N.J. Schools Pushing Far-Left Indoctrination. What the Hell Is Betsy DeVos Doing? By Megan Fox
https://pjmedia.com/trending/n-j-schools-pushing-far-left-indoctrination-what-the-hell-is-betsy-devos-doing/
Melissa Barnett, a supervisor of English Language Arts in the Washington Township School District in New Jersey, caused outrage on Twitter by tweeting out a photo of hundreds of books in dumpsters. “This week, dumpsters were filled with books that should have left decades ago @TWPSchools and replaced with engaging, relevant, culturally diverse literature.”
This led to cries of “book burning” by critics and crowdsourcing to identify the books in the bins.PJ Media reached out to the Washington Township School District to find out more. “I was not unaware they were cleaning out a book room,” said Steve Gregor, director of secondary education. “Many of them were in poor condition and unreadable, dating back to the 1960s or earlier. We intended to replace [relevant] books with new copies.” Among the books that were reordered are Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, 1984, by George Orwell, Slaughter House Five, by Kurt Vonnegut, Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, Dante’s Inferno, and Night, by Elie Wiesel.
Most of the new books that were added to the classroom libraries are for independent reading time to be selected by the students. They include The Poet X, by Terreece Clarke which, according to Common Sense Media (CSM), contains sex, drinking, violence, drugs, and bad language.
It’s a coming-of-age story about a first-generation Dominican American teen, Xiomara, growing up as a thoroughly American young woman with a developed body in a deeply religious (Catholic) immigrant home. There are instances of street harassment, parental abuse, religious discussions, sexual exploration (some kissing, and one scene of heavy petting), and the revelation of a character being gay. . .her mother makes her kneel on uncooked rice and hits Xiomara, causing injury.
Other offerings are Educated, by Tara Westover, a book recommended by Michelle Obama about being abused in a homeschooling survivalist family, and The House on Mango Street, which is full of child abuse, sex, and rape that CSM calls “gritty material.” Born a Crime, by Trevor Noah, also made the list of new books and is about growing up under apartheid in South Africa. At least this one seems interesting, but it is also awash in abuse and violence. I Am the Messenger, by Matt Berman, is “loaded with swearing and sexual references and fantasies. There are several bloody beatings, a husband rapes his wife, and characters smoke and drink to excess,” according to CSM. Bodega Dreams, by Ernesto Quinonez, seems great. Here’s an excerpt from Amazon,
Blanca wasn’t allowed to wear jeans but she made up for it by wearing tight, short skirts. She always carried a Bible with her and never talked bad about anybody and at school she only hung around with her Pentecostal friend, Lucy. Lucy was a hairy girl who never shaved her legs because it was against her religion. . .Made you want to pick up a tambourine and join her one night in her church. Make a joyful noise to the Lord so she would begin to jump up and down to all that religious salsa. And maybe you’d be lucky enough to cop a cheap feel as the Holy Ghost took over her body.
And the last “engaging, relevant and culturally diverse” book on the list is The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon, that parents on Amazon describe as offensive and dark.
“What the author tries to do is obliterated by the overuse of offensive language,” wrote one parent. “An 11-year old read this book and thought it had way too many bad words. If it was not a reading assignment from school, I would not have allowed her to read it. I don’t understand how this can be a pick of any writing award group. The plot is gruesome and it is too dark of a theme for middle schoolers.”
“I did not like this book at all,” wrote another.
The theme here seems to be that culturally diverse books must have violence, sexual degeneracy, rape, and foul language. I don’t know about you, but that sure seems racist to me. Are the New Jersey “equity” educators saying that minority children only understand and relate to violence, abuse, and vulgarity? It’s sad that there are so few uplifting choices in YA literature. Instead, the genre seeks to draw its readers into the gutter to wallow in filth and degeneracy.
The school district declined to name any of the books that were removed and not replaced, but Twitter users have identified at least two. One of them seems like it would be awfully relevant to today’s youth called, The Ox-Bow Incident, by Walter Tilburg Clark, which is “a harrowing novel about ordinary people drawn into a murderous lynch-mob, exploring the nature of violence, mob mentality and the subversion of justice by supposedly good people.” This seems far more relevant to the high school experience of 2019 than the “culturally diverse” offerings the district chose.
Comments are closed.
