We read 'of mice and men' 3 times along my school career. Of which the N word is used excessively. Obviously this one as well which wasn't named this when we read it I believe? Also wtf with with Ontario schools teaching our kids about racism and being confused when they create racism?
Do we ban these 2 books and censor it completely like New Zealand's national censors do? That's outrageous to even think of banning any book. I would never live in such a backwards country that would ban any books let alone literally have a government official named 'chief censor' ridiculous.
Should we ban this book from being taught in schools? Absolutely we should. There's thousands of books which are objectively better. We don't even need to ban it over the N word, we should just ban them for being terrible books. No controversy over certain words being used but lets just move on. What is the list of books taught in school and which ones are terrible and need to be replaced?
You are correct that the N word was there in the title. I am not a fan of Agatha Christie's books but banning any book seems all wrong to me. How will anyone understand how people thought in that era.
Yeah I feel like people can't understand the difference between negative stereotypes from the past, "outdated" metaphors (which could be the same thing), jokes, irony, etc, and just apply a silly regex to call something "racist".
Christie is an important author in the whodunit genre, you'd expect she'd be taught in some classes, and the book in question is actually a very good specimen of the genre - people are trapped on an island, they keep dying, nobody knows who the killer is until basically the last page. I'm sure there are similar stories, but if it is being used, cutting it from curriculum because "racism" is absurd.
This single instance aside, are we moving towards a future where students only read approved books that are free of anachronisms, controversy, offence, and we just pretend that's how books are? Then when somebody actually reads a real book they are not going to understand the context, and (maybe an underlying desired outcome) will default to crying "racist!!" because they don't realize language and metaphors used to be different
Books are literature, literature is language, language is thought, thoughts can be beliefs, and beliefs are what inform actions. Therefore, if you want to control the actions people take, control what books they have access to.
I am curious why you care how they thought in that era? I personally find there is literally no value in knowing such things.
It's not a matter of banning books, there's simply better books. Why would we not be teaching the best books. To be one of the best you certainly cant be controversial.
Do we ban these 2 books and censor it completely like New Zealand's national censors do? That's outrageous to even think of banning any book. I would never live in such a backwards country that would ban any books let alone literally have a government official named 'chief censor' ridiculous.
Should we ban this book from being taught in schools? Absolutely we should. There's thousands of books which are objectively better. We don't even need to ban it over the N word, we should just ban them for being terrible books. No controversy over certain words being used but lets just move on. What is the list of books taught in school and which ones are terrible and need to be replaced?