't degenerate into the irrational.
Ok but I fear that my point is getting missed here a bit. It's not that the GP comment was wrong. It's that it was generic, and specifically generic-ideological. When a comment takes a thread further in that direction, that's bad for HN, irrespective of how right some people feel it is.
Animal Farm was not mentioned in the article. It wasn't banned. This is about the choice of literature taught to children, not what they're allowed to read.
I’m aware it wasn’t in the article. In Animal Farm, the leaders (pigs) start out trying to cure the farm of injustice, but eventually become just like the humans they overthrew.
“Banning books” use to refer to banning them from libraries. You seem to be using it differently, since this article is about a school district choosing not to include a book in a curriculum. So maybe progressives have changed, but so have the definitions of words at issue
Nobody's banning any books. This is about the books kids are required to read in class. Would you object if your kids were mainly reading the Old Testament and Mein Kampf for class, or would you push for a more balanced curriculum? Should the parents have no say in the literature their children are taught from? This isn't a law, the focus here should be increasing the effectiveness and fairness of education.
There was principal who was dismissive of a racist incident: that’s a problem and not the books.
> "Helligar, who is one of the parents who filed a complaint in the case, claimed the boy's excuse was that he had read it in class and the principal had been dismissive of the incident."
This other quote is interesting, but it is not a reason to ban any books: if anything it means more books that take into account this additional perspective should be on the curriculum.
> Nadra Ostrom, another Black parent who filed a complaint, argued that the portrayal of Black people is mostly from a white perspective.
> "There's no counter-narrative to this Black person dealing with racism and a white person saving them," she said.
> Ostrom added that the current education given to students assumes "that racism is something in the past."
Even as fundamentally against banning of books as I am, I am pretty sympathetic to most of those complaints. We could do a lot better by teaching modern Black perspective and literature rather than antiquated white literature, albeit good literature, IMO.
Instead of forcing people to read certain books to check off certain criteria, we should be teaching people how to read and choose their own books, encouraging them to broaden their horizons. There will never be a perfect curriculum.
And also, the "black perspective" is not a monolith - this is another example of white people trying to put it in a box that's easy for them.
But the person you are responding to is not saying that there is single black perspective.
How to kill ... is totally absolutely white perspective. It is white antiracist perspective and also kind of propaganda for anti violent racism.
It is not the only white perspective, white are various. But, it lacks any perspective but white. It has no black person with agency or personality. No actual personality. Victim is super clear victim, not even ability to do crime is there. Victim is not threatening or uncomfortable to whites, he could not possibly be less clear model victim.
The book actually made political impact. In historical context, it is and was actual thing. But not necessary same impact for 2020 black student. And even this discussion lacks discussion about actual back then politics. Because that actually feels bad. Because people don't actually want to teach 13 years old about postcards with lynching victims being popular.
We send people to school to learn from people who can make their educational effort more profitable, because they have experience that students do not. That extends to choice of reading material. I am not going to get on board advocating some free-for-all Libertarian educational system.
You have not established causality between educational success and reading certain required books to make such a claim. Learning to read is the key indicator - the choice of books is simply not relevant for most adolescent education. Only in the last 2 years of high school, maybe. Meanwhile students who can read can pick and choose any book they'd like, not reliant on an educational system that by its very nature needs to make sacrifices.
Isn't To Kill a Mockingbird meant to combat racism? I read it in school and thought it was fantastic. What on earth have they found in this classic that is so bad, it needs to be banned? Banning books is dangerous territory that should be entered into very, very carefully.
all they're doing is curating a list for people to read. It's like those DMCA lists of free movie sites. They literally provide you with a trove of urls to watch free movies lol
The title says "Banned" which implies you are not allowed to read the book. What it actually means is "Banned from curriculum", meaning teachers shouldn't use it in the classroom. The latter seems far less controversial to me. You can still read the book. You just can't be required to read it.
I don't care about the racist "incident" they're flaming up with some dumb kid. If educational leaders think To Kill a Mockingbird is a poor, white dominant perspective that does not realistically portray black perspectives, then by all means, let's stop teaching it, and teach a more relevant book instead.
I liked that book. I read it in school and found it enjoyable and an interesting intro to racial issues beyond "Slavery is bad". But it definitely makes things all about white people. There's likely some much better source material out there for that conversation.
Saying you're banning a book is a lot dumber than changing your required curriculum.
>meaning teachers shouldn't use it in the classroom
They are banned from using it in the classroom.
I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be?
"It's not banned everywhere, just here" is justifying the silencing of free speech in a way that Soviet Russia would be proud of.
And no one is complaining about the Kama Sutra being banned from the classroom. But why is To Kill A Mockingbird inappropriate for use in the classroom?
They're not saying it's "inappropriate" as in bad for children. They're saying it's not a good way to teach racial history. To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them.
There's no doubt, To Kill a Mockingbird is written to antagonize racism. But some are arguing the means by which it accomplishes this are not representative of where we'd want to be; echoing the generally vast liberal/conservative argument whereby most conservatives are not racist, in that they do not believe minorities are intrinsically worse or less deserving than whites, but they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand.
The harsh gut reaction to someone saying "this is no longer good" will bring out an angry response in many because they don't think it's bad and they know they're not racist AND they are not in fact racist. But there's additional levels of depth here and asking for change is a good thing, though it falls flat to anyone not interested or aware of the depth.
To Kill a Mockingbird portrays the situation as a white people problem, with the blacks as passive victims requiring good, white actors to save them.
No it doesn't. It portrays a trial from the perspective of a lawyer's daughter. The fact that it's portrayed from a white person's point of view doesn't somehow invalidate the story unless you're just anti-white.
they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand.
You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you.
To ban this book is to further narrow the field of political opinions acceptable to the liberal educational elites.
You don't actually address the claim gp made. The point of view isn't directly relevant to the story being told. Certainly it helps, but one could imagine a story told from the daughters point of view where the black characters were more active. That's the criticism GP is leveling, and it's nuanced and well informed, and as far as I can tell you didn't actually understand it fully. Lashing out at them as ignorant when you failed to grasp the point they were making is really rude.
There book might fit in a curriculum where you look at the representation of black people in media over time, say how they go bad or caricature to sort of flat and irrelevant to ultimately complex and human, but that's probably a college level course, if only because it would require devoting 3-4 books to the same subtopic.
one could imagine a story told from the daughters point of view where the black characters were more active. That's the criticism GP is leveling
I understood their point perfectly, and I'm saying it's wrong. Racism doesn't only have to be described from black people's perspective, and complaining about how there aren't enough central black roles in a story about a young privileged girl learning about racism isn't productive.
> Racism doesn't only have to be described from black people's perspective.
This was not the complaint. This was never the complaint. I was explicitly stating that when you claimed this was the complaint, you were misunderstanding.
A story told about racism from a white persons POV is fine! What is less okay, and at a minimum needs to be taught in a larger context is a story about racism that treats race and racism as a sort of thing-to-be-observed, both in that Scout is primarily "learning about racism" instead of experiencing it, and black characters who are flat. The white-saviorness of Atticus can't really be denied (especially when you draw in the larger context that Atticus was based on Harper Lee's father, and the novel was quasi-biographical). And it's not even conclusion that Scout draws on her own. She feels justice and fairness for all is good not because she learns through some experience, but because her father tells her so, and she greatly reveres him and respects his authority. Scouts willingness to fight for justice isn't born out of a dislike of racism, but of a need to defend her dad.
Like I said, in part of a curriculum that focuses on race in America, I think TKAM is a vital book to teach, but if it's the only exposure to literature-that-focuses-on-race-in-america, which for a lot of people it will be, it's not a good tool, because you aren't going to get exposed to the criticism I just provided in a high school context.
racism as a sort of thing-to-be-observed, both in that Scout is primarily "learning about racism" instead of experiencing it
If you're trying to teach white people and people who haven't experienced racism about racism, then this is a pretty good way to do it IMO. They're more likely to identify with the main character, and they can follow the logic that makes her think racism is bad.
The white-saviorness of Atticus can't really be denied
Your bias is showing here, it's not cool.. There were plenty of unsavory characters in the book.
Scouts willingness to fight for justice isn't born out of a dislike of racism, but of a need to defend her dad.
It starts like this, but they also go into the logic of why her dad thinks this way. She's a girl who learns from her family like all kids.
If there are other, better books to read, then recommend other books. Don't ban this one because you don't think it goes far enough.
> Your bias is showing here, it's not cool.. There were plenty of unsavory characters in the book.
I don't know what you mean. I agree that there are tons of unsavory characters in the book. Atticus is not one of them. He's portrayed as nearly flawless. This plays into the White Savior[0] trope.
> If you're trying to teach white people and people who haven't experienced racism about racism, then this is a pretty good way to do it IMO.
That sounds appealing, but consider that the book's "central" Black character's defining characteristic is that he's not a violent criminal. That's the depiction of black people in the book. This, like I said, makes racism this abstract thing. And especially now when you generally don't have lynch mobs, it's easy to write off the book's entire story as "well we don't do that today, racism is solved!", which is yet another reason the book draws criticism as a teaching tool.
The book was perhaps good at a time when Black people were often presented as less-than-human, but now that they're usually just presented as less-human, less fully formed, different tools are better.
> If there are other, better books to read, then recommend other books. Don't ban this one because you don't think it goes far enough.
I actually already did that in this thread, and then explained why that doesn't fix the issue. There are likely already teachers using The Hate U Give or The Invisible man in their classrooms, but there are clearly some that aren't. Giving teachers a bunch of choices doesn't protect students from teachers who make bad choices. Ultimately, requiring that teachers use better teaching tools in their curriculums isn't the boogeyman it seems to be made out to be. Like, it's still staying in school libraries.
Atticus is not [unsavory]. He's portrayed as nearly flawless. This plays into the White Savior[0] trope.
So now if a white man in media is shown pushing back against racism, he's looked down upon as a trope? This is racist and ridiculous. Damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-dont will not get white people on your side on this issue.
requiring that teachers use better teaching tools in their curriculums isn't the boogeyman it seems to be made out to be.
If such changes are made for racist reasons, then they deserve pushback. Current projections show that whites will be a minority in the US in 2048. If our society embraces anti-white discrimination and dogwhistles like this in the meantime, then there will be cultural reverberations for decades just as the cultural changes of the 70's reverberate through today.
> The fact that it's portrayed from a white person's point of view doesn't somehow invalidate the story unless you're just anti-white.
It doesn't invalidate the story. But if you're having a conversation about race, you would probably benefit from having black perspectives. Otherwise you convey an undertone that outcomes for blacks are for white people to choose. The message we want to teach kids is deeper than racism is bad.
This is vaguely addressed in the book's pseudo sequel, go set a watchman, in which Atticus reveals a bigoted side opposing integration.
> You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you.
I'm not saying people ignorant of facts, I'm saying they're ignorant of nuance, and I'm saying this is a large chunk of people on both sides. Hence liberal perception of racism and conservative outrage. It doesn't matter if educated people disagree with me. The fact that "the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity" is the fundamental argument behind recent race relations conversations.
Thank you for this comment. In this conentious sub-thread, you addressed the root of my comment directly without adding to the outrage, which is much appreciated.
you would probably benefit from having black perspectives. Otherwise you convey an undertone that outcomes for blacks are for white people to choose. The message we want to teach kids is deeper than racism is bad.
Counterargument to this: we all have a certain extent of power and influence on those around us. The target demographic for these books is to teach people who aren't discriminated against about racism. Wouldn't it make sense to show a story about a display of personal power and influence to make the world a better place? The outcomes of blacks, whites, and everyone else depends on how we all influence each other, not just how we influence ourselves.
Well let's temporarily set aside the fact that the study of literature serves a purpose beyond a didactic lesson in morality, or that just because you read a message into a book doesn't mean that everyone else would come to the same conclusion.
If the problem really was simply that To Kill A Mockingbird isn't a good way to teach racial history, then the obvious thing to do would be to propose a better book for that purpose. No one would complain if a school said they would swap out To Kill A Mockingbird for some other book so long as that other book was better. While I'm not sure exactly what book that would be, I'm sure one has been produced in the past 60 years. However, people aren't complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being replaced, they are complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being explicitly barred from even potentially being used in a curriculum with no argument as to the merits of any alternative. There are countless books that could be but aren't in the curriculum because some better option took their spot, and they don't need to be specifically banned. To Kill A Mockingbird is at worst sub-optimal, but it is by no means inappropriate. Only someone completely incapable of critical thinking would lump To Kill A Mockingbird into the same category as Mein Kampf.
Many schools give teachers freedom to modify their curricula. As such, you cannot replace to kill a mockingbird at the district level without banning it. I'm sure some teachers were already using a different novel (The Hate U Give is apparently popular, but is also banned in some places because it is supposedly anti-police). By barring the book from the curriculum, they force teachers to use better tools.
> Only someone completely incapable of critical thinking would lump To Kill A Mockingbird into the same category as Mein Kampf.
1. You can give teachers the freedom to modify their curricula while still mandating that some books make it into the curriculum.
2. Banning the book forces the teachers to use a different option, but not necessarily a better option. The ones voluntarily using the "better" book(s) aren't in any way aided by the book being banned, the only teachers the ban affects are those who deliberately decided against the better books. Now imagine, if a teacher gets told that a book is problematic and some alternative is less racist, and that teacher says 'nah, I'm going to stick with the more racist one' do you really trust that teacher to move in the correct direction when given the freedom to select any other unbanned book?
3. Mein Kampf and comparable works are books that fall into the "objectively unnacceptable in the classroom" category that logically should be banned outright from the curriculum. These are books that are not only inferior to other options, they should not be taught in schools even if they were the last books on Earth. GP comment was arguing TKAM belongs in this category, which prompted my initial comment.
> These are books that are not only inferior to other options, they should not be taught in schools even if they were the last books on Earth. GP comment was arguing TKAM belongs in this category
FWIW, upon re-reading the entire thread above our posts, I don't see the extreme stance you're suggesting. "There are a ton of books that are inappropriate for use in the classroom." is the closest I see, which could be seen as a call for a total and extreme ban, but that's by no means the only way to read that comment.
> You can give teachers the freedom to modify their curricula while still mandating that some books make it into the curriculum.
I don't dispute this, but you can also give teachers the freedom to modify their curricula while mandating that some books don't. In fact, my understanding is that for most curricula there won't be much of a difference between the two. High school literature curricula are wide, not deep. I originally had a few paragraphs here going through all the stuff you have to touch on in a high school curriculum, but suffice to say that you want a decent balance of books across american literary periods, as well as contemporary literary subgenres (southern gothic vs. Western, plays vs. poetry). And you have maybe a year to do it. If you force someone to include a contemporary novel on race, they'll probably have to exclude the other relatively contemporary novel on race.
> do you really trust that teacher to move in the correct direction when given the freedom to select any other unbanned book?
I perceive the major issue as more apathy and effort (some combination of "well I learned it this way and I'm fine" and "I've been teaching the same novel for 10 years, I don't want to change my curriculum") more than like, overt racism on the part of teachers. Like I'm sure there's some of that, but I expect it's not the whole of the problem.
> FWIW, upon re-reading the entire thread above our posts, I don't see the extreme stance you're suggesting. "There are a ton of books that are inappropriate for use in the classroom." is the closest I see, which could be seen as a call for a total and extreme ban, but that's by no means the only way to read that comment.
I agree, I wasn't so much stating that GP comment was actually trying to say TKAM is as bad as Mein Kampf, but rather use the absurdity of a curriculum including Mein Kampf to illustrate the wide gulf between "books that aren't as good as others" and "books that don't belong in a classroom at all"
> If you force someone to include a contemporary novel on race, they'll probably have to exclude the other relatively contemporary novel on race.
Precisely. I'm not arguing that TKAM should be in the curriculum come hell or highwater. If the teachers only teach the better book, that's an improvement. If they teach both that's also an improvement. No matter what, so long as teachers comply with the mandate it's a win. As I've stated before, the problem is not switching, it's banning. Simply banning leaves open the possibility for selecting a book which is worse, or not even covering the subject at all.
> I perceive the major issue as more apathy and effort (some combination of "well I learned it this way and I'm fine" and "I've been teaching the same novel for 10 years, I don't want to change my curriculum") more than like, overt racism on the part of teachers.
Again, this was meant to be a tongue in cheek way of saying banning a book can lead to unintended consequences. I highly doubt that a teacher in this day and age will switch to something overtly racist, or at least I doubt they'd get away with it for long. That said, there is a very good possibility that this random teacher who is neither an expert on race nor particularly enthusiastic about finding the ideal book on exposing their students to racism might select something that looks to them like a good book for the task but is in reality more problematic than TKAM ever was. Further, because of its prominence over the past 60 years, there is a lot of readily available material out there to help a teacher properly teach TKAM. A coordinated move to some new standard which likewise has such support material is sensible, but there's no guarantee the apathetic teacher left to their own devices will both pick a book with good supplemental material and access that material, so it's entirely possible you get them to switch to a better book but they teach it worse.
So to reiterate the overarching point: banning books is a good way of preventing books that have no place in a classroom from being accidentally or maliciously added to a curriculum. Banning books is a terrible strategy for promoting the adoption of a specific book. Either we are dealing with the first scenario, in which case I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why TKAM is unacceptable, or as so many are claiming, this is an example of the latter category, in which case the question of why such a terrible strategy was employed has yet to be satisfactorily answered.
> However, people aren't complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being replaced, they are complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being explicitly barred from even potentially being used in a curriculum with no argument as to the merits of any alternative.
Well the good news is, the kids are probably reading another book instead.
Yes but we don't know which - the decision to ban TKAM here wasn't made to promote a specific alternative, it was a response to an incident of racism involving a kid who read TKAM. For all you know, they could be reading The Turner Diaries. While I would love to think that the teachers are socially progressive individuals who have found a better alternative, presumably those teachers would have switched to that better alternative regardless of whether TKAM was an option or not. Unfortunately I have my concerns about what the teachers who actively avoided the more appropriate option decided on.
> I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be?
Probably received just fine. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't read this book. They're saying its a misleading depiction of racial history, and therefore is a bad teaching tool.
If it were a simple case of "here's a better option" there would be no need to ban it. If it were a perfect substitute, then teachers would just switch over to the other option, and if not then there's no reason that a class can't read two books dealing with racism. No, you don't ban a book to encourage the reading of another, you ban a book to suppress it.
I think banning the books is obviously "Bad", but what it sounds like from reading this article is that this school is incapable of teaching children about these books in a productive way. If your teachers are so incapable of introducing the material in these books that students end up being subject to racist incidents then maybe we really are better off not having the school teach about the books at all. Obviously the ideal scenario is to teach the books but talk about their context, the issues that are raised and present some material that shows some other sides to the view of race in those books. But in reality, the people who are arguing against the ban are arguing against it on the basis of how they think the book should be taught, not apparently how they are taught.
Those are some incredibly tortuous mental gymnastics you are performing. I suppose these same schools are also too incompetent to use books written from other perspectives about the same topic, so should just not mention the entire subject at all.
If a school cannot handle this subject, then you have much bigger issues than exactly which books are permitted to be read or discussed.
Well given that the vast majority of schools can and do teach it effectively, the idea that it can't be done seems excessively fatalist.
But if we do accept that it's just too high of a bar to ask schools to contextualize To Kill A Mockingbird in such a way that the literal lynch mob killing a man are not presented as role models to be emulated, then shut the school down. The kids are better off at home staring at a blank wall 8 hours a day than being exposed to that level of incompetence.
Banning books to deal with teachers who can't teach is like sticking a "0 Trans Fat" sticker on an improperly stored barrel of radioactive waste - it is worse than not even addressing the problem.
The mental image of a family getting upset about exposing their children to any of these books-- particularly in an adult supervised context-- while also allowing their children on the internet-- usually with no supervision-- is a little perplexing to me.
But some things never change: as the ALA lists show, these books have long histories of getting banned or challenged.
It blows my mind that people readily give 10 year olds iphones.
I have 3 teenagers and none of them have smartphones. They have no unfettered access to the internet in my house. I cannot think of a worse idea than a teenager with a camera and a wide-open internet connection. Some day they will have those things. But not today, Satan.
You can have parental control on iPhones and macbooks. I don't see the issue as long as you limit the screen time and whitelist only useful stuff. Use next DNS on your router.
> I cannot think of a worse idea than a teenager with a camera and a wide-open internet connection. Some day they will have those things. But not today, Satan.
Just make sure they don't hate you for it. Your relationship and mutual trust is much more important. It would allow them to come to you if/when they need advice or consultation.
Yeah, my daughter, in california, first saw porn in 2nd grade on a 5th grader's iPhone. But at least she will learn the N-word from the much better source of 4chan rather than the more toxic to kill a mockingbird
It seems like they need to learn how to have better conversations about the books, not remove them from the curriculum. Also, to address the concern that the books on racism and the black experience are all written from a white perspective, why not add a book by a black author and then have a discussion contrasting the perspective of the two writers? I think there is a lot of opportunity for growing from this, rather than just removing things from the curriculum.
By the way the title is melodramatic. The books aren't being banned and this isn't across California.
Ban typically implies they are no longer for sale, destroyed, and not kept by the library. Employees not allowed to teach from them probably would benefit from another word.
It’s very ironic to read this headline. I’m from the south and we learn about racism through To Kill A Mockingbird. Sounds like the teachers aren’t doing a good job contextualizing these texts.
My only thought here is that it's sad that the opportunities to discuss what were clearly impactful materials were dismissed, and that the books are somehow to blame.
Two quotes I don't see in this thread:
Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people
and
Art should comfort the disturbed, and disturb the comfortable
The problem with banning a book like this is they're doing nothing to address the underlying cause. Racism is learned behavior. They should address this through sensitivity training, conferencing with parents, and appropriate discussion surrounding race issues and framing this kind of literature in its proper historical perspective.
Even my now 11yo could comprehend when she was 8 that various literature represented past things which we no longer find acceptable.
I also in no way condone the behavior of this young man and do possess appropriate empathy for the young woman who was verbally assaulted by him.
One of the books on the list is /Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry/, which is very much not a book written from a white perspective, and as far as I remember is lacking white saviours.
There is freaking massive difference between "banned" and "removed from curriculum". One is bad, other completely reasonable. One is outrage, other I am fully ok with.
If you actually read the article it says they made these changes after receiving complaints from just four parents and have already begun to receive criticism from every side.
How is this news? (I know, I know, it fits a narrative, gets the clicks, etc. Still kinda disappointing to see stuff like this here.)
It sounds like this was a ripe opportunity for extending y the curriculum and perspectives about racism, but it sounds like the what they have settled on is to just ignore it altogether.
There is a distinction between banning books and just not having them as required reading in the school curriculum. There are many thousands of books they could potentially teach; are all the ones they didn’t pick therefore banned? Let’s not swerve into hyperbole here.
Maybe it’s just me, but race relations was only one of many arguably more universal themes in “To Kill a Mockingbird”.
I always saw it in terms of its broader themes such as integrity, prejudice (in genera), doing the right thing even against unpopular opinions, human nature (both good and bad), injustice, etc.
Then again, I felt similarly about “The Catcher in the Rye” and loved that book as a teenager as well. So perhaps I’m an exception or missing something.
103 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 67.2 ms ] threadSooner or later it backfires.
This is what happens when the society becomes so childish and immature that they would rather ban something than to try and understand what caused the book to be written.
Once you start banning X, you will move on to banning Y sooner or later. Then it will be Z, and sooner or later the things you like and do in your everyday life.
Adult children.
But how many people will die until it does?
People bent on banning, then burning books, then destroying statuses don’t normally stop.
I particularly don't mind Stalin or Lenin status going down. There are videos on YouTube of these.
There is this idea that taking down celebratory monument to something is inherently bad, but I don't really think it is workable general rule.
Politicians moving money so they can profit... Nothing else about this in my opinion...
[1](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/christopher-columbus-statue-rem...)
There is fixing problems, then there is burning society to the ground.
Lincoln being torn down?
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/12/portland-protesters-t...
I don't think its likely that Burbank schools removing To Kill A Mockingbird from their curriculum is going to lead to mass murder but ok.
I see no reason to take these down.
But more of the Confederate statues we now have were built long after that, and not as memorials to those who died. Most were erected around 1900-20, when Jim Crow laws were being widely enacted, and in the 1950s and 60s, when the civil rights movement was ramping up. They were built as symbols of white supremacy to send a message.
I see no reason to keep those up.
It wasn't just monuments that got built or change to oppose black civil rights. A similar thing happened with the Georgia state flag. It had long had a blue vertical stripe on the left and red/white/red horizontal stripes on the right. Then the left got what appears to be a Minuteman standing next to some columns that have banners that say "Constitution", "Justice", "Wisdom", and "Moderation". That was in 1902.
In 1906 they added "Georgia" to that and 1799, and made the design of the columns more stylized and uglier. (This also changed the way "Moderation" line wrapped, from "Moder" "ation" to "Mode" "ration", so you might mistake it for two words).
In 1920 that changed to a circular thing with "State of Georgia" and 1776 on the outside, and a simple blue and white set of columns with the Minuteman, and "Moderation" back to sensible line breaking. I think this matched or is similar to the state seal.
And then in 1956, with black people pushing harder for equal rights, Georgia replaced the right side of the flag, the part that had been three red/white/red horizontal stripes, was replaced with the Confederate battle flag. This was adopted amidst a slew of bills adopted at the same time designed to protect segregation and white supremacy. This was all in response to Brown v. Board of Education.
They partly got rid of that in 2001, going to a blue background with the columns/Minuteman seal things, and a banner below that labeled "Georgia's History", which had images of five small flags in it: the original 13 colonies flag, three Georgia flags (ending with the one with the Confederate battle flag), and the current US flag. Finally in 2003 they adopted their current flag: 3 red/white/red stripes with a blue inset in the upper left containing a circle of 13 stars around the Minuteman/Column thing, much more tastefully done than any of its past versions.
https://www.npr.org/2017/08/20/544266880/confederate-statues...
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-u-s-got-so-many-confede...
> I legitimately never thought “socially progressive” people would advocate banning books.
Are you kidding me? The US Progressive Left is heading down a path that has been obvious for years.
>I guess we have many more lessons to learn regarding censorship and puritanism.
No. This lesson has played out many times. We just ignore it, or somehow think this time we have out-smarted it. Or, we don't care, because this time we really are the good guys, and the other people are just really bad.
The trick is not being part of the mob, as it starts so benignly.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Edit: these are other examples of the same thing, from the current thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25124001
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25123681
Can you please not post like this? We want curious conversation here.
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
> "Helligar, who is one of the parents who filed a complaint in the case, claimed the boy's excuse was that he had read it in class and the principal had been dismissive of the incident."
This other quote is interesting, but it is not a reason to ban any books: if anything it means more books that take into account this additional perspective should be on the curriculum.
> Nadra Ostrom, another Black parent who filed a complaint, argued that the portrayal of Black people is mostly from a white perspective.
> "There's no counter-narrative to this Black person dealing with racism and a white person saving them," she said.
> Ostrom added that the current education given to students assumes "that racism is something in the past."
Edit: fixed quote
And also, the "black perspective" is not a monolith - this is another example of white people trying to put it in a box that's easy for them.
How to kill ... is totally absolutely white perspective. It is white antiracist perspective and also kind of propaganda for anti violent racism.
It is not the only white perspective, white are various. But, it lacks any perspective but white. It has no black person with agency or personality. No actual personality. Victim is super clear victim, not even ability to do crime is there. Victim is not threatening or uncomfortable to whites, he could not possibly be less clear model victim.
The book actually made political impact. In historical context, it is and was actual thing. But not necessary same impact for 2020 black student. And even this discussion lacks discussion about actual back then politics. Because that actually feels bad. Because people don't actually want to teach 13 years old about postcards with lynching victims being popular.
Teaching people to read means they can read what they choose to read. That should be the point.
See: strawman. Free-for-all arguing, I see.
You have not established causality between educational success and reading certain required books to make such a claim. Learning to read is the key indicator - the choice of books is simply not relevant for most adolescent education. Only in the last 2 years of high school, maybe. Meanwhile students who can read can pick and choose any book they'd like, not reliant on an educational system that by its very nature needs to make sacrifices.
I must ask - what books would be on your list?
A false allegation of rape.
I don't care about the racist "incident" they're flaming up with some dumb kid. If educational leaders think To Kill a Mockingbird is a poor, white dominant perspective that does not realistically portray black perspectives, then by all means, let's stop teaching it, and teach a more relevant book instead.
I liked that book. I read it in school and found it enjoyable and an interesting intro to racial issues beyond "Slavery is bad". But it definitely makes things all about white people. There's likely some much better source material out there for that conversation.
Saying you're banning a book is a lot dumber than changing your required curriculum.
They are banned from using it in the classroom.
I wonder if one of the kids in that school mentioned (for the sake of argument, in an appropriate setting like a discussion group) that they had read this book at home, how well received that would be?
"It's not banned everywhere, just here" is justifying the silencing of free speech in a way that Soviet Russia would be proud of.
There's no doubt, To Kill a Mockingbird is written to antagonize racism. But some are arguing the means by which it accomplishes this are not representative of where we'd want to be; echoing the generally vast liberal/conservative argument whereby most conservatives are not racist, in that they do not believe minorities are intrinsically worse or less deserving than whites, but they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand.
The harsh gut reaction to someone saying "this is no longer good" will bring out an angry response in many because they don't think it's bad and they know they're not racist AND they are not in fact racist. But there's additional levels of depth here and asking for change is a good thing, though it falls flat to anyone not interested or aware of the depth.
No it doesn't. It portrays a trial from the perspective of a lawyer's daughter. The fact that it's portrayed from a white person's point of view doesn't somehow invalidate the story unless you're just anti-white.
they support the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity. This is a nuance that most people on both sides generally fail to understand.
You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you.
To ban this book is to further narrow the field of political opinions acceptable to the liberal educational elites.
There book might fit in a curriculum where you look at the representation of black people in media over time, say how they go bad or caricature to sort of flat and irrelevant to ultimately complex and human, but that's probably a college level course, if only because it would require devoting 3-4 books to the same subtopic.
I understood their point perfectly, and I'm saying it's wrong. Racism doesn't only have to be described from black people's perspective, and complaining about how there aren't enough central black roles in a story about a young privileged girl learning about racism isn't productive.
> Racism doesn't only have to be described from black people's perspective.
This was not the complaint. This was never the complaint. I was explicitly stating that when you claimed this was the complaint, you were misunderstanding.
A story told about racism from a white persons POV is fine! What is less okay, and at a minimum needs to be taught in a larger context is a story about racism that treats race and racism as a sort of thing-to-be-observed, both in that Scout is primarily "learning about racism" instead of experiencing it, and black characters who are flat. The white-saviorness of Atticus can't really be denied (especially when you draw in the larger context that Atticus was based on Harper Lee's father, and the novel was quasi-biographical). And it's not even conclusion that Scout draws on her own. She feels justice and fairness for all is good not because she learns through some experience, but because her father tells her so, and she greatly reveres him and respects his authority. Scouts willingness to fight for justice isn't born out of a dislike of racism, but of a need to defend her dad.
Like I said, in part of a curriculum that focuses on race in America, I think TKAM is a vital book to teach, but if it's the only exposure to literature-that-focuses-on-race-in-america, which for a lot of people it will be, it's not a good tool, because you aren't going to get exposed to the criticism I just provided in a high school context.
If you're trying to teach white people and people who haven't experienced racism about racism, then this is a pretty good way to do it IMO. They're more likely to identify with the main character, and they can follow the logic that makes her think racism is bad.
The white-saviorness of Atticus can't really be denied
Your bias is showing here, it's not cool.. There were plenty of unsavory characters in the book.
Scouts willingness to fight for justice isn't born out of a dislike of racism, but of a need to defend her dad.
It starts like this, but they also go into the logic of why her dad thinks this way. She's a girl who learns from her family like all kids.
If there are other, better books to read, then recommend other books. Don't ban this one because you don't think it goes far enough.
I don't know what you mean. I agree that there are tons of unsavory characters in the book. Atticus is not one of them. He's portrayed as nearly flawless. This plays into the White Savior[0] trope.
> If you're trying to teach white people and people who haven't experienced racism about racism, then this is a pretty good way to do it IMO.
That sounds appealing, but consider that the book's "central" Black character's defining characteristic is that he's not a violent criminal. That's the depiction of black people in the book. This, like I said, makes racism this abstract thing. And especially now when you generally don't have lynch mobs, it's easy to write off the book's entire story as "well we don't do that today, racism is solved!", which is yet another reason the book draws criticism as a teaching tool.
The book was perhaps good at a time when Black people were often presented as less-than-human, but now that they're usually just presented as less-human, less fully formed, different tools are better.
> If there are other, better books to read, then recommend other books. Don't ban this one because you don't think it goes far enough.
I actually already did that in this thread, and then explained why that doesn't fix the issue. There are likely already teachers using The Hate U Give or The Invisible man in their classrooms, but there are clearly some that aren't. Giving teachers a bunch of choices doesn't protect students from teachers who make bad choices. Ultimately, requiring that teachers use better teaching tools in their curriculums isn't the boogeyman it seems to be made out to be. Like, it's still staying in school libraries.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_savior
So now if a white man in media is shown pushing back against racism, he's looked down upon as a trope? This is racist and ridiculous. Damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-dont will not get white people on your side on this issue.
requiring that teachers use better teaching tools in their curriculums isn't the boogeyman it seems to be made out to be.
If such changes are made for racist reasons, then they deserve pushback. Current projections show that whites will be a minority in the US in 2048. If our society embraces anti-white discrimination and dogwhistles like this in the meantime, then there will be cultural reverberations for decades just as the cultural changes of the 70's reverberate through today.
It doesn't invalidate the story. But if you're having a conversation about race, you would probably benefit from having black perspectives. Otherwise you convey an undertone that outcomes for blacks are for white people to choose. The message we want to teach kids is deeper than racism is bad.
This is vaguely addressed in the book's pseudo sequel, go set a watchman, in which Atticus reveals a bigoted side opposing integration.
> You're projecting an opinion that people with different political opinions are just ignorant of the facts, which is itself ignorant. There are plenty of educated people who disagree with you.
I'm not saying people ignorant of facts, I'm saying they're ignorant of nuance, and I'm saying this is a large chunk of people on both sides. Hence liberal perception of racism and conservative outrage. It doesn't matter if educated people disagree with me. The fact that "the continuation of power structures that make it systematically difficult for minorities to have equal levels of opportunity" is the fundamental argument behind recent race relations conversations.
you would probably benefit from having black perspectives. Otherwise you convey an undertone that outcomes for blacks are for white people to choose. The message we want to teach kids is deeper than racism is bad.
Counterargument to this: we all have a certain extent of power and influence on those around us. The target demographic for these books is to teach people who aren't discriminated against about racism. Wouldn't it make sense to show a story about a display of personal power and influence to make the world a better place? The outcomes of blacks, whites, and everyone else depends on how we all influence each other, not just how we influence ourselves.
If the problem really was simply that To Kill A Mockingbird isn't a good way to teach racial history, then the obvious thing to do would be to propose a better book for that purpose. No one would complain if a school said they would swap out To Kill A Mockingbird for some other book so long as that other book was better. While I'm not sure exactly what book that would be, I'm sure one has been produced in the past 60 years. However, people aren't complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being replaced, they are complaining about To Kill A Mockingbird being explicitly barred from even potentially being used in a curriculum with no argument as to the merits of any alternative. There are countless books that could be but aren't in the curriculum because some better option took their spot, and they don't need to be specifically banned. To Kill A Mockingbird is at worst sub-optimal, but it is by no means inappropriate. Only someone completely incapable of critical thinking would lump To Kill A Mockingbird into the same category as Mein Kampf.
> Only someone completely incapable of critical thinking would lump To Kill A Mockingbird into the same category as Mein Kampf.
I don't see anyone doing that.
2. Banning the book forces the teachers to use a different option, but not necessarily a better option. The ones voluntarily using the "better" book(s) aren't in any way aided by the book being banned, the only teachers the ban affects are those who deliberately decided against the better books. Now imagine, if a teacher gets told that a book is problematic and some alternative is less racist, and that teacher says 'nah, I'm going to stick with the more racist one' do you really trust that teacher to move in the correct direction when given the freedom to select any other unbanned book?
3. Mein Kampf and comparable works are books that fall into the "objectively unnacceptable in the classroom" category that logically should be banned outright from the curriculum. These are books that are not only inferior to other options, they should not be taught in schools even if they were the last books on Earth. GP comment was arguing TKAM belongs in this category, which prompted my initial comment.
FWIW, upon re-reading the entire thread above our posts, I don't see the extreme stance you're suggesting. "There are a ton of books that are inappropriate for use in the classroom." is the closest I see, which could be seen as a call for a total and extreme ban, but that's by no means the only way to read that comment.
> You can give teachers the freedom to modify their curricula while still mandating that some books make it into the curriculum.
I don't dispute this, but you can also give teachers the freedom to modify their curricula while mandating that some books don't. In fact, my understanding is that for most curricula there won't be much of a difference between the two. High school literature curricula are wide, not deep. I originally had a few paragraphs here going through all the stuff you have to touch on in a high school curriculum, but suffice to say that you want a decent balance of books across american literary periods, as well as contemporary literary subgenres (southern gothic vs. Western, plays vs. poetry). And you have maybe a year to do it. If you force someone to include a contemporary novel on race, they'll probably have to exclude the other relatively contemporary novel on race.
> do you really trust that teacher to move in the correct direction when given the freedom to select any other unbanned book?
I perceive the major issue as more apathy and effort (some combination of "well I learned it this way and I'm fine" and "I've been teaching the same novel for 10 years, I don't want to change my curriculum") more than like, overt racism on the part of teachers. Like I'm sure there's some of that, but I expect it's not the whole of the problem.
I agree, I wasn't so much stating that GP comment was actually trying to say TKAM is as bad as Mein Kampf, but rather use the absurdity of a curriculum including Mein Kampf to illustrate the wide gulf between "books that aren't as good as others" and "books that don't belong in a classroom at all"
> If you force someone to include a contemporary novel on race, they'll probably have to exclude the other relatively contemporary novel on race.
Precisely. I'm not arguing that TKAM should be in the curriculum come hell or highwater. If the teachers only teach the better book, that's an improvement. If they teach both that's also an improvement. No matter what, so long as teachers comply with the mandate it's a win. As I've stated before, the problem is not switching, it's banning. Simply banning leaves open the possibility for selecting a book which is worse, or not even covering the subject at all.
> I perceive the major issue as more apathy and effort (some combination of "well I learned it this way and I'm fine" and "I've been teaching the same novel for 10 years, I don't want to change my curriculum") more than like, overt racism on the part of teachers.
Again, this was meant to be a tongue in cheek way of saying banning a book can lead to unintended consequences. I highly doubt that a teacher in this day and age will switch to something overtly racist, or at least I doubt they'd get away with it for long. That said, there is a very good possibility that this random teacher who is neither an expert on race nor particularly enthusiastic about finding the ideal book on exposing their students to racism might select something that looks to them like a good book for the task but is in reality more problematic than TKAM ever was. Further, because of its prominence over the past 60 years, there is a lot of readily available material out there to help a teacher properly teach TKAM. A coordinated move to some new standard which likewise has such support material is sensible, but there's no guarantee the apathetic teacher left to their own devices will both pick a book with good supplemental material and access that material, so it's entirely possible you get them to switch to a better book but they teach it worse.
So to reiterate the overarching point: banning books is a good way of preventing books that have no place in a classroom from being accidentally or maliciously added to a curriculum. Banning books is a terrible strategy for promoting the adoption of a specific book. Either we are dealing with the first scenario, in which case I have yet to see a compelling argument as to why TKAM is unacceptable, or as so many are claiming, this is an example of the latter category, in which case the question of why such a terrible strategy was employed has yet to be satisfactorily answered.
Well the good news is, the kids are probably reading another book instead.
Probably received just fine. Nobody is saying kids shouldn't read this book. They're saying its a misleading depiction of racial history, and therefore is a bad teaching tool.
If a school cannot handle this subject, then you have much bigger issues than exactly which books are permitted to be read or discussed.
Banning books so we can keep the people who can't teach those books competently in place is insane.
But if we do accept that it's just too high of a bar to ask schools to contextualize To Kill A Mockingbird in such a way that the literal lynch mob killing a man are not presented as role models to be emulated, then shut the school down. The kids are better off at home staring at a blank wall 8 hours a day than being exposed to that level of incompetence.
Banning books to deal with teachers who can't teach is like sticking a "0 Trans Fat" sticker on an improperly stored barrel of radioactive waste - it is worse than not even addressing the problem.
Including, 'To Kill a Mockingbird'-- for that matter.
A number of books listed in the article are in the ALA list, which gives a historical perspective on attacks on these works: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks...
Books from this list that that aren't on the current ALA classics list (though they're also elsewhere on the ALA site but without context, e.g. http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks...):
https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/789/adventures-...
http://collectingchildrensbooks.blogspot.com/2009/04/this-on...
But some things never change: as the ALA lists show, these books have long histories of getting banned or challenged.
I have 3 teenagers and none of them have smartphones. They have no unfettered access to the internet in my house. I cannot think of a worse idea than a teenager with a camera and a wide-open internet connection. Some day they will have those things. But not today, Satan.
You can have parental control on iPhones and macbooks. I don't see the issue as long as you limit the screen time and whitelist only useful stuff. Use next DNS on your router.
> I cannot think of a worse idea than a teenager with a camera and a wide-open internet connection. Some day they will have those things. But not today, Satan.
What's the worst that will happen?
Porn? Twitter? 4chan?
All you're doing is encouraging them to hide things from you.
By the way the title is melodramatic. The books aren't being banned and this isn't across California.
Two quotes I don't see in this thread:
andEven my now 11yo could comprehend when she was 8 that various literature represented past things which we no longer find acceptable.
I also in no way condone the behavior of this young man and do possess appropriate empathy for the young woman who was verbally assaulted by him.
"Nadra Ostrom, another Black parent who filed a complaint, argued that the portrayal of Black people is mostly from a white perspective.
"There's no counter-narrative to this Black person dealing with racism and a white person saving them," she said.
Ostrom added that the current education given to students assumes "that racism is something in the past.""
How is this news? (I know, I know, it fits a narrative, gets the clicks, etc. Still kinda disappointing to see stuff like this here.)
I always saw it in terms of its broader themes such as integrity, prejudice (in genera), doing the right thing even against unpopular opinions, human nature (both good and bad), injustice, etc.
Then again, I felt similarly about “The Catcher in the Rye” and loved that book as a teenager as well. So perhaps I’m an exception or missing something.