Author Bret Lott says his book “The Hunt Club” is a story about a 15-year-old figuring out who he is in the most specific and universal sense.
Wando High School parent James Pasley says the book uses foul language, degrades women and people of color, and isn’t appropriate to be on a recommended reading list for high school students….
“I don’t know what motivates this kind of reaction except a kind of Victorian sensibility, and I say that as a believing Christian and Sunday school teacher,” Lott said. “How do you shield children from racism? Virtue is not virtue unless it is made vulnerable and put to the test in confronting these things.”
[blockquote] “I don’t know what motivates this kind of reaction except a kind of Victorian sensibility, and I say that as a believing Christian and Sunday school teacher,” Lott said. [/blockquote]
My antennae went up immediately. What do the Victorians have to do with this? The people who nearly wiped out chattel slavery in the West before the current generations allowed it to come surging back?
More important, why does Lott resort to smearing two generations of a particular ethnicity to defend his book?
The number of books we can make available to our children nowadays is effectively infinite. Yet in practice they will read only a small, finite set. Why would we choose one written by an author with this particular chip on his shoulder when we can have them read, say, [i]Soul on Ice[/i]?
[blockquote] “How do you shield children from racism?”[/blockquote]
The variolation theory of immunization. In the real world, temple prostitution happens. Just walk down the right alley in Bangkok. It’s silly to think we can shield our daughter from it, so we’re spending a long weekend in Thailand next month to help her transition to a realistic, adult way of understanding life choices.
[blockquote] “Virtue is not virtue unless it is made vulnerable and put to the test in confronting these things.”[/blockquote]
Mmmmm…..truthiness!