School Board Bans Novel, Ellison's Classic "Invisible Man"

<p>The letter from the parent in the link I posted contains some of the more disturbing passages.</p>

<p>momofmusician, I really appreciate your perspective. I loved that book but I would have definitely had to think long and hard before deciding my 12-year-old could handle it. Some could, others couldn’t.</p>

<p>I do agree that there is far more objectionable (and less thoughtful, if that is the right word) sexuality in the typical YA books, especially those geared toward adolescent girls. And the movies are, by and large, total crap.</p>

<p>QM- if it is a book of literary merit what is wrong with letting it be assigned but allowing those offended by it to seek out an alternative book. Why should no one in the school be allowed to read a book that has literary merit?</p>

<p>And what do we do about Eldridge Cleaver’s ‘Soul on Ice’ or Haley’s ‘Autobiography of Malcolm X,’ Caputo’s ‘Rumor of War,’ Kaufman’s ‘Up the Down Staircase,’ or Hellman’s play, ‘The Children’s Hour?’ I believe each of these fine works contain some passages about sexual situations, including exploitation or threats of harm. But yet each tells a larger important story about American values. No, if a child or parent genuinely objects to the content, then they can be excused from the assignment. But to take away these books and Invisible Man from all other students is a mistake.</p>

<p>Well, the local school had no alternative assignments, nor the option to go somewhere else while the work was being discussed.</p>

<p>Thanks, sally305, for saying that you will read it also.</p>

<p>QM that is not true according to the article I read. It was one of three selections that could have been made.</p>

<p>Are you saying the teacher could not have told the class during the discussion not to use graphic language. I read the passages in Sue’s link and you could discuss those chapters without being graphic unless the words incest and rape should be banned in high school</p>

<p>OK Quant, I understand your message. We both oppose banning the book for all.</p>

<p>By the way, I just remembered my Humanities professor’s plea to us just as we began to discuss Plato’s Republic at college. That book contains some ideas about same-sex relations that weren’t very popular in America in the 1970s. He asked us to read and understand without knee jerk criticism (we had a couple of very devout Catholics in the class, including a good-natured fellow with whom I became fast friends). That was pretty heady stuff for a greenhorn freshman like me. I think the prof handled it well.</p>

<p>Couldn’t find “Invisible Man” on my shelf but I did find, among my old high school books,</p>

<p>Soul on Ice (Cleaver)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou)
My Soul is Rested (Raines)
Miami and the Siege of Chicago (Mailer)
Manchild in the Promised Land (Brown)
Black Boy (Wright)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X (Haley)
The Collected Poems of Langston Hughes
The Fire Next Time (Baldwin)
Black Like Me (Griffin)</p>

<p>Someone was sure intent on radicalizing this little white girl!</p>

<p>OK Sue22, your actual identity must be either Patty Hearst, Kathy Power or Bernadette Dorn. The WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING, THE WHOLE WORLD IS WATCHING…LOL.</p>

<p>^ Raisin’ a power fist, baby!</p>

<p>I have read Invisible Man, and don’t think it is inappropriate for older high school students. </p>

<p>Invisible Man contains some disturbing passages. They are intended to be disturbing, not titillating, and the kind of student who is immature enough to make this content the subject of crude jokes is precisely the kind of student who needs the novel most. Contrary to what QM says, I don’t believe the sexual content in Invisible Man is markedly worse than that of a number of other great twentieth century works, some of which also show up on high school curricula. In any event, the sexual content of IM represents a relatively small part of the novel as a whole, and should not overshadow the rest of the novel. In the hands of a good teacher, it need not.</p>

<p>Re tom1944 #47, when I wrote that there were no alternative assignments and no way to opt out of the discussion, I meant in the class in our local school district, not in Raleigh or elsewhere.</p>

<p>Putting my money where my mouth is–so to speak–I have just purchased a copy of The Invisible Man (the second copy for our family). Obviously, I am not going to be able to read it with zero preconceptions, but I will try to keep an open mind about the situations in their contexts in the book. When I have finished it, I will return to this thread, either with the same opinion, or with a revised opinion.</p>

<p>I will say, in response to apprenticeprof’s post (#52) that I detected no signs of any particular maturation during the year of lit class, among the young men who were “immature enough to make this content the subject of crude jokes.”</p>

<p>QM-I’m trying to figure out what your solution is-do we keep all possible titillating material from highschoolers just in case some of them are too immature to handle it properly? The irony of this being the INVISIBLE MAN as the subject of being removed from classrooms of near-adults is not lost on me.</p>

<p>The way blacks were treated at the time the book was written, and throughout American history was just as appalling as sexual assault-but apparently the teens were mature enough for THAT part of the book. </p>

<p>This whole discussion reminds me of that TV movie back in the 80’s, The Day After, about nuclear war. The WAR part was ok, but the network wanted to cut a scene with a DIAPHRAGM in it. As if sex was going to destroy the minds of those watching the wiping out of millions of people.</p>

<p>I am not in favor of keeping it from them, just not requiring them to read it. Then there is the added issue of having to sit through discussions by people who couldn’t handle the material and reacted to it by making crude jokes.</p>

<p>I don’t think The Invisible Man is titillating in the least. That is not what I am objecting to. Admittedly, I have just started the book, having only heard excerpts from a rather distressed QMP some years ago.</p>

<p>I think the part of the issue is whether treatments have to be very graphic, in order for students to “get” it.</p>

<p>As mentioned above, my main goal in child-rearing has been to bring up someone who would be an effective worker for peace and justice.</p>

<p>So is mine. And we are. And that is D’s goal in life and she is already working towards it.
She works with kids with parents in jail, or on drugs, or who don’t have enough to eat…should I be protecting her from this so she’ll be better at working for justice? How does that happen?</p>

<p>I’m baffled REALLY baffled-this is a book about the worst society throws at people and you’re objecting to…an excerpt depicting the worst of society.</p>

<p>From Publisher’s Weekly: "As the book gets started, the narrator is expelled from his Southern Negro college for inadvertently showing a white trustee the reality of black life in the south, including an incestuous farmer and a rural whorehouse. The college director chastises him: "Why, the dumbest black ■■■■■■■ in the cotton patch knows that the only way to please a white man is to tell him a lie!</p>

<p>Oh, the irony-let’s leave the graphics out of it!</p>

<p>^Agree some of this requires close following-- the inclination to peace and justice requires some exposure. But maybe some of it should be at-will, not required. ?</p>

<p>I think what may be confusing here is the dichotomy between “some” kids not being ready to face abject reality and “our” desire to foster the sentiments, convictions and action that can only come from facing what is.</p>

<p>Peace and Justice isn’t for the faint at heart.</p>

<p>lookingforward wrote

</p>

<p>I certainly agree with that. But in my experience, neither is the pursuit of peace and justice for the jaded, or for those who simply accept that life is awful, or that life isn’t fair. And among the students I knew, those who responded with snickering aren’t working for peace and justice either.</p>

<p>I don’t assume that there is a single child-rearing path that will encourage a child to become a young person who has the heart and strength to promote peace. Surely it depends on the qualities of the individual child. When it comes to the government in the guise of the public schools compelling any particular student to do something that is likely to discourage him/her from that path, I object to it.</p>