Remember how states like Florida are really evil for banning books depicting graphic sexual material in schools?
Welp, the Toronto Catholic school board has banned ALL books authored by non-black writers that include the n-word and other racial slurs.
(I look forward to leftists never criticizing this move or acknowledging it happened.)
This new censorship protocol also bans students and teachers from using the word in an educational sense, whether in writing or spoken aloud - except for black students.
The book ban includes classics such as Of Mice and Men, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher In The Rye, and Gone With the Wind.
Shockingly, another book on the chopping block is Underground to Canada, which is about Canadians' amazing work in the Underground Railroad and the freeing of slaves.
Last year, when a teacher in B.C. read the book aloud to her Grade 6 classroom during Black History Month, a notice was sent to parents.
Students are not allowed to say, write or read out any version of the N-word (including with the 'a' ending) and are not allowed to ask for a 'pass' from Black students to use the N-word.
Since there are, thankfully, a few critical thinkers left on the school board, this book ban has sparked disagreement between some English teachers and administrators.
Those who oppose the ban consider it a blunt tool that ignores the historical context of the affected books. They argue that it fails to acknowledge the anti-racist intentions and attitudes of the authors who have incorporated slurs in their fictional works.
But this minor disagreement isn't worth much ...
The school board quietly put the ban into effect. They never even publicly announced it!
I am only writing about this because a whistleblower from one impacted school spoke to the National Post. They couldn't even use her real name in the article.
The censorship protocol was discussed during a meeting last May where Roy Fernandes, the board's Superintendent of Education, Indigenous Education, Equity, and Community Relations (so woke!), discussed the plan with student groups, principals, the equity department, and the education council.
The N Word is not to be used in TCDSB schools. This includes written or spoken form. Classroom instruction and pedagogy should help to instill this point to all members of the TCDSB community.
Progressive discipline and restorative practices will be followed in instances of the N word being used. Hateful use of the N word will not be tolerated.
There needs to be a clear understanding that conversation with Black students will be considered differently around the use of the N word especially when it is being used by Black students around other Black students in a familiar, amicable context.
It is important to not demean Black students who use the word in friendly contexts. Education around the harmful impacts and appropriateness of context should be the first actions that are taken to help all students to understand the intent of the protocol: to eliminate the use of any derogatory slurs in the school setting and make schools safe spaces for everyone.
Director of the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, James L. Turk, told the National Post that the school board is correct to say the N-word is deeply offensive. Still, their book ban is the wrong approach.
One thing that's generally being lost is the distinction between reading the word and using the word. There's never an excuse to use the word as an epithet. assume that when the board wrote this, they didn't consider the possibility of a reactionary Black author that uses it as an expletive in a way that is totally unacceptable.
...
Behind that is a notion that when someone wants to read a book, that you know why they want to read it. The assumption behind the demand for book bans is that if you read a book that includes the N-word, it's going to make you a racist. That's not how the world works. I believe that systemic racism is deeply embedded in our society. So, Black students are having to deal with racism all the time. It's not as if reading Huck Finn is going to bring racism into their life when it otherwise wouldn't be there.
…
If you think you're sanitizing the language to help people deal with racism, then you're fooling yourself.
Another sane-minded individual is Sulaimon Giwa, a professor of social work at Memorial University.
He calls the ban a "knee-jerk reaction."
We have to be creating critical thinkers, and we have to create the conditions for that critical thinking to emerge. If we eliminate books because they are controversial, we are failing in that.
We are at a place in society where we know why these books are essential, and to believe otherwise is completely ignorant and risks repeating history.
But remember, any conservative who pulls graphic sex material out of their kid's classroom is a Nazi who burns books!
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