ANSWERS: 4
  • To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversy since its being the subject of classroom study as early as 1963. The book's racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms across America. The American Library Association reported that To Kill a Mockingbird was #41 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000. One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in Hanover, Virginia in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape. Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book's appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of "the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice". The controversy that has surrounded the book has not been limited to the United States. In the late 1990s, school districts in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada attempted to have the book removed from standard teaching curricula, stating: The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word 'Nigger' is used 48 times in the novel...We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation ... To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction." The response to these attempts to remove the book from standard teaching was passionate across Canada and the United States, and many of the initial complainants were labeled as overly sensitive and "benign censors." Isaac Saney, who supports attempts to ban the book, concludes that the media response to the removal effort was a form of institutionalized racism: "The media's editorialising against all 'censorship' and 'banning' includes vigorous hostility to the censorship and banning of racism. Its advocacy of freedom of speech includes freedom of speech for racists and fascists."
  • There was controversy in the 1960's about the book but it was never formally banned.The book was very straight forward about the inequality and prejudice that went on back then and is still happening today.The book showed a court case where a black man was falsely accused of raping a white woman.Of course he lost the case showing the inequality of the justice system.Many conservative minded people did not want to face what this book was depicting even though it was the truth.A book like this,though controversial should never be banned,and luckily never really was.
  • I don't agree with ANY banning of thought, written or otherwise. Society desperately needs to be continuously challenged or we stagnate.
  • "To Kill a Mockingbird has been a source of significant controversy since its being the subject of classroom study as early as 1963. The book's racial slurs, profanity, and frank discussion of rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms across America. The American Library Association reported that To Kill a Mockingbird was #41 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 1990–2000. One of the first incidents of the book being challenged was in Hanover, Virginia in 1966: a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Johnson cites examples of letters to local newspapers, which ranged from amusement to fury; those letters expressing the most outrage, however, complained about Mayella Ewell's attraction to Tom Robinson over the depictions of rape. Upon learning the school administrators were holding hearings to decide the book's appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of "the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice". The controversy that has surrounded the book has not been limited to the United States. In the late 1990s, school districts in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, Canada attempted to have the book removed from standard teaching curricula, stating: The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word 'Nigger' is used 48 times [in] the novel...We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation ... To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction." The response to these attempts to remove the book from standard teaching was passionate across Canada and the United States, and many of the initial complainants were labeled as overly sensitive and "benign censors." Isaac Saney, who supports attempts to ban the book, concludes that the media response to the removal effort was a form of institutionalized racism: "The media's editorialising against all 'censorship' and 'banning' includes vigorous hostility to the censorship and banning of racism. Its advocacy of freedom of speech includes freedom of speech for racists and fascists."" I don't think such a book shoud be censored. But it would be the job of the school teachers to use it as a mean of education about racist discrimination when pupils study it.

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