Even Homer Gets Mobbed: A Massachusetts school has banned ‘The Odyssey.’

Wall Street Journal ^ | 12/27/2020 | Meghan Cox Gurdon

[RightGeek]

A sustained effort is under way to deny children access to literature. Under the slogan #DisruptTexts, critical-theory ideologues, schoolteachers and Twitter agitators are purging and propagandizing against classic texts—everything from Homer to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Dr. Seuss.

Their ethos holds that children shouldn’t have to read stories written in anything other than the present-day vernacular—especially those “in which racism, sexism, ableism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of hate are the norm,” as young-adult novelist Padma Venkatraman writes in School Library Journal. No author is valuable enough to spare, Ms. Venkatraman instructs: “Absolving Shakespeare of responsibility by mentioning that he lived at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed, risks sending a subliminal message that academic excellence outweighs hateful rhetoric.”

The subtle complexities of literature are being reduced to the crude clanking of “intersectional” power struggles. Thus Seattle English teacher Evin Shinn tweeted in 2018 that he’d “rather die” than teach “The Scarlet Letter,” unless Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel is used to “fight against misogyny and slut-shaming.”

Outsiders got a glimpse of the intensity of the #DisruptTexts campaign recently when self-described “antiracist teacher” Lorena Germán complained that many classics were written more than 70 years ago: “Think of US society before then & the values that shaped this nation afterwards. THAT is what is in those books.”

Jessica Cluess, an author of young-adult fiction, shot back: “If you think Hawthorne was on the side of the judgmental Puritans . . . then you are an absolute idiot and should not have the title of educator in your twitter bio.”

An online horde descended, accused Ms. Cluess of racism and “violence,” and demanded that Penguin Random House cancel her contract. The publisher hasn’t complied, perhaps because Ms. Cluess tweeted a ritual self-denunciation...

[ApplegateRanch]

Do we have enough rope, helicopters, and wood chippers to dispose of those people?

If not, we can draft chainsaws to help fill gaps in the line.

[ApplegateRanch]

After reading the comments on here, I have come to the conclusion that the idea behind this is that these books must be banned by the Left, because reading them, in great measure, contributes to the creation of Conservatives.

[SunkenCiv]

An old favorite, and the truth is, I've never much liked "The Odyssey", or its movie versions. This was a wonderfully cast Hallmark special from 1997, and it looks like a big-screen budget.

The Odyssey 1997 - Homer | amy luague | December 3, 2014