Ban supporters say books are inappropriate

[Robb]

Ban supporters say books are inappropriate for 9th-graders

Amy Luers said that even as an adult, she was shocked by the brutal description of Maya Angelou's rape by her mother's boyfriend when the author was 8 years old.

The Johnston mother was more alarmed when she learned that her freshman son would be reading and talking about the same material in his literature class at Johnston High School.

(snip)

"I feel students entering their own age of sexuality should not be challenged to contemplate the workings of the lesbian relationship in the depth Maya describes," Mitchell wrote.

She further said students could feel violated by requirements to think about "things they have no desire to reflect on or participate in a group discussion about."

(more)


-------------
Robb's note: Here we go again.... let's ban Captain Underpants.... :eyes:

[Caution]

1. but it's ok

to watch network television which teaches people at nearly every opportunity that it is ok to violently kill other people?

I suppose that teaching that young man the horror of rape at an age before he is phyiscally and sexually capable of committing rape is just too much. And teaching him tolerance of the people around him is terrible too.

[ixion]

2. that's the neocon way.... violence good :: sex bad

it's what they live for.

[displacedtexan]

3. you can't reason with book burners

your argument is valid, but the author of those words is sure that she's earning brownie points from jeeeezus!

i'll bet my bottom dollar that this prude has a stack of bodice rippers by her bed!

[mot78]

29. There's a Differance Between what's on tv, and what we read

what we read is supposed to be somber and educating, while the shit MTV spews out is down right raunchy.

[searchingforlight]

4. I was around that age when I read this book for the first time and

my children are grown so you know I am older than she. I found this book life affirming and it was the beginning of many years of learning about cultures I didn't have the opportunity to interact with.

This mother is and ostrich. Ninth graders not only know about sex and rape, some are having sex and some have even raped or are being raped.

[bobthedrummer]

41. The truth is hard for them to bear

better for them to banish it. What a society.

[FlemingsGhost]

5. Oh, goodness... No! Imagine the horror:

"In several letters to The Des Moines Register, Luers said she learned students could be asked to contemplate masturbation, homosexuality and pregnancy according to excerpts from books on freshman reading lists."

Let me guess... Mrs. Luers performs her "wifely duty" only in the missionary position, with the lights off. All through it, she is quiet as a church mouse, as not to expose her precious child to even the slightest psychological implications of the "dirty" deed.

Mr. Luers is a regular with the working girls at the corner of 5th and Main...

(on edit: typo)

[Coventina]

6. I am not against age restrictions

I can still remember reading "The Birds" as a 9th grader. I had nightmares for weeks. I refused to write the required paper on the story and took an "F" for the assignment.

I don't think it is wrong for parents to question what is being spoon-fed their kids in schools. After all, the parents probably have a better sense of what their kids are ready to handle than the schools do.

I AM NOT IN FAVOR OF BANNING BOOKS! ANY BOOKS!

But I'm not going to criticize parents who want to shield their kids from things they feel their kids are not ready for. I'm not saying that I agree with what the parents have decided in this case, either. I haven't read the book, so I can't judge whether I think it is age appropriate (and even then, it's just my opinion). I'm just saying I'm not against parents wanting to protect their kids.

[FlemingsGhost]

8. Perpetuating ignorance is not "protecting" anyone.

Ninth graders are fucking. And most assuredly masturbating, too. Some are actually getting raped, sadly.

I think they are ready to read about it.

[Coventina]

9. Toddlers get raped also

Do you think they are "ready" to hear about it?

Maybe I was immature as a ninth grader, maybe I'm still immature.
But I just don't think that all kids are ready for things at the same time. I doubt Maya Angelou would want her book to be read by kids who might have nightmares from it.

[FlemingsGhost]

18. Huh? You were a toddler in ninth grade?

Yup, no doubt about it. You WERE immature in high school.

But smart, boy...


(on edit: typo)

[Coventina]

19. What????

Where did I say I was a toddler in high school?

:eyes:

[FlemingsGhost]

20. I think you've strayed from the point.

We are discussing high school adolescents.

[Coventina]

22. see demdave's post #11

That was the point I was attempting to make.
He made it better.

[demdave]

23. Would those be the same high school adolescents that are soooo

impressionable that they can't dare be exposed to cigarette commercials? I think it is the right of the parent to have the final say in their child's education. If you desire this duty, have children and raise them as you see fit.


I think that is the point.

[FlemingsGhost]

27. I agree. But what about the folks that WANT their kids...

to read those books, and discuss it with trained professionals in a responsible academic setting? They won't be able to, if Mrs. Luers has her way. Why should her own personal perspective enter into the lives of the entire student body?

Furthermore, if Mrs. Luers has such a problem with the high school curriculum, she should run for a position on the Board of Education. Let the community decide if she has the proper ideology.

Lastly, the issue of teens and smoking is neither here nor there. One doesn't die from reading a book.

[prolesunited]

10. And in most schools

parents are able to that. To be sensitive to parental desires, most teachers will provide an alternate reading assignment. The article does not cover this, but even if it is not the school system's policy, teachers and principals often are willing to accommodate religious and moral choices of the parents and students.

HOWEVER, for most of these parents who are proponents of book banning, they are not satisfied with controlling their own child's choices. With an air of moral superiority, they want to control the choice for ALL of the parents and students by having the book banned.

If you feel it is inappropriate for your child fine, but you should not be able to define that for anyone else's child. These books are classics and chosen for specific reasons, not to corrupt young people's minds.

And if anyone thinks by ninth-grade that they have not been exposed to the topics of sex, rape and masturbation, they are seriously deluded. In my mind, you protect children by opening lines of communication and discussing things in an informative, rational manner.

[demdave]

11. I agree, and I think it cuts both ways. Let the parents decide for their

own children. I do not believe in banning books and I also do not believe in letting someone else decide what my child should or shouldn't be allowed to read.

[Coventina]

13. Thanks demdave

That's what I was trying to say, but you said much more elegantly than I did.

[demdave]

17. I don't know how that could have happen.

First time anyone ever accused me of being elegant. :) I always used to say "I'm not often eloquent, but damn seldom misunderstood"

[NashVegas]

16. Speaking of Cutting Both Ways

Obviously, another parent can't decide what your kid can read, outside of the class.

But it's one thing for a 13 year old to digest sensitive material, something else to be graded on how well you overcome your own sensitivities to spew it back out.

If it were my kid, I wouldn't be so much concerned about reading it, but I'd want to know exactly what method the teacher was going to use for grading it.

[GinaMaria]

15. and this is the book that could do it too

Open lines of communication that is.

The most memorable aspect of this book for me is how honest Maya Angelou is about her life and her experiences. It's a frankness that takes strength. I think and hope it encourages everyone who reads it to look at themselves honestly.

I agree with your post 100%. Give any parent who feels this book is not appropriate for their child another option. No parent should make the choice for someone else's child. Seems the fairest way to approach the problem.

Good to see you again :hi:

[RobinA]

7. I've Been Violated!!!!

I was forced throughout school to reflect on math, which I had no desire whatsoever to reflect on.

[Selwynn]

34. Amen!!!

I have been deeply traumatized by my forced recollection of Math and do this day still have an aversion to it. :D

[Chovexani]

12. Heh

I can recall another group who banned books. Fun crowd, that was.

Christ on a cracker, what is wrong with these people? You wanna be an ostrich fine, put blinders over your own kids' eyes. What gets me is when these assholes want to start making decisions for everyone else's kid too.

[elfwitch]

14. Because...

It is because they thing they know how to run your life better than you do. Anyone who doesn't follow their rules, their God, or their moral code is automatically relagated to retard status. They are protecting us from ourselves because we are obviously not pious enough to do it on our own.

Beyond all other neo-conservative evangelical Christian crap that goes on, that patronizing BS is the thing the irks me the most. Hell, I treat my 2 year old's desires with more respect than they treat the wishes of full grown adults that differ with them.

:mad:

[Chovexani]

25. And the irony of it?

Fundie kids turn out to be some of the most screwed up adults. One of my mother's co-workers was a hardcore Pentacostal fundie. Never wore pants, thought Halloween was from the devil, etc. She even gave my mom a copy of Wicca: Satan's Little White Lie when mom found out I'd gotten into Paganism. This lady was a real piece of work. So angry all the time. She spent more time at church than at home raising her kids, who she was really hardcore strict on. I went to high school with her daughter, and she'd change out of her long skirts into outfits that would make the booty girls in rap videos blush, I used to see her smoking weed in the stairwells, etc. She ended up getting pregnant and had no clue who the father was.

Like the bumper sticker says, they need to focus on their own damn families.

[elfwitch]

35. ah... bitter irony

I have known a few unfortunate souls like this as well. Every parent is going to screw up their kids in some way. It is inevitable. But these people seem to go out of their way. Coming from South Texas where there are more than a few extreme religious types (Catholics & Baptists), I met many people who were sheltered by their parents and did stupid things as a result. It is like the whole arguement on sex education. The "abstinence only" set are just creating more accidental pregnancies. I guess non of these folks ever watched Schoolhouse Rock. "Knowledge is POWER!" That is what Schoolhouse Rocky said.

[damnraddem]

21. Oh, I just can't believe it! Middleschoolers could be exposed to:

"masturbation, homosexuality and pregnancy"? As we all know, the little darlings have no concept of such things, would never be expected to encounter them for decades, if the nasty schools didn't expose them. ;-)

Come on! Do middleschoolers ever think about anything else?

[Chovexani]

24. Hee!

Ya know, that's the first thing that popped into my head when I read that statement. This lady never heard some of the conversations on my middle school bus.

[joycep]

26. I wonder if these creeps have really read the Bible

Now there is some raunchy stuff. I have nothing against the Bible but it is very frank and most of the writers did not believe in pulling their punches. Some of them did not hesitate to call a spade a spade.

[lolly]

28. True

Where do they think the term "Onanism" came from?

And who was it whose 2 daughters slept with him because they had no husbands and wanted to get pregnant?

Then there was Tamara, I believe, who was raped by her own brother . . .

Not to mention all the polygamy.

Surely, these people wouldn't want their kids to read such a scandalous Book . . .

[scarletlib]

30. This lady is not too bright

Best way to get a kid to read a book is tell them they can't becuase it has sex in it or deals with "adult themes"

I loved to read and made it a point to read all the books my family/teachers said I shouldn't. I can remember riding the school bus as the banned books were passed around from person to person.

Loved it!

[DEMActivist]

31. This week I had to sign a permission slip for

my 8th grade son to watch "Remember the Titians"

There is absolutely no bad language in that film, there's less sexual content than the kids see in the school hallways every day, and these bible thumping assholes have reduced a great movie about overcoming racism to "by permission only."

[DrBB]

42. It can be very disturbing for children

...raised by bigots to have to confront material that shows people of different races as human beings. They may feel violated by having to dwell on things they don't want to think about.

Feel better? I know I do.

[TahitiNut]

32. Uh-huh... threat 'em like children but try 'em as adults.

Ubetcha. Perhaps if they're not emotionally mature enough for a 9th grade curriculum, they should be held back in 8th grade? earlier? Heaven forbid they actually read about something in a supervised environment before they try it for themselves. </sarcasm>

[ElsewheresDaughter]

36. TahitiNut your subject line says it all

[maxanne]

33. I was younger

than these kids when I began reading Maya Angelou. This little white girl, living in all white suburbia got quite an education. It was like nothing I'd ever read before. Those books gave me a window to a whole different world. I cried, reading her books.

I was a freshman, when my father finished "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee," and told me I had to read it. This book forever changed how I looked at history - especially the texts I was handed in school. Reading about the massacres was horrible.

So, would Mrs. Fundy stop her child from reading about the endless string of massacres perpetuated against the American Indian? Would she protest the teaching of the Civil War - with all it's bloody battles? Or is it only sex she fears?

As if I didn't know. These people remind me of the scene in "Hotel New Hampshire," where the people bring their child down the hall to see what they think is a murder. They wig out when they find out it's a prostitute having an orgasm. :eyes:

[donotpassgo]

37. HUCK FINN????

Are these nimrods STILL trying to ban that book? Dear lord.

[donotpassgo]

38. THE BIBLE SHOULD BE BANNED THEN

It's full of sex, and incest, and sin, and slavery and violence and prejudice, and adult situations.

What a dirty, dirty book!

[TAH6988]

39. It is banned

in public High Schools. The banning of ANY book, in public or private high schools bothers me...It's just a thing I have for books.

[Gman]

40. What does this mother know about what her son wants to think about?

"She further said students could feel violated by requirements to think about "things they have no desire to reflect on or participate in a group discussion about."

She would like to think her son has no desire to reflect on or participate in a group discussion. Doesn't at all mean that's what her son wants.