ELJaime, I believe books have been banned by various school districts around the US in much more recent times than the fifty years you mentioned above. And T'ije Pachano, you make several excellent points. The questions you raise are good ones. I like your challenges to my thinking.
But I still think the state was wrong to come down on Tucson schools and for texts to be removed. I like it that local districts can implement new courses that respond to the needs and interests of their students. I'm still researching this issue--I personally would be FINE with ANY ethnic studies offered and like the idea of encouraging learners to see history from other vantage points. For too long the literary offerings in schools have been--and still are--lacking in inclusion. I sometimes think the only way you break away from the white man's eurocentric world view is to embrace other world views, other literatures, other ideas. What I see today in literature anthologies often amounts to, dare I say it, tokenism. There's a couple of works by Asian writers, Latino/Chicano writers, African-American writers, and maybe something from a Native American writer or a Jewish writer. Everything else is from what has been the dominant and oppressive culture. I say what has been, because if I live long enough, I will see a change. My children and grandchildren WILL see a shift, and my hope is that those who rise up do not carry forward the oppression they endured. The saddest thing of all the books exclusions was Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I know I need to further educate myself on this issue, but from 2000 miles away it sure looks like the state's mandates on this matter are hateful, ignorant, and bullying. It also looks as if the local district let the bully win. Please, seriously, enlighten me if I have this wrong.
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But I still think the state was wrong to come down on Tucson schools and for texts to be removed. I like it that local districts can implement new courses that respond to the needs and interests of their students. I'm still researching this issue--I personally would be FINE with ANY ethnic studies offered and like the idea of encouraging learners to see history from other vantage points. For too long the literary offerings in schools have been--and still are--lacking in inclusion. I sometimes think the only way you break away from the white man's eurocentric world view is to embrace other world views, other literatures, other ideas. What I see today in literature anthologies often amounts to, dare I say it, tokenism. There's a couple of works by Asian writers, Latino/Chicano writers, African-American writers, and maybe something from a Native American writer or a Jewish writer. Everything else is from what has been the dominant and oppressive culture. I say what has been, because if I live long enough, I will see a change. My children and grandchildren WILL see a shift, and my hope is that those who rise up do not carry forward the oppression they endured. The saddest thing of all the books exclusions was Paulo Friere's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. I know I need to further educate myself on this issue, but from 2000 miles away it sure looks like the state's mandates on this matter are hateful, ignorant, and bullying. It also looks as if the local district let the bully win. Please, seriously, enlighten me if I have this wrong.
Respectfully submitted,
Susan DeWolfe Burns