The Burbank Unified School District in California has banned several classic literary works because they contain racial slurs. To Kill A Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are two of the classics on the district’s new list of banned books.
The list includes: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Of Mice and Men, The Cay and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
The decision was motivated in part by an alleged incident in which a student used a racial slur he learned in the book Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.
“My family used to own your family and now I want a dollar from each of you for the week,” one student reportedly said to a black classmate.
PEN America, a non-profit organization dedicated to literature, argued in a petition that it was inappropriate to ban the books.
“Each of the books in question deals with difficult subject matter from our country’s complicated and painful history, including systemic racism,” the petition reads. “Blocking engagement with these important books is also avoiding the important role that schools can and should play in providing context for why these books inspire and challenge us still today.”
The Burbank Unified School District is hardly the first school district to ban literary works that contain racial slurs.
Breitbart News reported in December 21017 that a Mississippi school district banned To Kill a Mockingbird over its use of racial slurs. A school district in Virginia banned both Mockingbird and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 2016.
What’s next,the Bible? The dictionary? The phone book?
Please STOP THE NONSENSE… we can not look back we should be moving forward and God Help us how can we get rid of the classics … oh, because those leftists want us to NO we can not listen to them and there nonsense …. bring God back before it is too late, which I fear it is too late. Carona and the Fires in California this is all in the old testament and we are doomed we are doomed
Other ridiculousness! Are the American Indians, or for that matter the Japanese, Irish, Germans, etc complaining how they were treated as immigrants in America! This country has become full of a bunch of do nothing, cry babies!
Whoever they are they’re trying to silence freedom of speech those are good books there’s nothing wrong with them they need to leave them alone and can continue To allow people to read them
Don’t ban the book; set the foolish student straight! Read these books and you will find that at least two of them (To Kill A Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn) expose the evils of racism in a way that will make the reader think. Or is thinking for oneself what is really on trial here?
This is not a professor saying to ban the classics. It is a treasonous jackass. Fire whoever it is!
Shades of NAZI germany what has happened to our schools, California has to many idiots controlling our schools instead of banning why not use it as a teaching tool to explain the “quotes” from the books, instead of the continued brain washing of the students.
communisms first rule is destroy everything that makes freedom so good
Only CA can be this stupid, teacher could run the state better them the people running it now, the teacher know how to read and understand that the pass helps the future to do better.
Many classic literary works are classic because they skillfully engage us in the controversy; we acknowledge the culture, though unfamiliar, in which we find ourselves in the stories and we process the events with our minds and our emotions. Well-written literature can make us more compassionate to characters in situations with which we are not familiar. Why are the current book-banners so afraid of allowing people to consider the subjects in the books? What do they fear from the readers, from enquiring minds, from broader paths of thought? We are being shoveled down a cattle run of forbidden thought; THAT is what we should fear!
What’s next,–Dickens? Faulkner? Shakespeare? Editing Passages in the works of Hemingway and Fitzgerald is around the corner. I can only wonder about Joseph Conrad’s The N word Of the Narcissus. Kipling’s poetry. These and other works are works of art, major historical artifacts (as it were). They describe; they do not advocate. I find all this banning and editing barbaric, downright uncivilized, and I urge legislators and educators to rethink their policies as regards such matters.
This is so stupid! This is an example of Socialism at its best! These books are Classics and they tell the truth of what went on in the the times they are written about! You cannot erase history! It happened get over it! Why not take some of the Autobiographies
That lie about went on in the country! For Instance Barack Obama and his Wife’s new books !
Yeah, like banning classic books is gonna stop racism in this country.
Read both books and it never influenced my view on my feelings toward racial injustice.
Let it go and let the reader decide whether to go on reading or tossing it in the trash. Most, I think, would read on knowing that reading classic works by America’s finest authors is a terrific option.
What ever happened to freedom of the press and public opinion?
Most people didn’t get the true meaning of the friendship and final thoughts of Huck Finn as he waves goodbye to Jim, whom he helped escape southern persecution to join his family up north.😢 It SHOULD be required reading in all schools.
Banning books….burning books…same thing…now does anyone in that ridiculous sorry state remember WWII? Does anyone in that worthless state remember the nazis burning huge piles of books? Now, does anyone remember what the FULL moniker of the nazis was? Does anyone remember what happened to said nazis?
Democrats…freaking idiots “nuff said”
Fahrenheit 451 has come to life.
Now, wait. That’s going too far. How can you ban phone books? Without them, the left can’t dox you, can they? (Sarc.)
Rather than ban the books why can’t we ban the words introduced by the blacks such as motherfxxxxr ,my hoe, my bit#h,and crap like that. Get over what happened 175- 200 years ago nobody can change the past. Start trying to make the future better . Be a contributor rather than a taker.Encourage reading the classics in hopes of learning from the mistakes that were made and avoiding the repeating of them as we live our lives.There aren’t anybody who wants to see involuntary servitude come back to America.No one wants to see the N word become an everyday word being used.NO GOD fearing AMERICAN wants to see justice dealt differently for Black or White people.We want our legal people from South of the Boulder dealt with equally. Those folks that came her legally from where ever have the same rights. I have a copy of Hitlers’ book ,I haven’t read the damn thing, but I have it to remind me of what I don’t want for America. The government thinks we are not smart enough to think for ourselves so they take away our books. THINK AMERICA