Virginia highschool tempbans two classics for racial slurs

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A Virginia school has temporarily banned two American classics after a parent said her high school-age son was negatively impacted by the racial slurs they contain.

The decision to remove "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee came after a parent filed a complaint, WAVY reported. The parent cited excessive racial slurs as the reason for wanting the books banned, Superintendent Warren Holland told the news station.

The parent, whose son is biracial, said that her concerns are "not even just a black and white thing."

"I keep hearing, 'This is a classic, This is a classic,' ... I understand this is a literature classic. But at some point, I feel that children will not -- or do not -- truly get the classic part -- the literature part, which I'm not disputing," she said at a Nov. 15 school board meeting. "This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that."

The parent said her son, who was reading "Huckleberry Finn" for a high school assignment, couldn't get past a certain page in that story on which the N-word appeared seven times.

A racial slur appears 219 times in "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and 48 times in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

"So what are we teaching our children? We're validating that these words are acceptable, and they are not acceptable by (any) means," the parent said, also noting psychological effects language has on children. "There is other literature they can use."

The parent proposed a committee made up of parents and teachers of different cultural backgrounds come up with a list of books that are inclusive for all students. She also offered to donate books and raise funds in the case of budgetary concerns.

The complaint, which was "a request for reconsideration of learning resources," will go before a committee made up of a principal, librarian, teacher, parent and potentially others, according to WCMH. The committee will then make a recommendation to the superintendent.

Holland said that there is no set date for when the recommendation will be made.

 

[Jace E. Denton]

lol at this niglet having to read huck finn in high school he must be in the double secret ultra sped class, we read that shit in like 6th grade lmao

 

[SteelPlatedHeart]

There was this stand up clip on Comedy Central Radio that talked about this the last time it came up in the news, where it was changed to "Slave Jim" in Huckleberry Finn.

It basically went something along the lines of "I somehow feel like that's worse for kids, like it'll give them the wrong message. They'll be at home and go "Grandpa, you can't say that anymore. You're suppose to call them slaves. "

 

[Ninja_Warrior]

Ignoring the past has never resulted in positive things for the future.

 

[Honeybunny]

Call me a conspiratard, but to me it sounds the kid just mentioned something about reading books with racial slurs and their parent(s) went ballistic about it

If it was the kid who was behind the boycotting, I'd imagine he would be the one who got interviewed

 

[AngeloTheWizard]

Sad thing is, I've said worse in my games of Deadlands. Hell, i remember one game where we were planning on taking down this ex-Confederate Captain who was summoning the dead (Deadlands is a strange mix of Lovecraft and the Wild West), and when we were done planning, my character realized a couple others weren't around so he asked "where's the nigger and the chink?"

Funny enough, that got a laugh from just about everyone at the table because i hadn't said anything remotely similar up to that point. The point is, these words are just words and only have as much power as you give them.

 

[Bassomatic]

Gosh thinking about that reminds me when I was on the basketball team, during our work outs and games non of our music was edited. Jay-Z's the Blue Print 2 was all the rage (fuck I'm old). The school never batted an eye. And this was also the Era of the Fast and Furious movie becoming a real life thing so every kid had an 1987 Dodge Omni with 3 12"s in the trunk blasting away DMX. You couldn't go half a hall way with out hearing those words.

 

[Pikonic]

When it's too much to teach history and how people used to think, ban books. You can't change history and you shouldn't cover it up.

Here's some liberal shit to fight this liberal shit

 

[Marvin]

This ad is terrible at making its point. Banning Little Red Riding Hood is retarded, not something to be held up as an example of great policy.

 

[treestar official]

What's most crazy about this is the group think of how we have to hate X because little slip up or fact but other people get a pass.
FDR is loved by SJWs and it's not like he put people in fucking concentration camps or anything just because the color of their skin. Yet liberal TJ is the worst ever because slaves and no one minds dude used to cuck literally any one he could. I just wonder where the group thinks starts who's the head of the snake of exceptionalism? Who or what gets the ball rolling on what's allowed insanity.

(fftopic:- They hate Gandhi because they say he beat his wife. They also hate Abe Lincoln and claim that he's a racist.)

For real though, this is reminding me of Fahrenheit 451. I wonder if they'll ban that book, too.
I'm kind of wondering what this "committee of parents and teachers of different cultural backgrounds" will replace them with.

 

[IwegalBadnik]

Surely there's a watered-down-the-slurs-version they can get? I'm surprised if there isn't.

TKAM and Huck Finn are to racial slurs as Scarface is to "fuck":

I'm not sure you could remove the slurs without fundamentally changing it. In addition, I don't think one should.

 

[melty]

This ad is terrible at making its point. Banning Little Red Riding Hood is exceptional, not something to be held up as an example of great policy.

Also I don't think kids are allowed to bring assault weapons to school... yeah, poor ad.