It Makes a Difference to the Sheep

TO KILL TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. Strange things are afoot in Columbus, Indiana.

Columbus East High School has canceled its student production of "To Kill a Mockingbird" because of concerns over a racially sensitive word in the play's dialogue.

The school's drama teacher asked the play's publisher to let the students take the "N-word" out of the dialogue, but the publisher refused, Principal William Jensen said.

Why?

Before the play was canceled, the drama teacher asked Gwendolyn Wiggins, president of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, what she thought of using the word in the play. Wiggins said she didn't want students to hear it.

"That would be giving another reason to say, 'OK, if they use it in the play, we can say it outside the play.' And that's not right," Wiggins said.

I have encountered few books (or films) that more eloquently and compellingly demonstrated the stark inhumanity of prejudice and intolerance than To Kill a Mockingbird. The unsparing depiction of racist whites in the work reveals them in all their inhumanity and ugliness. Anyone who comes away from reading or hearing characters in the work using the "N-word" with the impression that using that word is acceptable was not conscious when they encountered the work.

But wait, there's more:

Wiggins said she supports the story's message, but she doesn't like the way it is delivered, particularly when it is delivered to high school students.

"Don't we have some positive things going on with black people that we can highlight now? Find those plays and use them," she said.

If one takes this kind of muddled thinking to its logical conclusion, we should quit talking about slavery, Jim Crow, or anything else that doesn't highlight "positive things going on with black people." Unbelievable!

UPDATE: Erin O'Connor makes this conclusion:

The school bought her argument, saying that cancelling the play is "being sensitive to issues still bubbling below the surface." In this instance, cultural illiteracy paves the way for more cultural illiteracy. In focussing on Lee's use of a word, rather than on how Lee's use of the word enables her to paint a realistic portrait of the southern culture she criticizes, the Indianapolis NAACP and the school that follows its directives are using identity politics to promote ignorance. The lesson they teach is that cheap simulations of sensitivity are superior to genuine expressions of it, that censorship is preferable to knowledge, that context and tradition do not matter, that history and memory exist to be strategically shaped and selectively suppressed according to the needs of the moment, and, lastly, that kids are really, really stupid.