Ontario school board accused of pressuring teachers not to teach ‘racist’ To Kill a Mockingbird

National Post ^ | 10 18 2018 | Joseph Brean

[yesthatjallen]

English literature teachers in a large Ontario school board have been urged not to teach the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird because it is harmful, violent and oppressive to black students, and its trope of a “white saviour” makes its black characters seem “less than human.”

“The use of racist texts as entry points into discussions about racism is hardly for the benefit of black students who already experience racism,” reads a directive to teachers in Peel, a suburban region northwest of Toronto. “This should give us pause — who does the use of these texts centre? Who does it serve? Why do we continue to teach them?”

The memo notes that the racist slur known as the n-word appears 19 times in the book. “Though this is not the only way that the novel is harmful, it does add to the violence of the book,” reads the memo, written by a senior school board administrator.

Black parents “detest the idea of their children having to read this novel,” it says. “The idea that banning books is about censorship and that censorship limits free speech is often decried as a poor reason to keep the novel on schools’ reading lists as its racist themes make it violent and oppressive for black students.”

ETC...

[yesthatjallen]

'To Kill a Mockingbird' is now racist, violent, and shows white people 'saving' blacks.

When does the book burning start?

[freepertoo]

I think Harper Lee would be surprised.

[sharkhawk]

They are going to try to ban the book because of the metoo movement, not because of any racism imagined or otherwise

[C19fan]

You have to add the novel is not on board with #BelieveAllWomen.

[C19fan]

If that is the standard then “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” should be on the banned list too. Makes whites look bad.

[goldstategop]

This is Canada. How many Canucks are black who would actually be offended?

[Responsibility2nd]

TKAM IS RACIST.

It depicts rural white lower class workers as ignorant racist bigots.

White people are nothing but daughter raping imbeciles who want to lynch blacks.

Based on this - Yeah. Ban it!

[al_c]

Seriously?! It teaches an important lesson on racism! What idiots.

[yarddog]

I always thought it interesting that Harper Lee and Truman Capote were next door neighbors in a small town (Monroeville) in South Alabama.

[djpg]

This is a crisis for liberals. They loved this book so much that many of them named their kids “Atticus.”

[max americana]

I went to school in SK and Vancouver BC., which is related to this story..

Yes, my school made us read that book and I submitted a paper on it. No pc back then. All my anti-American teacher said we are at fault.

[max americana]

I went to school in SK and Vancouver BC., which is related to this story..

Yes, my school made us read that book and I submitted a paper on it. No pc back then. All my anti-American teacher said we are at fault.

[fr_freak]

English literature teachers in a large Ontario school board have been urged not to teach the American classic To Kill a Mockingbird because it is harmful, violent and oppressive to black students...

Brought to you by the same type of people who demanded that the word "nigger" be removed from Huckleberry Finn, who also are the type that think that using terms like "black hole" and "niggardly" is racist.

[hanamizu]

How many Canucks are black?

---

Are you referring to African-Canadians?

[Daaave]

Harper Lee wrote about kids in the South. A single father teaching his children to show respect to other kids less well off than themselves. A father that tells his kids to show understanding to the elderly. He tells his kids to show kindness to the mentally disadvantaged.

But the left only sees this story as racist. Not suitable to be read by the very people it would help, children.

[Red Badger]

Both.................

[gattaca]

Reminds me of Kavanaugh. Being wrongly accused of rape.

[littleharbour]

There are actually quite a few Canadians who are black (mostly from Africa, the Caribbean and South America), but very few who can claim any connection to the southern American slave heritage. Of those who can, they are descendants of southern slaves who were given asylum in what is now Canada (formerly British North America) through the Underground Railway. And with all the phoney Somali and Haitian “refugees” pouring into Canada from the USA through our non-existent border, the population will continue to grow.

[Deplorable American1776]

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn are racist, too...

[hanamizu]

I know there are blacks in Canada. But are they called 'African-Canadians'? How about blacks in other parts of the Empire that was? African-Jamaican? African-Bahamian? African-English? When I was growing up, the polite term was Negro or colored. That changed to black. That changed to Afro-American, then African-American, and now we're to 'People of Color' which is ≠ to Colored People. There was an infamous TV report that referred to an African-American Jamaican.