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OutinChgoburbs
Guest
My opinion would upset too many people, but let’s just say I like Terry McMillian better.There are plenty of good African American authors out there. Who knows…I’m curious as to why though, also.
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PRmerger
Guest
I can look at a photo of a starving child and know that it’s WRONG that this child dying. Perhaps knowing the context of this child’s situation-- was this from disease? war? genocide? etc–will give me a better understanding…
BUT I DO NOT NEED TO KNOW HER ENTIRE STORY TO KNOW THAT IT’S WRONG THAT SHE’S STARVING.
Surely you don’t think it’s ok to show a child everything, without restriction? Would you take your child to an abortion clinic to show her “this stuff really happens!”?Forearming your children against the world is a much better choice then sheltering or condemning it.
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MamaZona
Guest
I might–depending on her age and maturity. I stress volunteering and service projects to my oldest (who isn’t very old at all) because getting out and doing is one of the best ways to learn.
I recall, when I was a teen, getting in trouble for drunk driving (actually, I wasn’t driving, but I was sitting in the car with the keys and underage). The punishment was to spend an evening in the ER. I was 16.
Now, I would have added to that stay in the ER, community service to help the victims of DUI crashes, etc.
As for the starving child. I don’t need to know, but I would like to know his or her story. If for no other reason than the fact that each of our stories matter.
Understanding the full picture, I think, gives a better understanding of the world and thereby a better understanding of how to help.
Sorry, not trying to be contradictory. All of this really hinges on the maturity level of the teens involved and the specific instructors covering the material. All of this absolutely MUST be done with the most care and tact by people very devoutly Christian in their attitudes and aims. I think parents should be directly involved with this entire lesson–possibly even sitting in on the discussion if possible.
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PRmerger
Guest
The point was directed towards the folks that say that one needs to read the *whole book *to determine whether it’s wrong for a child to read it.
My point: one need not know the entire context of a situation to know that it’s wrong. I can read a few excerpts and know that this book is ugly and graphic and objectionable.
You did not know the entire context of those people in the ER, but you saw enough to tell you that drinking and driving is wrong. What if you had told your parents, “Yes, I saw a mangled teenager arriving by ambulance and police car, but I haven’t heard enough of his story to know whether or not this was bad.”?
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pumpkinbeast
Guest
You are right when speaking about the Bible. Any single quote in the Bible may be misconstrued to mean something else, but there are no lines in the Bible that, in and of themselves, are graphic like the excerpts from this book. Compare it to breaking down sinful acts: there is the action itself, and the intent behind the action. An action like eating is, in and of itself, morally neutral, neither good nor bad. If you are eating because you are hungry and you need to nourish yourself with good food, that is a good intent. If you are eating to gorge yourself on sweets and candies and fats, aka gluttony, the intent is bad. The action, eating, is made morally good or bad by the intent behind it. Other actions, like lying or sex outside of marriage, are always wrong. It doesn’t matter what your intent is, they are wrong.Wow -I’ve read a good number of books on the" Bad Book list"it’s really rather pathetic and sad to see such nonsense. Reading excerpts is not like reading the whole book and taking excerpts out of context is rather like taking a verse of scripture out of context- it’s dangerous. Forearming your children against the world is a much better choice then sheltering or condemning it.
To apply this to a book: the ‘actions’ in a book are the things the author describes. They could be morally neutral, or morally good/bad, depending. The author’s intention is the wider storyline that brings all of the descriptions in the book together. If you remove some ‘actions’ or excerpts from the book, if they are morally neutral, and may not make sense by themselves, and could be taken out of context, when not placed in the wider scope of the author’s intention for the book. BUT there ARE some descriptions that ARE morally bad, like explicit descriptions of sexual acts, such as the ones found in the book the OP’s daughter is being made to read. It doesn’t matter what the author’s intention may have been for the book’s storyline, the description itself is wrong.
This doesn’t have anything to do with sheltering children from evil things like sexual abuse. By all means, talk about them! But you don’t have to describe in intricate detail what happens during sexual abuse in order to have a good, educating conversation about it with your child.
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MamaZona
Guest
Actually, to relate the full story of the ER visit. Not much happened, although someone did get stabbed. The experience was mostly humiliating, because of my context for being there. I was a kid who could have potentially endangered my life and the lives of others. Lives that these people were trying to save and protect every day.
I met nice people who worked long, hard hours trying to clean up the mess left by people who didn’t think before they acted.
I ended up talking to one of them most of the night. It was her story and the story of her co-workers that made the difference. Not something dramatic like seeing an accident victim rolled in.
As for the book, yes, I think you need to read it before running in to the school saying it should be pulled. If nothing else, doing so will give you ample ammunition and it will make it harder to dismiss your actions as “knee jerk” reactions to a sensitive subject.
Of course I think the subject of child abuse is ugly. I think the atheist at the art festival was ugly. But putting it in full view without fear takes the power out of it. IMO
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whatevergirl
Guest
You know, I don’t think we should be surprised really…Catholic school or not, promoting this book for its students to read. I think what saddens me though, is that our culture has become so PC, so tolerant of any and all behaviors, that we just can’t seem to stand up for what is right and wrong anymore. We seem to think that this type of garbage writing, is literature–why, because a school is advocating it? So? Because this author managed to find a publisher to take her work? So? There are countless ‘rated x’ type books that can be found in Barnes and Noble…Borders…adult book stores…that are not suitable for teens to be reading. This book just shows me that we are losing good writers in our culture, and they are being replaced with at best mediocre writers, who think that shock and sex is literature. It’s not. I have read many many books…classics to contemporary. I am not an ‘all white male’ reader, ftr, Annn…
I have a wide array of tastes…but we’re talking about kids here.
We are sinking lower by the day…and it is greatly troubling to see this Catholic school, presenting this book to kids as good literature. This is nothing like Catcher in the Rye …nothing. I remember the controversial books when I was growing up, and graphic sexual depictions was not in them.
And there is one thing to write sexual in an artistic way…another to write, smut, and pass it off as literature.
I’ve run out of change…that’s it for my two cents.
I have a wide array of tastes…but we’re talking about kids here.We are sinking lower by the day…and it is greatly troubling to see this Catholic school, presenting this book to kids as good literature. This is nothing like Catcher in the Rye …nothing. I remember the controversial books when I was growing up, and graphic sexual depictions was not in them.
And there is one thing to write sexual in an artistic way…another to write, smut, and pass it off as literature.
I’ve run out of change…that’s it for my two cents.
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SmartyPants
Guest
Also because she’s a Pulitzer Prize winning author!
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yellowbird
Guest
Good post whatevergirl. 
And I’ve read enough of your posts to know that you don’t fly off the handle…regardless of your opinion, I think you often try to see things from a different perspecitve. This instance is different though, and like you, I fail to see how there’s another side to this in which a teenage girl might benefit.
And I’ve read enough of your posts to know that you don’t fly off the handle…regardless of your opinion, I think you often try to see things from a different perspecitve. This instance is different though, and like you, I fail to see how there’s another side to this in which a teenage girl might benefit.
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whatevergirl
Guest
Actually Nobel prize…but ok.
And alas…she’s a selection on Oprah’s book club …and no doubt a NY Times bestseller.
That’s enough for me to stay away from it. I have really tried to read Oprah’s selections with an open mind, with the exception of The Pilot’s Wife, they are all ultra PC, and when it comes to her religious selections, they are anti Catholic. Pilot’s Wife was very good though.Back to the thread—I don’t doubt that the author is brilliant…she graduated Harvard, and her background is very impressive. No one would dispute that. But, it doesn’t mean that this book belongs in a Catholic school classroom, or any classroom, frankly. College, yes. Not high school.
I like controversial books. But, not controversy for controversy sake. Martin Luther King was controversial, without meaning to be. This author means to be…there is a difference, to me. Like Madonna was to popular music, this woman is to the literary world. Shock and awe…all day long.
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SmartyPants
Guest
Terry McMillian is nothing more than a chick lit author. There are no serious themes in her work whatsoever. And, I am stunned that people who are objecting to Morrison’s work would throw McMillian out there when the sexuality themes in her work are truly gratuitous. McMillian is what I read when I am taking a break from reading anything that would require me to use brain cells.
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juliamajor
Guest
Actually you have to know the whole story to understand how and why a person acts the way they do.If you’ve known as many child abuse victims I have then you’d know- then you see their involvement in in drugs sex and other rotten things and understand why- and have the compassion to pull them away from such self destructive behavior.Have your children ever witnessed a Holocaust documentary and the stories that come from the concentration camps? Or do you Censor that also. and yes , I would take them and show them man’s inhumanity to man- it’s not just words on a page or a vague and distant horror.-It’s real and it can and does happen time and again.and you can be involved in that horror just as easily as the Germans or American cultured has become immune to the horrors inflicted on human beings- born or unborn.Every time one is blind or oblivious to the suffering of their fellow human being - or any creature he is letting that suffering , that sin that evil to continue. Blinders are not for Christians- I refuse to wear them and I refuse to make my children wear them.Ignoring a problem does not solve it- it just adds to it.I have over three thousands books in my personal library and I refuse to burn or censor them . They are there for me, my children and any other person who wishes to use them. censorship can lead to blindness!
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whatevergirl
Guest
Tell me you are not likening this book to the Holocaust.Actually you have to know the whole story to understand how and why a person acts the way they do.If you’ve known as many child abuse victims I have then you’d know- then you see their involvement in in drugs sex and other rotten things and understand why- and have the compassion to pull them away from such self destructive behavior.Have your children ever witnessed a Holocaust documentary and the stories that come from the concentration camps? Or do you Censor that also. and yes , I would take them and show them man’s inhumanity to man- it’s not just words on a page or a vague and distant horror.-It’s real and it can and does happen time and again.and you can be involved in that horror just as easily as the Germans or American cultured has become immune to the horrors inflicted on human beings- born or unborn.Every time one is blind or oblivious to the suffering of their fellow human being - or any creature he is letting that suffering , that sin that evil to continue. Blinders are not for Christians- I refuse to wear them and I refuse to make my children wear them.Ignoring a problem does not solve it- it just adds to it.I have over three thousands books in my personal library and I refuse to burn or censor them . They are there for me, my children and any other person who wishes to use them. censorship can lead to blindness!
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PRmerger
Guest
Do you have to know the whole story to know something is just plain WRONG, or immoral or evil?Actually you have to know the whole story to understand how and why a person acts the way they do.If you’ve known as many child abuse victims I have then you’d know- then you see their involvement in in drugs sex and other rotten things and understand why- and have the compassion to pull them away from such self destructive behavior.Have your children ever witnessed a Holocaust documentary and the stories that come from the concentration camps? Or do you Censor that also. and yes , I would take them and show them man’s inhumanity to man- it’s not just words on a page or a vague and distant horror.-It’s real and it can and does happen time and again.and you can be involved in that horror just as easily as the Germans or American cultured has become immune to the horrors inflicted on human beings- born or unborn.Every time one is blind or oblivious to the suffering of their fellow human being - or any creature he is letting that suffering , that sin that evil to continue. Blinders are not for Christians- I refuse to wear them and I refuse to make my children wear them.Ignoring a problem does not solve it- it just adds to it.I have over three thousands books in my personal library and I refuse to burn or censor them . They are there for me, my children and any other person who wishes to use them. censorship can lead to blindness!
I am not saying reading The Bluest Eye is evil. Simply saying that one need not read the entire book to know it’s WRONG to have children read it.
I don’t need to know the whole story behind a photo to know that it’s WRONG for a child to starve.
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juliamajor
Guest
Sorry I totally disagree with you. Torture is evil ,immoral gross. talking about it just cleans it up until it is a distant unimportant thing that happens to somebody else and has nothing to do with me.Sexual abuse does not happen in a vacuum- the suffering endured is unimaginable- and affects all of - the whole of society. Once horrendous images are seen- they are seldom forgotten- if a great writer like Morrison makes you squirm- then she has done what she set out to do-get you out of complacency - and think about the unthinkable Peace and good luck with your marriage.!
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Joe_5859
Guest
Okay, I didn’t read the whole thread, but as a Catholic who took a class in college specifically on Toni Morrison, I thought I’d better weigh in.
When I was in (Catholic) high school, we had to read Morrison’s “Beloved” (which I think I got through the first 30 pages of…hey, it was Senior year 
).In my college class I read (or at least skimmed
) Morrison’s first 7 books. I have to say, of all her books, I think “The Bluest Eye” was my favorite. Even though I took this course, there was no presumption that I already be familiar with her books (as a previous poster mentioned).It’s been nine years since I read it, and I don’t at all remember the part you quoted. I was sort of just beginning my spiritual walk at that time, so I was less sensitive to those sorts of things and likely didn’t pay much attention to it. Do you have a page number? (Now I’m curious and want to go back and check!)
Morrison wrote the book in the 70’s, so obviously feminism and “black power” plays into the book (and all of Morrison’s books), but I don’t think it’s the only thing the book is about. The main theme I took from the book is about the tragedy of a girl who’s hard life leads her to want to be that which she can never be. From that perspective, we can take lessons about not letting our external circumstances dictate who we are. There’s nothing about that which is fundamentally opposed to our faith.
A lot of it depends on how it’s taught. Is it being taught it such a way as to show the class the benefits of liberal feminism? That would not be good.
All this being said, I think I would defer to you as to whether it’s appropriate reading material for your daughter. It does seem like it might be better for college-age students, but then there is probably much worse stuff on TV. It seems poor form for the principal to ignore your concerns. You could try contacting someone in your Diocese’s Office of Catholic Schools if your concerns continue to go unheeded.
I agree with Whatevergirl, too. I’m not sure when “shock and sex” became par for the course among modern American “literature”. Still, I personally was far more scandalized by “Catcher in the Rye” (required reading in my Junior Year at my Catholic high school) than I was by any of Morrison’s books.
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MamaZona
Guest
You’re not aloneActually you have to know the whole story to understand how and why a person acts the way they do.If you’ve known as many child abuse victims I have then you’d know- then you see their involvement in in drugs sex and other rotten things and understand why- and have the compassion to pull them away from such self destructive behavior.Have your children ever witnessed a Holocaust documentary and the stories that come from the concentration camps? Or do you Censor that also. and yes , I would take them and show them man’s inhumanity to man- it’s not just words on a page or a vague and distant horror.-It’s real and it can and does happen time and again.and you can be involved in that horror just as easily as the Germans or American cultured has become immune to the horrors inflicted on human beings- born or unborn.Every time one is blind or oblivious to the suffering of their fellow human being - or any creature he is letting that suffering , that sin that evil to continue. Blinders are not for Christians- I refuse to wear them and I refuse to make my children wear them.Ignoring a problem does not solve it- it just adds to it.I have over three thousands books in my personal library and I refuse to burn or censor them . They are there for me, my children and any other person who wishes to use them. censorship can lead to blindness!
and I want your library!Oh, and I’m anything but PC. I try really hard (really, really) to use prudent speech and give thoughtful consideration to all sides. I’m anything but PC, though.
Maybe, for the sake of those parents who feel so strongly about the material…there should be some kind of opt-out option? A different but equally influential book on another subject?
If the point is to get their minds working on tough questions, there are other tough questions for the kids/parents who feel uncomfortable.
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whatevergirl
Guest
I don’t totally disagree with you…but, the book is not only written from the victim’s perspective. I read the Child Called It series, and I nearly threw up. I don’t shy away from tough subjects, but this book is also written in the perspective of the molestor. And that language is too sexualized in a very perverse way to mean anything positive for a teenager.Sorry I totally disagree with you. Torture is evil ,immoral gross. talking about it just cleans it up until it is a distant unimportant thing that happens to somebody else and has nothing to do with me.Sexual abuse does not happen in a vacuum- the suffering endured is unimaginable- and affects all of - the whole of society. Once horrendous images are seen- they are seldom forgotten- if a great writer like Morrison makes you squirm- then she has done what she set out to do-get you out of complacency - and think about the unthinkable Peace and good luck with your marriage.!
A teenage girl needs to read this book, and read the perspective of a rapist and child molestor…because…__________________
Please, fill in the blank. I’m curious, as to how this will help a teenage girl to grow…reading the perverse thoughts of a child molestor. Perhaps, if the book was written strictly from the perspective of the victim, I’d think differently. But, the writing is graphic to sell books. And that is why I have a problem with controversy today. Controversial used to be someone standing up for civil rights or some moral victory. Now, it’s smut written on a page for teenagers to read, and parents to “squirm,” as you say. Do you think none of us have been abused, and this is shedding some taboo light onto the subject?
I have known friends who were abused, but their side concerned me more, than interviewing their abusers as to the thrill they received from abusing/molesting.This book is shock and awe…and shock and awe sells. Child Called It, I believe won a Nobel prize too…but the writing was pretty poor. It was a very sad and horrible story of a boy who was horrifically abused at the hands of his alcoholic mom. But, it wasn’t Nobel prize worthy. But, shock and awe sells. Period.
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LilyM
Guest
I beg to differ - the worst problems with child abuse occur when people DON’T talk about it, pretend it doesn’t happen, or not in their neighbourhood.Sorry I totally disagree with you. Torture is evil ,immoral gross. talking about it just cleans it up until it is a distant unimportant thing that happens to somebody else and has nothing to do with me.Sexual abuse does not happen in a vacuum- the suffering endured is unimaginable- and affects all of - the whole of society. Once horrendous images are seen- they are seldom forgotten- if a great writer like Morrison makes you squirm- then she has done what she set out to do-get you out of complacency - and think about the unthinkable Peace and good luck with your marriage.!
Talking about it, in most contexts - ie to your doctor, to the police, to your legislators, in the courts, in the confessional, in mainstream media … is in fact very healthy, doesn’t desensitise, and leads to positive action being taken (perpetrators being prosecuted, tougher laws being enacted and so on). And I don’t doubt that talking about Toni Morrison’s book in the classroom would almost certainly lead to victims coming forward.
Sure, if the only thing you want is to know that it’s wrong. That should, for people with a conscience, only be the first step. For the further steps yo need to know a whole lot more.
If you want, for example (and if you don’t there’s something wrong), on seeing that photo, to do something that has a chance of working to alleviate that child’s starving and help other children like her as well, then you need to know everything. Her name and where she lives, her current state of health, how old she is, and why she is starving.
So the question is do you just want to intellectually know that child abuse is wrong, do you just want your child to intellectually know that it’s wrong, or do you want, do you want your child, to be moved, shocked out of complacency and willing (and perhaps better able) to actually help do something about it?
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masha
Guest
Believe me, I’m not defending the reading of this book out of “political correctness.” But there is absolutely nothing wrong with a teacher choosing a book by an acclaimed author because that author is black. Black American literature, especially when the author grew up in the earlier part of the 20th century, is distinctly different from white American literature. It is generally darker, rawer, and uglier than white literature as far as themes, characters, and presentation are concerned. A high-school English teacher who is presenting American Literature ought to include examples of black American literature, because it explains the worldview and self-image of early 20th century black Americans better than any history book could. If it is a dark and ugly book, it is because it was a dark and devestating worldview. While I wouldn’t encourage a 13 or 14 year old to read Toni Morrison, 16 or 17 year old should be able to handle reading that, especially in an academic setting.
The list posted earlier would ban Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Truman Capote, Kate Chopin, Umberto Eco, even Lois Lowry harmless and simple “The Giver.”
God bless,
Masha****
The list posted earlier would ban Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Truman Capote, Kate Chopin, Umberto Eco, even Lois Lowry harmless and simple “The Giver.”
God bless,
Masha****
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