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Teacher Wants Classic Novels Censored Now Obama Is President
Says books that highlight racial prejudice should be
removed from schools
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A teacher in Oregon has declared that classic American novels
depicting African Americans as poorly educated and subservient,
or simply highlighting the existence of racial prejudice in
society, should be removed from high school reading lists now
that a black man has become U.S. President.
John Foley, who teaches at a largely white suburban
high school near Portland, has called for classics such as Mark
Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Harper
Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, and John Steinbeck's Of
Mice and Men to be replaced with "more modern, less
discomfiting novels", according to a report in the
LA
Times.
"The time has arrived to update the literature
we use in high school classrooms," Foley wrote in a guest
column this month for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Barack
Obama is president-elect of the United States, and novels that
use the 'N-word' repeatedly need to go."
All three novels are renowned for their exploration
of entrenched attitudes towards race and social hierarchy. The
general theme of the works, however, is the pursuit of the freedom
and equality, with the African American characters portrayed
as literary heroes.
Though it is clear that Mr Foley recognizes this
fact, it does not seem to sway his opinion:
"With few exceptions, all the black students
in my classes over the years have appeared very uncomfortable
when I've discussed these matters at the beginning of the unit.
And I never want to rationalize 'Huck Finn' to an angry African
American mom again as long as I breathe." Foley writes.
(Article continues below)
Critics were quick to pound Foley's suggestions, which amount
to no less than outright censorship, an act of ignorance inherently
detrimental to any effort to understand and overcome any form
of engendered prejudice.
"Obama would be horrified if he knew this
censorship was done in his name," wrote Trudy J. Sundberg,
a retired teacher of American literature from Oak Harbor,
Wash. Her response to Foley's column was just one in a barrage
of letters and e-mails that the newspaper received.
"What an amazingly stupid teacher this is," another
reader wrote. "There is nothing in American literature
that more succinctly and directly attacks racial prejudice
than Mark Twain's 'The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.' This
is another teacher anxious to pursue political correctness
more than seek to understand what is involved in truly 'reading'
a book."
Foley dispels any idea that his suggestions are
in any way satirical by stating "Whenever you take a couple
of shots at sacred cows, people assume it's satire," as
he again attempts to rationalize censorship by referring to
Obama:
"Our new president is this very intelligent,
highly articulate guy, and the literature we're foisting on
our children typically depicts black men as ignorant, inarticulate,
uneducated. And the contrast just jumped out at me," he
writes.
This is another early example of an insidiously
enhanced form of backwards political correctness for which the
new president is ignorantly being used as justification.
If Mr Foley taught history would he remove all
texts on the advent of Slavery in America and just pretend that
it never happened because Obama is now the president?
God forbid that a classic work of literature
should challenge the reader and explore "uncomfortable"
territory!
No, no, no, we cannot be having our children exposed
to the REAL fundamental social and cultural issues of the modern
world during lessons. I mean, they might not understand! Much
better to avoid them all together, then there's no risk involved.
Mr Foley would presumably prefer to see mindless
fantasy books such as "Harry Potter" placed on the
school curriculum, to ensure our kids grow up realizing that
there are good guys and there are bad guys and as long as you're
a good guy, you'll be A-OK because the bad guys are bad and
bad guys never win because they are not good.
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