Political correctness

I heard a rumor yesterday, one I heard earlier (in a different form) this summer, but that I have not yet confirmed. The rumor I heard earlier in the summer was that the English department in a local school will no longer be teaching The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because of its increasingly diverse student population. The rumor I heard yesterday was that To Kill A Mockingbird will no longer be taught for the same reason.

My reaction to both rumors was one of disbelief and dismay. I have taught both novels to more diverse populations than this particular school has. Granted, that was in Texas, where the cultural climate is quite different from here in the Mississippi Delta. But I know that both of these novels can be taught in a way that is sensitive to the students who might otherwise take offense, and these books can be incredibly edifiying and life-changing. I mean, for me, Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird sums up the whole entire reason we read literature when he says to Scout, "Before you criticize someone, walk a mile in their shoes." Literature allows us to walk in other people's shoes.

But last night, as I read Robert Peck's autobiographical novel Soup to my 5 year-old son, I found myself being the censor. Soup was recommended by the children's librarian at the local library, and although it is a classic children's work, I had never read it. I certainly was not expecting it to contain a tale of the two main characters smoking nor an anecdote about the boys' cheating of a Jewish man. I could explain the smoking to William--his grandfather died almost two years ago from lung cancer--as something that boys used to do before scientists learned that it was bad for you. But I found myself uncomfortable with the idea of having to explain the anti-Semitism of the main characters, whom we had grown to like, and I chose to skip those few paragraphs in favor of trying to explain it. I am glad that William doesn't know how to read yet, because otherwise he would have found me out.

My discomfort last night made me understand a little more of why some teachers may be nervous about teaching books that deal head-on with racism when they have previously taught all white students. However, their students are not 5 year-olds. These are teenagers who will soon be out in the Big Wide World, and for whom an in-depth analysis of these novels and "walking a mile in someone else's shoes" could be greatly beneficial. I hope the teachers will overcome their fears and model for their students what it means to look at literature in a mature and sensitive way.