"The ad does not identify the book, nor does it mention that Murphy is a Republican activist. But the story was covered by the media at the time, back in 2013. Murphy’s son
told the Washington Post that the book, assigned for his Advanced Placement English course, 'was disgusting and gross. It was hard for me to handle. I gave up on it.' He also complained that he suffered 'night terrors' as a result of reading it. Murphy sought to have
Beloved banned until 'new policies are adopted for books assigned for class that might have objectionable material,' said the Post.
One irony here is that Republicans are rallying around a privileged snowflake who claims a book millions of children have read caused unbearable trauma. If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?"
Here's the ad:
Posts
78 comments:
This is called shooting yourself in the foot. Or, an unforced error. Or, as Detroit Lions fans would call it: Another poorly executed play.
'...what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?"'
Start????
That ship has sailed.
Censorship (like everything else in this country) only works in one direction...
What a bullshit argument. It's always been about a tension over what is acceptable. That some would (and have!) objected to Mark Twain is part of the process - that parents have an important oversight function in their children's education.
I also notice just how sensitive they are to who is and isn't a GOP/conservative operative and obtusely ignorant of the Democrat operatives pushing their agendas.
A minor wanting to be able to take a class and obtain AP credit without being subjected to graphic stories of bestiality is hardly the stuff of book burning, much less white privilege.
Oh, and you know what happens when progressives try to excise books they find objectionable?
People like her, using the rules they play by, to do the same and maybe get them to back off.
Rules for thee and not me seems to be the progressive operating principle. They can't imagine, and vociferously object to, their own tactics being used against them. They seem to expect their opposition will follow rules they excuse themselves from.
Reading the classics is a tradition that works.
Beloved? that book is for adults. There's way to much sex in and rape in that book.
but then - the pornographic left like that.
"...what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?"
Hasn't that already happened to Twain?
Toni Morrison is one of those affirmative action writers like Tennessee Coates. Don't know what is in the book described in this account.
Toni Morrison is black - so you must allow the public school to force FORCE FORCE your children to read the adult material in her books. Otherwise - you're some kind of a racist white supremacist. and how dare you.
Beloved has graphic depictions of rape and violence which would never have been assigned reading material in any classroom in the nation when Ann was in school. This isn't about "discomfort". It's about the government choosing to impose it on children over the objections of parents and not allowing any recourse.
The "liberal" position in my lifetime was "don't ban books, if you don't like them you don't have to read them". Progressives are now at "all literature not forbidden is compulsory".
It doesn't matter whether Beloved is great literature or not. It's about the use of the state to override the judgement of parents about their own minor children.
And progressive are all about banning Mark Twain if you haven't noticed, and NOT for what this parent objected to in Beloved.
Progressives are demanding that Huck Finn be removed from schools because of its use of the N word and depiction of Jim. I've never read Beloved, the synopsis in Wikipedia states that there is at least one sex scene, don't know how explicit it is. But, from the synopsis it sounds exactly like the kind of novel that academics love and turns kids off from reading.
what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, ...
"when they start"?
The socialist/racists were whining about Twain years ago, as in September 28, 2000, so the author is either dishonest or ignorant or both.
Children should be learning to read and write and cipher and there's no good reason to have government schools mandate any of "edgy" or political/objectionable material for children. The kiddies can do that on their own time.
"Beloved" is objectionable because it is terrible. I read the book when it was new and the critic's darling. I honestly don't remember what I thought of it at the time, but about a decade ago I decided to actually reread the hundreds of books I'd moved from house to house over the years because I liked them or thought I would read them again. "Beloved" was the first (and so far only) one I abandoned. I reread the first chapter and quit because it was so bad. It is the definition of overrated trash.
If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts...
"Progressives," especially if they are parents, should have a say, not a veto. Let them argue their objections on the merits.
And to be fair, Beloved goes way beyond the "racist dialogue" and uncomfortable themes of the other authors like Twain and Wright.
It's explicit and lurid in its detail, which is a distinction with the other works that you can argue on the merits.
There's a difference between schools banning books because of parental pressure and a parent wanting to be notified and have the option of their child not reading a book. So the Post's hypothesis stretches the argument.
I read the wikipedia description of the Beloved plot. It is a horror story. It involves haunting by a ghost, a child murdered by its mother, a sense of reincarnation of the same child, and all around a discussion of slavery. Might a child find such material terrorizing?
I wonder what the Post makes of the Clinton era V-Chips in Televisions? How about "Tipper Stickers"?
Some high school students find bestiality disgusting. Intolerant snowflakes.
This particular activist is holding out for a "stay" not a "ban". UNTIL procedures are in place to get parents input on a book, hold it back.
That would be the same for "Huck Finn" and "Heather Has Two Mommies" and "Rules for Radicals" and "The Anarchist's Cook Book". If there might be a controversy that could cost a school board trustee his or her (or their) seat in the next election, maybe pass the buck to a parents' committee that meets once a month and votes on the titles. If the district has no process at all to get parent's (or even board) input, what's to keep some radical or perverted or crazy teacher or librarian from assigning or just allowing crap like "Worlds in Collision" or "Going Rogue" or "Battlefield Earth" or "Silent Spring" ...
I have not read the book. Parents SHOULD have a say in the course material that will be presented to their children. Teachers should stay focused on the curriculum. Schools should cease any social promotion.
Saving the kid from having to study crap ought to be good. At least read classics so you have cultural commonality with other stuff you'll read.
If you want a black author try Thylias Moss The Warmth of Hot Chocolate
"If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding"
When progressives start? You mean, they haven't started yet? Deplorable righties started this?
What are they going to say? Well, let's have more school choice and funding following the child.
One irony here is that Republicans are rallying around a privileged snowflake who claims a book millions of children have read caused unbearable trauma.
So, only the Left is allowed to do that? To Kill a Mockingbird? Huck Finn? Tom Sawyer?
The "irony" here is the left-wing pro-censorship scum pretending they have any opposition to censorship.
You want an American school system where no one's allowed to ban books on claims the book causes "unbearable trauma"? Get to it.
You want a school system where Left wing losers are allowed to do that, but parents are not?
FOAD
"If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?"
We said it was a bad idea. And then you scumbags did it anyway.
Let us know when all the books we like have been brought back. until then? Yours should be banned as well
Still a better romance than Twilight, to quote an old meme. Book bans are so old fashioned, as are forced reading lists by schools, when any kid at any school can see anything at all (despite blockers) on a school computer or a home computer or a public library computer.
The last censorship issue that really got my gears grinding was when Tipper, the wife of Vice President AlGore, tried to set herself up as the czar of music approval and censorship. Frank Zappa rode to the rescue, making her look in public so very much as foolish as she actually was. When the man who wrote, "Don't you eat the yellow snow" can destroy you, there is no validity to your ideology. Who is today's Frank Zappa? Not Toni Morrison, I'd bet.
The son is a lawyer with the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee.
I don't remember discussing my assigned fiction with my parents in high school, and and they were both English majors.
Alas, when the crybaby technique is used against the beloved Morrison, a crap writer on stilts, we go all first amendment and wonder what we would do if lefties all of a sudden started censoring books. LofuckingL. They have been at it a while. In earnest.
If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left for depicting racist dialogue?
@Althouse, FYI, Progs have succeeded in banning Huckleberry Finn in numerous jurisdictions.
The ad is significantly more effective than the story behind it.
If a high school boy is having "terrors" because of racy literature then he is (as we used to say) a wuss. That said, I have no problem letting parents choose an alternative assignment for certain books.
This guy is a fool, everyone knows only books authored by white men can be banned
If their principle is that parents should be able to prevent schools from assigning texts that upset their kids, what are they going to say when progressives start demanding the school excise texts by Mark Twain, Richard Wright, and other authors who have run afoul of the left
Start? START?
Once again Althouse takes notice when Republicans start acting like Democrats HAVE ALREADY BEEN ACTING for decades.
She a “Republican activist” because she argues against sexually explicit materials in schools and has nowhere else to go. Democrats are not big on sexual morality - or any other kind for that matter (See: grifting, election fraud, corrupting federal law enforcement, etc.).
But a college professor showing the 1960's-era Othello with Richard Burton in blackface is a life-alternating trauma. It was so traumatic that the professor must be fired. I understand. Republican objecting are simply ogres while snowflake students objecting are victims of a mean culture that must be nursed back to health by getting rid of the object of their anguish.
Children aren't the property of the State. The parent's are responsible for their children and that includes what is material appropriate for the child's age and parent's position on what is appropriate for the child. That the school teachers union head states that the parents have no say in what is being taught is reason enough to abolish teachers unions and assigning the dollars to the school of the parent's choice. Indeed the pedagogy requirement to teach should be abolished and instead replace with requirements to actually know the subject matter(s) taught.
That is unfair. Everyone knows that Terry McAuliffe is a friend to black people, women, small children, literature, and dogs, and that there were never any racial controversies in Syracuse, New York, when he grew up there. (See "The Destruction of Syracuse's 15th Ward" https://www.cnyhistory.org/2018/02/15th-ward/) He knows who should run the schools, namely, the teachers through their duly elected bargaining representatives and the school boards of their choice.
As the world's greatest troll would say, Mr. Youngkin, how dare you!!
We were forced to read BLESS ME ULTIMA in high school. There's definitely some sex talk and possibly a sex scene, I can't remember now. The book was dumb. But a boy in our class did object to reading it and was given Pride and Prejudice as an alternative. I realize now he got the better deal. It's not hard to give alternative assignments. Most of the work happens at home anyway.
Beloved may well be great literature (I've never read it), but it is also said to contain extremely graphic sex that may not be appropriate for a school assignment for adolescents. If you want to assign a novel by a black author set in slave times that certainly doesn't whitewash the evil of slavery, why not assign Edward P. Jones's The Known World?
#metoo
Were I Virginian, I would not care Tuppence what NY Magazine thought. But isn't it interesting how they slant the coverage. Because that's what New York Magazine readers want. Sheep.
From Common Sense Media's review:
It features a gritty infanticide, racial language, horrific sexual assaults, and even references to sex with animals. But teens are mature enough to handle the challenges this book presents. At this age they can decide for themselves what they think about disturbing personal and historical events. Beloved is a beautiful, powerful book that will help all readers learn about the horrors of slavery -- and leave them thinking about what it means to be a strong, heroic, or moral person.
I like the editorializing there about all teens being mature enough to handle this all. I'm guessing a girl who had been sexually abused would be able to get an alternate book.
Perhaps this boy has been abused. Should he have to disclose that to get a different assignment? Because even favorable refuse say the sexual assault scenes are horrifying.
If the school wants to read black literature by a black female author, I suggest they assign The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison. It is more appropriate for high school students and my favorite Toni Morrison book.
J Melcher,
If the district has no process at all to get parent's (or even board) input, what's to keep some radical or perverted or crazy teacher or librarian from assigning or just allowing crap like "Worlds in Collision" or "Going Rogue" or "Battlefield Earth" or "Silent Spring" ...
Interesting list there. I haven't heard Immanuel Velikovsky mentioned in decades (and that was by Stephen Jay Gould, in an article explaining why Worlds In Collision wasn't science; I've never encountered the book itself). L. Ron Hubbard, yes. Rachel Carson, definitely; there are people who still believe every word of that book, except that half of them think she didn't go far enough. But what's Sarah Palin doing in there? What has she in common with the other three?
I don't understand how Beloved is OK but Huck Finn is not.
Twain wrote while slavery was in the recent past. Former slaves were everywhere. Reconstruction had failed and Jim Crow laws were written and enforced all over the South. Huck Finn's readers knew that the decades after the end of the novel were filled with tragedy and failure and death. However, the novel is focused on individuals who could triumph even if society is unjust and horrible.
Most importantly, Huck Finn is based on Twain's memory of life in the exact area he describes, with characters based on people he met. He was there, and I always wonder about people who criticize a writer with first-hand experience of what he's describing.
Toni Morrison wrote a horror novel a century after Huck Finn was published. Slavery is ended, but the former slaves are horribly traumatized. The story is not realistic, with ghosts and exorcisms. The character the novel is named after is the ghost of a murdered child who haunts her mother. The horror of slavery cannot be escaped.
I repeat: it's a horror novel. For some reason, it's been turned into a literary classic. It would be like Stephen King's "The Shining" being awarded a Pulitzer and being selected for Oprah's book club.
Ideologically, the book justifies being hurt and traumatized by the past, even if the present is better. That's why it's still read.
'Some high school students find bestiality disgusting. Intolerant snowflakes.'
Other than Fauci, who doesn't love dogs?
Readering: "The son is a lawyer with the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee."
Oh. My. God.
This is clearly insurrection that is worse than Pearl Harbor AND 9-11.
Arresting her and her son would also count as "infrastructure".
Children aren't the property of the State.
CubanBob
**concept rejected by the leftist authoritarian State.
I was in the Open School component at West Charlotte High School in the late 1970s. We were allowed to read what we wanted.
I remember picking up Lord of the Rings there. Herman Hesse was also popular.
Then there was the book in which the author talked about learning to rape by starting with black girls, then moving on to white girls.
Yep, a Southern integrated high school had Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice." And it turned me into the pervert I am today.
My daughter had a problem with Steinbeck. She abhorred Steinbeck's writing style and the torture he performed on his characters. We asked the school for alternatives to Steinbeck books and were told there weren't any. The private school we moved her to had plenty of options and made English class one of her favorites. The ad, BTW, is very effective.
I almost forgot to add: Here's "heart-wrenching" again! The word is, or used to be, "heart-rending." The image is of something tearing your heart apart, not just giving it a nasty sprain. But the fight for "heart-rending" is practically over; I see the new variant much more often than the original now.
A grasping appeal to the shielded housewives of Northern Virginia. I suspect there will be more local interest in the identity of the photographer who executed the picture of white shirt/khaki pants bliss on the beach than in the plight of this pathetically naive woman who is trying to shield her 17- or 18-year-old teen, who has surely been walking around with a smartphone for years, from a book.
I'm guessing a girl who had been sexually abused would be able to get an alternate book.
Not if her abuser claimed to be transexual.
Blogger Birches said...
I'm guessing a girl who had been sexually abused would be able to get an alternate book.
Unless she was a white MAGA Republican.
Why not assign two books at a time, from which each student chooses one to read?
My college English Lit class did that last century. We spent time reading from and discussing both books in class, but were only required to read and write a paper on the one we chose.
Some kids can read classical texts, while others can read the latest from Oprah's Book Club.
In the end, everyone gets the education they chose.
"Children aren't the property of the State."
Guess again, comrade;
If some one wants to read a black author, how about "The Foxes of Harrow" by Frank Yerby, a black writer who sold a million copies of his novel decades before affirmative action? He wrote 33 novels and was a professor in the days when segregation was still powerful. Much better example than Toni Morrison or that other phony.
This an AP class, which means it is covering college level material and gives college credit.
A parent who enrolls their kid who cannot handle adult literature in a class devoted to reading adult level material is an idiot.
To add, the two people I know who teach AP Lit have a whole long list of fiction for students to read (the list I saw a few years back had 150+ books on it). The test doesn't specify what books students should reference, only that they are on the fairly large list.
So beyond being upset about a student getting college credit reading difficult college level books, the student likely chose that particular book to read and be upset by from a lengthy list of other options.
Such bullshit
Readering said...
I don't remember discussing my assigned fiction with my parents in high school, and and they were both English majors.
So what you're saying is that English Majors hate reading?
How sad.
Or are you saying they were too stupid to have any worthwhile input on the books you were reading?
Or are you saying that you're too stupid to ask them for any insights they might have?
---I don't remember discussing my assigned fiction with my parents in high school, and and they were both English majors.
If Readering's parents were English majors, they cared what she was reading. Something here does not compute.
My only Toni Morrison was Song of Solomon.. Pretty near everyone knows that great Mary McCarthy quote about Lillian Hellman's writing -- every word was a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' Cost her plenty of time and money when Red Lillian took umbrage.
That's how the Toni Morrison book felt to me. I read it with amazement. It struck me as completely and utterly false in even the smallest details. A big calculation of how to write a 'black' book that NY Times readers would go buy like crazy.
So I know not what Beloved may be like but I do know I am never going to be bothered to find out.
I read as little of A Long Day’s Journey Into Night as I could to pass the quizzes and didn’t participate in class discussion. When you’re living with an alcoholic reading about addictions and family ruin is about as far away from enjoyable and dare I say educational as you can get.
Come to think of it, while reading several books a week during my entire school career, I never read an assigned book that was worth reading.
I have read Beloved.
It promotes race hatred. Beloved (the character) concludes that all white people are evil, and deserve her hatred. All of them, even the Quakers in the underground railroad who rescue and care for her. All carry the blood guilt of being white. There is no counter argument made. It's the Turner Diaries for the woke.
And anyway the Left has been banning books for years. The Left cannot make a free speech argument.
Why assume only Liberals have snowflake kids? Kids are kids and if the current crop of kids are snowflakes, that will include offspring of Republicans - unless the parents took some measure to reduce this problem, like putting the kids into the Boy Scouts where they at least get to learn how to start a campfire.
You guys are welcome to claim the snowflake ground.
Mark, that's not the way the vast majority of AP English classes work. The teacher picks the book and the class discusses and analyzes together. Most teachers pick their books from a long list of appropriate books, but it's really easy to steer away from books that contain violent rape scenes. I didn't realize reading rape scenes was the mark of adult literature. How did I manage a 5 on the AP test without reading such filth?
Short version of my earlier comment: you wouldn't expect "The Shining" to be assigned reading, but "Beloved" is. They are both horror novels with supernatural hauntings, possessions, and murder.
The only Morrison novel I read was Tar Baby, for a college course. I thought it was okay. An interesting, serviceable read. But nothing to write home about. It wasn't the kind of novel that stuck with me after I was done. I can barely remember a single detail, unlike other literature I read in college. Heck, I've read Stephen King novels with more impact.
When it comes to authors like Morrison, you're not allowed to say that a novel of hers is "good." You have to praise it to the skies. If you don't perceive the greatness, then you are probably limited by racial bias. Everything I've read about Beloved and other Morrison novels sounds like propaganda to me. Don't be the first person to stop clapping.
Same with the poetry of Maya Angelou. Not bad (well, some of it is), but it's not great either. I think Angelou is an inspiring figure, but I don't feel obligated to declare that her poetry belongs with the immortals. A writer can be talented but second-rate.
I wish we were allowed to have honest conversations about this sort of thing. I doubt I'll ever read Beloved, because I can tell by the hype that it's most likely pretentious and mediocre. Too bad we can't debate the topic without fear of reprisals.
Typical cracker dog whistle.
"I didn't realize reading rape scenes was the mark of adult literature. How did I manage a 5 on the AP test without reading such filth?"
Whatever you do Sparky, don't ever read the Bible.
Today the Washington Post gave McAuliffe 4 Pinocchios for his campaign speech. The Post!
And anyway the Left has been banning books for years. The Left cannot make a free speech argument.
Sure they can. for certain people, history began yesterday.
As the schools impose more diversity of authors, they're going to start getting books where the Nword is used routinely. It's going to be fun watching white liberal parents try to get those banned while the educrats insist the authentic voice of black America must be heard by the white kids.
But no Mark Twain, of course. It'll be like those white folks who get condemned for singing along with rappers own lyrics.
Mark said...
This an AP class, which means it is covering college level material and gives college credit.
A parent who enrolls their kid who cannot handle adult literature in a class devoted to reading adult level material is an idiot.
So, I'm guessing that means you've attacked every single anti-Twain / anti-To Kill a Mockingbird parent / activist as an "idiot". No? you only do that for people who don't like bestiality written by an affirmative action author?
What a shock
To add, the two people I know who teach AP Lit have a whole long list of fiction for students to read (the list I saw a few years back had 150+ books on it). The test doesn't specify what books students should reference, only that they are on the fairly large list.
And you're going to try to claim that every single AP English class in the country is like that?
Hmm, I'm getting the feeling I know who's the "idiot" here
So beyond being upset about a student getting college credit reading difficult college level books
There's a difference between "worthless repulsive shit" (which is where beastiality goes) and "difficult college level books".
Such bullshit
Yes, what you wrote is indeed such bullshit
I tried to sneak “Of Mice and Men” past out uber conservative principal back in 1976. I actually got him to approve it then, the books came in, he read the opening chapter, and he sent them back. By 1990 things had changed. I taught it to deadbeat seniors who were only there to get their degrees. It was revolutionary. For many it was the first time they faced moral ambiguity as they came to grips with the violent ending.
My career taught me that there’s a fine balance between the ideas of what the teacher, the parent, the administration, the school board, and the community in general think should be taught. No one entity should get carte blanche in deciding what values to brainwash your youth with.
I'm supposed to be the ignorant rube, yet I am intelligent enough to recognize that bad things can happen in a books but can be described in neutral and sterile language, as opposed to descriptive, emotional and gratuitous language. Language matters. Words matter.
"I have read Beloved.
It promotes race hatred. Beloved (the character) concludes that all white people are evil, and deserve her hatred. All of them, even the Quakers in the underground railroad who rescue and care for her. All carry the blood guilt of being white. There is no counter argument made. It's the Turner Diaries for the woke.
And anyway the Left has been banning books for years. The Left cannot make a free speech argument."
I also have not read the book, but is it possible Morrison may have been trying (even if maladroitly) to depict how hatred is self-perpetuating, that abuse can pervert the abused, deforming their character such that they, in turn, are poisoned by and carry on the poison of racial hatred?
umm, How is it? that there are 78 comments to this post,
And No one yet has used the phrase "trigger warning" ????
You can't even listen to podcasts about rock music, without having the skirtboy announcer warn you that "this song makes vague allusions to sexual violence"
Robert Cook said...
"I have read Beloved.
It promotes race hatred. Beloved (the character) concludes that all white people are evil, and deserve her hatred. All of them, even the Quakers in the underground railroad who rescue and care for her. All carry the blood guilt of being white. There is no counter argument made. It's the Turner Diaries for the woke.
And anyway the Left has been banning books for years. The Left cannot make a free speech argument."
I also have not read the book, but is it possible Morrison may have been trying (even if maladroitly) to depict how hatred is self-perpetuating,
1: Tell it to the people banning Huck Finn
2: Unless she's been busy in interviews talking about how wrong her character's hatred is, then no, that's not what she's doing.
People banning Beloved are morons.
People banning Huck Finn are morons.
Nuff said.
So, to Mutman proamoting rce hatred and beastiality are the same thing as mocking racists with racist words.
I'm pretty sure we know who the actual morons are, Mut
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