Few can have missed the on-going furor over the Biloxi Mississippi School District’s decision to remove “To Kill a Mockingbird” from its eighth-grade curriculum because “it makes people uncomfortable”. The news has hit almost all the major news outlets: CBS (as cited by cornflake in Novels); The LA Times, which Lisa just pointed me to; and The Washington Post. There are many other articles, of course, covering different takes on the book’s removal by the district and if you want to cite and discuss any of those, please do.
I’m still distilling my thoughts on the “real” underlying reasons we so often avoid that which makes us uncomfortable—in our reading choices, in our conversations, and in our own writing. If you agree with Mandy Shunnarah in her blog “off the beaten shelf”, as I do, that “Ignorance is bliss only to those in power”, why do we embrace avoidance and so often choose ignorance and comfort over knowledge and power?
I’m still distilling my thoughts on the “real” underlying reasons we so often avoid that which makes us uncomfortable—in our reading choices, in our conversations, and in our own writing. If you agree with Mandy Shunnarah in her blog “off the beaten shelf”, as I do, that “Ignorance is bliss only to those in power”, why do we embrace avoidance and so often choose ignorance and comfort over knowledge and power?