US high school bans To Kill a Mockingbird and Huckleberry Finn over racial slurs

A Virginia school has reportedly suspended its teaching of two American literature classics after a parent complained her biracial son was affected by racial slurs in the works.

The film To Kill A Mockingbird (1962) looked at race relations in the US. Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird have both been temporarily banned by Accomack County, Virginia in all its public schools after a parent complained about multiple racial slurs in the works.

In Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, 219 racial slurs were counted, and 48 racial slurs found in Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. The mother who complained to the board said her son had been unable to get past one page of Huckleberry Finn that contained the N- word seven times.

“Right now, we are a nation divided as it is,” she told a recent school board meeting.

"I keep hearing, 'This is a classic, This is a classic,' ... I understand this is a literature classic. But at some point, I feel that children will not, or do not, truly get the classic part, the literature part, which I'm not disputing," she said.

 

"This is great literature. But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that."

 

A committee of parents, teachers and librarians will now consider the future of the books in the school system in Accomack county.