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Next to be banned, "Cracker." No more crackers for you. Those are called Saltines.
Just read, "Little house in the Big Woods", to my kids. Noticed they speak of "Darkeys" in it.
I think it should be OK to read this, because it reminds us of where we came from, and how far we have advanced. I had to answer some questions about that word. I explained that people can change their mindsets, with new information.
Dere was an old darkey, dey called him Uncle Ned,
He's dead long ago, long ago!
He had no wool on de top ob his head,
De place whar de wool ought to grow. Chorus: Den lay down de shubble and de hoe Hang up de fiddle and de bow: |:No more hard work for pool old Ned He's gone whar de good darkeys go. :| 2. His fingers were long like de can in de brake,
He had no eyes for to see;
He had no teeth for to eat de corncake
So he had to let de corncake be. Chorus: 3. When Old Ned die Massa take it mighty bad,
De tears run down like de rain;
Old Missus turn pale and she gets berry sad
Cayse she nebber see Old Ned again. Chorus:
I read this to my kids who are partially Native American, part Japanese and part Caucasian.
I think we have to know where we came from, to know where we want to go to.
7year old? Seems there are more appropriate books around for that age group. Ban it? Hell no, however it should be for an age group that can comprehend the social, cultural and racial differences of the book's time frame. Great discussion for class though.
Tom Sawyer is another that could cause some issues when people are raising their children to be color blind. An admirable position.
What really pisses my off about this story is how did the media get ahold of this issue. THE PARENTS most likely called them. I doubt the school district did.
I sat on the parent teacher advisory board of my children's private elementary school for several years. Issues with curirculum like this would come up frequently. We never banned any books or material, just ensured that the material was appropriate for the age group and move it to another grade level or supplemented the material in question with extra instruction and resources for the teacher and parents.
These parents should be ashamed of themselves for making a mountain out of a mole hill , if they are the ones that contacted the media. Even if they were not, they should have told the media to step off.
Read "Uncle Remus" by Joel Chandler Harris and "Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain. You will find all sorts of words that are politically incorrect, but neither of these men were in the least racist. The words are simply part of the fabric of everyday life in their era. When Huck Finn decides that he would rather go to hell than betray his friend Jim, Twain makes a powerful statement about humanity, but when Jim is mentioned in the book he often carries a modifier that would be banned today by minds too small to deal with anything else in the scene.
Before you can make a decision on whether the usage of a word is proper or imptroper, you have to consider the context. A word would be possibly vital to the telling of a story would be entirely out of place being shouted at a political rally.
Banning words, like banning anything else, is the result of individals gaining power who cherish their ignorance or don't want to be bothered to have to think.
BTW- I consider myself a leaping, screaming liberal and intend to vote Obama. This issue has nothing to do with politics.
Location: Georgia, on the Florida line, right above Tallahassee
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Exactly. Banning the learning of prior times just makes us idiots. Learn from history. I'd reckon most Caucasians think "cracker" is from white saltine crackers ..... when it fact, it's from when "master" cracked his whip.
I don't think the word should be banned. And so long as your child is mature enough to understand that this is a word that should not be repeated and it came from a time where whites were just plain ignorant, I don't guess there's a problem with it.
Exactly. Banning the learning of prior times just makes us idiots. Learn from history. I'd reckon most Caucasians think "cracker" is from white saltine crackers ..... when it fact, it's from when "master" cracked his whip.
Even if that is true (many other theories exist, see below), just why would anyone need to know that?
So Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which the kid is reading in the clip, is okay and Little House in the Big Woods isn't? Hope they are pulling Sounder, Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Lord of the Flies, The Wizard of Oz, Pippi Longstocking, Maniac Magee, and The Voyages of Doctor Doolittle among others. How are we going to learn about past attitudes if we bury indications of the popular culture of the time?
What I found most interesting was that the prinicpal had immediately removed the book from the room when the mom complained and yet she still went to the TV station.
Last edited by Oldhag1; 08-11-2012 at 06:35 AM..
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