The Burbank Unified School District in California has banned several classic literary works that 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.
To Kill A Mockingbird Quotes
To Kill A Mockingbird Page 174
Two major people in To Kill A Mockingbird are prejudged; Boo Radley and Tom Robinson. One man is the victim of prejudice; Atticus Finch. These men are mockingbirds. For a mockingbird has never hurt anyone, and neither has Atticus Finch, Boo Radley, nor Tom Robinson. Boo Radley is prejudged because he chooses to stay. The title of To Kill a Mockingbird refers to the local belief, introduced early in the novel and referred to again later, that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird. Harper Lee is subtly implying that the townspeople are responsible for killing Tom Robinson, and that doing so was not only unjust and immoral, but sinful. “To kill a Mockingbird” is a great educational book that is written in easy language and shows lots of very important problems of prejudices and self-identification through the kid’s eyes. One of the major and most common problem of that time is, surely, racism. Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Summary. Find summaries for every chapter, including a To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter Summary Chart to help you understand the book.
According to a report by Newsweek, a school district in Burbank, California, has banned several classic books that contain racial slurs. 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 deal 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.
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.