TheBoost said:
Warbler said:
TheBoost said:
But in all honesty, is it better to get a classroom of teenagers to confront these issues in a book that is 'censored,' or to deny them the work totally?
what is better is to protest the schools that would deny the students the original work or would teach an altered version and try to get their heads out of the sand(and for teachers to refuse to cooperate with such schools), instead of caving to their demands.
The demands are from people, usually parents, usually middle-class, usually white. (I'd be interested in any black leaders who want to censor to the language in "Huck Finn"). Schools don't make demands. Schools follow policy.
fine then protest whatever/whomever does make the policy.
TheBoost said:
Principals and teachers are civil servants, not policy makers.
Here I thought teachers, real teachers, would want to stand up for whats right.
TheBoost said:
Something like "Huck Finn" being on a banned book list is usually up to the elected school board. I think it would be very sad for a teacher to lose their job because they think "Huck Finn" is without worth without the N-word.
I didn't say it was without worth. I agree, it would be sad. But it would also be sad for teachers to compromise their principals.
TheBoost said:
I'd love to see a School Board nominee run on the platform "I'll put more racial slurs into your child's education!"
it wouldn't be that, it would be: "I'll make sure you children read classic literature as it was written"
TheBoost said:
If you want to eliminate banned book lists, get in line. While you're trying to change the fundamentally irrational, reactionairy, and painfully conservative underpinings of American public education, generations of students will be denied a chance to be taught "Huck Finn."
and if we don't how many generations of students will be denied the chance to be taught the REAL Huck Finn? Huck Finn has been banned many times and the bans have been fought against and overturned many times.
TheBoost said:
Warbler said:
In order to be polite in this post, I said n-word instead of the full word, but didn't have to abbreviate the word cracker.
Does the word 'cracker' carry with it the history of centuries of violence, oppression, slavery, and murder?
Is it a double standard, or are the words just not equal in meaning?
They not be equal in meaning, but they are both still racial slurs. Should some racial slurs be acceptable and other not? Which are and which aren't? How do we decide?