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Grand Rapids, Michigan: Book Pulled from Classrooms, Libraries
February 08, 2005
PEN USA’s First Amendment Action Committee is concerned that Athletic Shorts, a 1989 collection of short stories by Chris Crutcher, was removed from classrooms and from the library shelves due to complaints about language.
Story Continued...
One story in the book contains the “n-word.” While this racial slur is used in the context of a story that teaches tolerance and anti-racism, parents have complained and school teacher Patricia Bouwhuis, who used the book in a lesson, was suspended Monday.
Superintendent Bert Bleke ordered copies of the books removed. He has yet to read the story. Hazel Lewis, president of the local NAACP called the story “trash” and said the teacher should be fired. “College students can handle stuff like that, but not our babies,” she said, referring to a class of seventh and eighth graders.
Parent Lori Preston read the story and said the teacher has been using the book for three years without drawing complaints.
Walter and Cindy Tett, who have a child in Bouwhuis’ class, say the incident has been blown out of proportion. “Our son came away with strong feelings that racism is wrong,” Cindy Tett said.
“[The story] is gritty, no doubt about that,” said the author, “We sit around and talk about No Child Left Behind, and all the kids that are left behind get X-ed out because we don’t want to hear about their lives.”
The story itself is about a borderline autistic boy who mimics his father’s racist views and refers repeatedly to blacks and other ethnic groups using derogatory terms. The story ends with the boy being saved by a black student from a beating by a Chinese karate gang. The collection of stories won Best Book of the Year in 1991 in the Young Adult Division of the Michigan Library Association.
“The ‘n-word’ is the single most vile word in our nation’s historical vocabulary, a sadistic weapon of a word that has been used in this nation’s history like a hammer,” Crutcher wrote. “You don’t hide a word like that. You expose it. You tell the truth about it. Unlike the people challenging the story, I have confidence in our children’s intellectual ability to understand that.”
The teacher who was suspended for using the book will keep her job but be moved to another school.
The book will remain in school but with restrictions. For the next three months it will be off library shelves and out of classrooms while a committee decides whether the book is “worth keeping.”
“We are not in the book banning business. We will be careful about this and thoughtful about this. But it will not intrude in a classroom like this ever again,” says Bleke.
Stephen Rohde, Vice President of Freedom to Write domestic and First Amendment lawyer, says “Yet again the forces of censorship have reared their ugly heads. They may not want to be seen as ‘book banners’ but that’s exactly what they are. This award-winning collection of stories is doing everyone a favor by exposing the stains of racism that remain in our society and still need to be eradicated. I venture to guess that the same people who are banning this book are the last ones who are willing to tackle difficult subjects such as racism. The ‘Out-of-sight-out-of-mind Mentality’ leads to censorship and to ignoring our nation’s problems.”
Recommended Action:
Write Superintendent Bert Bleke, urging him to keep the book in the library and available to students. Also, suggest Patricia Bouwhuis receive a public apology for her suspension and relocation, which was not deserved.
Superintendent Bert Bleke
c/o Communications Office
1331 Franklin SE
P.O. Box 117
Grand Rapids, MI 49501-0117
Email (most direct): blekeb@grps.k12.mi.us
Comments:
This is a tricky one for me. I think that few white people understand the pain which goes along with the n-word. At the same time, it could well be hard to teach about this word and its horrid, brutal history without using it. Philosophers of language sometimes make a distinction between using a word and mentioning a word. Perhaps that could be of some help.
Hazel Lewis states that college students can handle this book but ‘not our babies.’ I guess it’s okay for ‘our babies’ to handle the racial intolerance and violence that is advocated in the various rap videos played on MTV.
Seventh graders are far from “babies.” They are preteens on the verge of making serious life decisions and attempting to overcome heavy pressures from peers. “Sheltering” these children from positive stories like Crutcher’s is ludicrous and dangerous.
I’ve read a few of Chris Crutcher’s books as an adult and don’t think any seventh grader would have any trouble finding the message. Kids aren’t stupid. And I thought school superintendents and boards were in the education business, not the censorship business. If you want to know who Crutcher really is, read his falling-down laughing hilarious memoir, “King of the Mild Frontier.”