Another Attempt at Book Banning

Waiting2exhale
Thu, 08 Dec 2016 04:29:56 +0000

@alh: I have a view that in order for children to be able to place into context the social and political movements they will be asked to understand, whose facts they too often are asked to memorize instead of contextualize, they must be given a picture of what came before now; what today grew out of.

I was raised by a Southern Black woman for whom the memories of segregation and the fear bred into Blacks was so real she became extremely disturbed and frightened when we she was visiting and my husband would drive through neighborhoods bordering our own affluent neighborhood, those with quarter-mile long, winding driveways and brick-walled perimeters along densely packed tree-lined streets. (Think of W. Eugene Smith’s “Walk to Paradise Garden,” leaving room, of course, for vehicles to actually pass under the branches.)

As such, understanding her, and being sensitive to her, was essential. I could not look away from any of the things which hurt her if I was going to see and know her. Such is true of my being able to know my fellow Americans and neighbors. Of better understanding the nation we have built as Americans - I have not been able to look away from the things which hurt.

I do not turn away from exposing my children to the things which are less than savory, but discuss things with them, asking them what they feel when they are the only Black kid in the room and all eyes have turned toward them. I cannot think of a single piece of literature held as classic in this nation that I would not approve of my children reading as assigned reading, though I do have to say that viewing *Birth of a Nation *in the classroom before college would challenge me. I would probably pull my kids from class during such viewing and any follow-up.

Interestingly, oddly, and probably objectionably for many, my mother had little 45s of the tales of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox, which she played for us for a period. Incredibly unkind to Black folk in how we are depicted, even with the revisionist view that there was some sort of homage to the resourcefulness of Black people embedded in the tales.

As I grew my own family, I found some copies of those tales and also read them to my kids. I think I had a cassette as well (done by Rabbit Ears Radio, I believe), which I don’t remember listening to. We always talked afterward, dissecting what had happened between the characters, and I told them the history as I understood it of those Uncle Remus stories.

I think that having the safe space of the classroom (how’s that for a spin on things?), wherein the texts can be used in guided facilitation by a skillful, prepared instructor - one who recognizes when to steer the conversation back on track and how to introduce the finer points of what will undoubtedly be uncomfortable points of language and interaction between the characters in the world in which they are presented - may present the first time many students have an opportunity to be challenged by such situations, confronted by them, and to deeply consider what they find there.

You should hear what our dinnertime conversations have been like, @alh. Unbelievable. All viewpoints, ideas, and subjects find their way in between bites. The dialectical is offered up for digestion as much as the meat I’ve burned each night.

I’m all in.