Mocking the bird
I’ve been meaning to tell you about this but am just now getting to it. There’s been a big hoop-lah in the Hamilton Local School District (Franklin County, Ohio) about the reading of Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” (TKAM). And actually, it’s not even the reading of the book - the students are listening to it on tape and “following along.” MmHmm.
So a certain Mr. Hairston, Jr. has taken it up with the school board - he is African American and so is his son, Meshon, an 8th grader whose class is “reading” TKAM. The problem? The “n-word.” Mr. Hairston told channel 4 news “They [the African American students] became the focus and the center of attention,” and “Everybody kind of looked at them every time that word was mentioned. It made them very uncomfortable.”
You can find the story, plus a bunch of responses from viewers, here.
Okay, so this story broke on the news and I dashed to my bookshelf to find my copy of TKAM. It had been years since I’d read it and frankly, it was time for a refresher anyway. But lo and behold, it wasn’t there! Wah! Another case of a loaned book never making its way back home. Thus began my search for the book…
I went first to a used bookseller, but they were fresh out. I headed over to Barnes & Noble, where they had a zillion copies. So at the checkout station, the cashier man commented that the book had been in great demand. I mentioned the controversy, but he said, “No, the 6th graders at blah-blah school are reading it.” StOOpid me, I had to be right (damn my ego!) so pushed onward with the controversy.
Serves me right - the cashier man thought that since Don Imus “quit his job over the same thing” they’d be more careful making the kids read a book with such language.
You can pretty much predict the rest: I pointed out that Imus was fired - he didn’t quit. And that the contexts were hugely different. Literature vs. assholeism. But no, it’s the same. Calling female college athletes “nappy heaaded hos” is the same as the racists in TKAM saying “nigger.” NOT.
Why do I do it? Why? Note to self: Pick your fights.