A small but vocal conservative Christian activist group in North Carolina is at it again.
The Raleigh based group Called2Action is challenging three books in the school district's secondary English curriculum, feeling that the books contain "vulgar and sexually explicit language."
Under fire this week are The Color Purple, by Alice Walker, Beloved, by Toni Morrison, and The Chocolate War, by Robert Cormier.
Interestingly, none of the books is a required text.
Teachers have the option of selecting these titles as additional literature selections to supplement the mainstay books in each course. In particular, The Color Purple and Beloved are most frequently assigned as part of an AP literature course, which are not required courses and which are supposed to be college-level work.
Also, the local school district already has a sensitive policy that allows parents to request an alternate reading selection if the parents find any book inappropriate for their family, no questions asked.
But Called2Action is not satisfied with that. They want the books that their group finds offensive to be removed as an option from all classrooms. Ironically, many of the families involved in Called2Action do not even have children who attend the public schools where the group wants to assert their own values:
Noble acknowledged that many of Called2Action's leaders, including him, are home-schooling their children or have them in private schools. But he said all taxpayers have a stake in the school district.
"Whether you have children who go to the public schools or not shouldn't disqualify you from caring about what's being taught," Noble said.
Called2Action has a local history of pushing their religious agenda.
They've pushed for a bill to require that the Pledge of Allegiance be recited in every public school classroom each day.
They've tried to muster opposition in schools to the National Day of Silence event which helps bring awareness about discrimination that gay and lesbian students face.
They've sponsored a rally that seeks a marriage law amendment.
They've taken up the rally cry of the "War on Christmas" accusations
They've tried to pick a fight by putting up a public holiday display that included a Nativity scene.
They've thrown their weight behind political candidates who share their narrow religious agenda.
They've tried to pack the school boards with:
candidates who will fight the "radical homosexual agenda" and "anti-Christian bias" by making sure "teaching about homosexual sex" is prohibited and that Christianity gets equal emphasis and inclusion
.
And in a story that was picked up by national news media and the blogworld, they've
complained that a guest speaker
in a school who conducted an exercise in stress relief with students was really teaching kids to practice a kind of new age religion, or maybe even Hinduism---Called2Action seemed confused, but convinced that something untoward had happened:
Called2Action, a local Christian advocacy group, has accused the school of promoting "New Age" religion because it had a guest speaker help students "tap into their energy forces" at a stress-reduction workshop in August.
The story has been picked up by newspapers around the nation, National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and Internet blogs.
Called2Action says the workshop was a school-sponsored religious activity associated with Hindu beliefs that violated the First Amendment's establishment clause. They contend that the workshop would have been banned if a Christian minister had told students to pray to Jesus Christ to relieve stress.
As a high school English teacher, you can pretty much predict how I feel about any attempt to ban or censor literature.
This doesn't mean I think every book is appropriate for every classroom age group or curriculum. I'll even confess I can throw only lukewarm support behind The Chocolate War, because although its themes of bullying and teenage isolation and peer pressure are valuable & relevant messages for kids in America, I think it's not in the same category of quality literature as the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Color Purple.
Most of the time I'm just glad that parents don't examine the reading material I assign in class too closely, if they're on the prowl looking for subversive messages. I think there's far more revolutionary thought in Thoreau's essays than anything Salinger ever wrote, more sensuality in The Scarlet Letter than in Judy Blume.
I truly have no problem with parents who want to be proactive in choosing literature they feel is appropriate for their child. Over a twenty year teaching career I have cheerfully offered alternative literature suggestions when requested---perhaps 2 or 3 times total since 1985.
But when a group wants to push its own narrow agenda onto a public school, that's when we all need to be "called to action" against this kind of myopic stance.
cross posted at Street Prophets