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Found out To Kill a Mockingbird was challenged for 'uncomfortable language' not racism
Saw on the ALA's top 100 challenged books list that this classic got flagged more for the word 'nigger' than for its actual message, and I wonder if people banning it even read past page 50 - has anyone else noticed this pattern with other challenged books?
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emmag403mo ago
People miss the whole point of Atticus telling Scout not to use that word because it's "common." The book is literally about a white lawyer defending a Black man in the Jim Crow South. Challenging it for the language misses that Harper Lee put that word in there to show how ugly and normal racism was in that time and place. Same thing happens with Huckleberry Finn - folks focus on the word 'nigger' but skip past Huck deciding to go to hell rather than turn Jim in. If you can't handle the language of the period, you probably aren't ready for the message the author was trying to send.
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