School pulls ‘Finn’ and ‘Mockingbird’ over slurs: ‘not right to put that in a book"

[Zolaris192]

It is an evil word, and those who perpetuate it's use for whatever reason are not doing themselves any favors. The fact some people think that by appropriating a word they rob it of it's power is mistaken, it merely shows that the word still has power over them and that a change in user is all that is required to change it into a weapon.

Language has meaning and language has power. To truly defeat a word such as that word, you have to leech the intent behind it out of society through generations of hard work. To pretend the word is not evil...well, we're in a post truth era now apparently where everyone fashions their own truth regardless of facts or research.
If that's your position, all I can do is use well reasoned argument as a retort.

You contradicted yourself

I am saying I choose not to let little crap like that bother me, and neither do the people around me, it makes for a very comfortable, relaxed environment

You have people in other countries that actively practice actual racism, like literally acting on it, the United States leads the world in equality, to believe different just makes you gravely uneducated about how the world is really operating

[shrunken]

BURN ALL THE BOOKS

ban them, I mean.

[Dextroden]

I always wonder if people that call for bans on book containing the word will want all media (Music, TV, Movies, Games, Internet) that contains it banned.

Or if these people follow their children, covering their ears at all times because banning a book isn't going to keep morons from calling each other that in the streets.

[Obelisk Kai]

You contradicted yourself

I am saying I choose not to let little crap like that bother me, and neither do the people around me, it makes for a very comfortable, relaxed environment

You have people in other countries that actively practice actual racism, like literally acting on it, the United States leads the world in equality, to believe different just makes you gravely uneducated about how the world is really operating

If I contradicted myself, please spell out where so I can correct you on your mistake.

You say the United States leads the world in equality because in other countries they do much worse. What evidence do you have to support this claim? Studies, independent research and the like. Please share these sources, I am genuinely interested to understand why you make this claim.

As for being gravely uneducated, along with being a wuss I believe that is the second ad hominem attack you've used. Do you feel using such language aids your debating skills or is just an attempt to mask a lack of sophistication behind your argument?

[Adam Jensen]

So . . . people read a book about racism in the South in the 1800s, written by a man in the 1800s . . . and they're upset the word "ni**er" is in it?

Wow.

Probably the same people who get upset over the word being used so much in Blazing Saddles, the people who don't understand context.

This is what I hate about the PC crowd, is that they ignore context completely

- - - Updated - - -

I remember we covered Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, and Animal Farm. My chemistry teacher also somehow found time to make us watch Gattaca, though it's a little less focused on the typical censorship themes. 1984 is still sitting on my bookshelf unread.

1984 is worth a read though. Makes you think about who controls information and propaganda. Makes you think about constant surveillance. It is a fascinating dystopian look at extreme fascism.

We were always at war with Eastasia.

[Macaquerie]

1984 is worth a read though. Makes you think about who controls information and propaganda. Makes you think about constant surveillance. It is a fascinating dystopian look at extreme fascism.

We were always at war with Eastasia.

For me, 1984 has lost some of its luster because these days people are so quick to try and tag every political development they don't like as "Orwellian" and draw shaky parallels that don't really work if you think about it for more than a second. Not the fault of Orwell or the book itself, obviously, but seeing it cited by so many idiots does diminish it a bit in my eyes.

[THE Bigzoman]

this has been a thing since forever. there was always a person who was a cunt. they just Got a new name with a new generation.

Was referring more to the Huck Finn book getting banned because of that one asshole parent.


Mockingbird getting this kind of treatment is a bit new though.

[Flutterguy]

Yeah, no. People seriously need to read Marx and not listen to McCarthyist propaganda.

Marx's utopia was a stateless society. 1984's fascism is about as directly contradictory to Marxist thought as it's possible to be.

Which isn't surprising, as a criticism of Stalinism, because Stalinism emerged as an assault and overthrow of Marxist thought, itself.

In it's end Marxism is stateless, but Marxism requires the state to bring about that end. It doesn't just declare no state. He's actually quite specific in the exact steps needed to progress to a stateless circumstance which, btw, required complete automation of labor.

[Zolaris192]

If I contradicted myself, please spell out where so I can correct you on your mistake.

You say the United States leads the world in equality because in other countries they do much worse. What evidence do you have to support this claim? Studies, independent research and the like. Please share these sources, I am genuinely interested to understand why you make this claim.

As for being gravely uneducated, along with being a wuss I believe that is the second ad hominem attack you've used. Do you feel using such language aids your debating skills or is just an attempt to mask a lack of sophistication behind your argument?

Okay I'll speak in the language of the outrage hive mind culture you subscribe to

Don't try to silence historical language because it hurts your feelings, to pretend that it never happened not only gives people who use words with the intent to "harm" others power, it spits on people that actually went through real racism

[Obelisk Kai]

Okay I'll speak in the language of the outrage hive mind culture you subscribe to

Don't try to silence historical language because it hurts your feelings, to pretend that it never happened not only gives people who use words with the intent to "harm" others power, it spits on people that actually went through real racism

So. You didn't actually read what I said and leapt straight to 'Imma gonna attack the SJW.'

Then this discussion is pointless.

[Kaganfindel]

Those two books go up on the chopping block once every decade or so. Hopefully the hypersensitive parents will lose again.

It's ironic and sad, yes.

[Vynny]

So we shouldn't give children stories that vilify the bigoted racist practices of the past and exemplify the need to overcome our prejudices because that will somehow increase racial divides?

In the words of George Carlin:

[Fincayra]

To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the best children's book I've ever read (from the far past, of course.) It's a book every child should read before high school, if only to keep the memory fresh that some time in the past we didn't treat everyone the best. Atticus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that his client was innocent, and the jury still finding him guilty, was outrageous to me when I read it, and still is to this day.

Love that book. Go pick it up if you haven't read it! Or, watch the movie! Gregory Peck NAILS Atticus Finch.

[Vynny]

It is an evil word, and those who perpetuate it's use for whatever reason are not doing themselves any favors. The fact some people think that by appropriating a word they rob it of it's power is mistaken, it merely shows that the word still has power over them and that a change in user is all that is required to change it into a weapon.

Language has meaning and language has power. To truly defeat a word such as that word, you have to leech the intent behind it out of society through generations of hard work. To pretend the word is not evil...well, we're in a post truth era now apparently where everyone fashions their own truth regardless of facts or research.
If that's your position, all I can do is use well reasoned argument as a retort.

Or you don't give those words power over you. There's a reason that most slurs die out despite the actual bigotry behind them not dying as well. The intended targets learn to not give those words power. Look at the word fag, a decade ago it was a bigoted hateful word that no homosexual wanted uttered, nowadays you have them calling themselves and each other fags while laughing at the powerlessness of those like the Westboro Baptist Church who cannot help but submit to intellectually lazy and ignorant prejudices. The same could be said of black people using that word to refer to each other. When a black person says it, they give the word itself no power over them, even when it's meant in a derogatory fashion, but if a white person were to say it, even in solidarity with them, then they give that power back to it as if it were still the 1800's or early 1900's. Hell, I would say it here myself, but I'm not too sure of mmo-champs rules on it and I don't wanna get banned or my post removed, but I wouldn't say it to harm or to hurt, but to show that this word should have no power over anyone and that there's no reason to fear it. Besides that, I have to ask if you find banning books that vilify those who use this word and exemplify those who rebel against such racism, bigotry, and prejudice to be productive towards the goal of a non-racist society?

[Tijuana]

[This is where political correctness goes, banning classics like "To Kill A Mockingbird" - and this is why feminist-SJWs are just the worst people, policing for the sake of feelings]

Virginia school pulls ‘Finn’ and ‘Mockingbird’ over slurs: ‘It’s not right to put that in a book’

http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/virg...hat-in-a-book/



A Virginia school district has pulled two American literature classics from the classroom after a parent complained about their historically accurate use of racial slurs.

The superintendent of Accomack County Public Schools confirmed the district had removed Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” after a parent voiced her concerns during a Nov. 15 school board meeting, reported WAVY-TV.

“Right now, we are a nation divided as it is,” said the mother, whose name was not released, in a recording of the meeting.

“So what are we teaching our children?” continued the woman, who said her biracial son was upset by racial slurs used in the books. “We’re validating that these words are acceptable, and they are not acceptable by any means.”

Racial slurs appear 219 times in Twain’s book, which was published in 1884, and 48 times in Lee’s book, which was published in 1960.

Both books have been temporarily suspended from classroom and library use in the schools under the district’s policy manual, which authorizes a committee made up of the principal, library media specialist, classroom teacher, a parent and/or student, and the complainant to review the materials.

Parents who spoke to WAVY-TV were split on whether they thought the books should be available to students.

“It’s not right to put that in a book, let alone read that to a child,” said Victoria Combs, a mother of two.

But other parents said the offensive language made sense in the books because of their historical context, and they did not want to see them banned.

“I don’t want to see it happen because if you start with one racial word in a book and have to go on and on and on, and pretty soon you’ll be burning books left and right,” said parent R. Kellam.

The committee will make a recommendation on the books to the superintendent, who said he wasn’t sure when that would be made.

While I would never be in favor of banning books, I can see how parents don't want kids having to grapple with the meanings of racial slurs at an age where they are not yet capable of understanding.

I have long thought they should just change then name to "Black Jim" in Huckleberry Finn, in copies given to kids.

As for To Kill a Mockingbird, that book is taught at a much older age than Huck Finn. I don't see any issue with that material for that age group.

[Noradin]

While I would never be in favor of banning books, I can see how parents don't want kids having to grapple with the meanings of racial slurs at an age where they are not yet capable of understanding.

So you are in favour of making sure they are never capable of understanding the context?

[Tijuana]

So you are in favour of making sure they are never capable of understanding the context?

When did I say that? I simply acknowledging the obvious fact that Huckleberry Finn is a book for young children, and racial slurs are not. If you have to wade in to discussions more fitting for a 12 year old, while teaching a class to a 7 year old, it's just not going to work out. It's simpler, and more educationally sound, to just not have them read that book, or that slur, at that age. I just made up that word but, you guys can use it.

[Noradin]

Yes, and then you will have the discussion about not talking about slurs with 12 years old next, because they wouldn't be prepared anymore.

[Tijuana]

Yes, and then you will have the discussion about not talking about slurs with 12 years old next, because they wouldn't be prepared anymore.

If you can't see how a 12 year old is more capable than a 7 year old of understanding complex racial issues, I don't think our discussion will really go anywhere. I mean, feel free to disagree but, if you have some explanation for this rather unorthodox view, by all means share it.

[Katchii]

To Kill a Mockingbird is probably the best children's book I've ever read (from the far past, of course.) It's a book every child should read before high school, if only to keep the memory fresh that some time in the past we didn't treat everyone the best. Atticus proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that his client was innocent, and the jury still finding him guilty, was outrageous to me when I read it, and still is to this day.

Love that book. Go pick it up if you haven't read it! Or, watch the movie! Gregory Peck NAILS Atticus Finch.

It is by no means a "childrens" book.

I was in 8th grade when I read it and I don't remember a damn thing, except the ham costume, because it was boring as fuck to read and used completely outdated language. If I read it now it might be more meaningful because I could understand more and be mature enough to understand the deeper meaning.

My major problem with these "classics" being used in classrooms now is that many kids, like me, will simply not understand or care about the message in the book because they can't be arsed to actually read it at the super mature and pensive age of ~13.

Based on the current situation on the US and how rampant bigotry is, the ideals that are meant to be conveyed in the book about tolerance and acceptance are obviously being well received....