Things Fell Apart & The Detestable Alice Moore
Just goes to prove how mad and crazy the US of A is, esp, with these evangelical nutters - no wonder being an atheist is the best way to keep out of this religious turmoil that sickens our world. The series on BBC Radio 4 specifically talks about the culture wars and is called Things Fell Apart.
2. Dirty Books
Things Fell Apart
Episode 2 of 8
1974. A church minister's wife in West Virginia learns of a brand new curriculum being introduced into her children's school. So she decides to read all 325 new textbooks herself. What she discovers horrifies her so much she instigates a Statewide insurrection. But were some of her concerns based on a misunderstanding?
Yes, I say because she did not understand nuance and interpretation, and that saying the Bible is the only book you need to read is total shit in my opinion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011ldn
Here is some background information -
The Kanawha County textbook controversy was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.
In 1970, West Virginia's Superintendent of Schools signed a proposal for funding to ensure the training of teachers to "induce change" so that children in the state's educational system could elevate and expand above their own cultural surroundings the state views as limited. On 12 March 1974, the English Language Arts Textbook Committee of Kanawha County, West Virginia recommended 325 books and textbooks to the school board for use in Kanawha schools ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. The books were selected by the Committee based on state guidelines that had been set, including but not limited to some that books should be "multicultural in content and authorship". An English teacher on the committee stated that although she held strong conservative values, she felt that removing books that showed opposing opinions would be equivalent to "telling lies by omitting ideas I know exist". So, clamping down on debate and forcing a singular conservative view. I found it disgusting! But then is the good old USA!
These textbooks were part of a new state curriculum that included for the first time the concepts of multiculturalism and egalitarianism in textbook writing. Most school board members saw no reason to question the state's decision. That is until this insular closed-minded conservative Alice Moore stepped in.
Alice Moore had previously campaigned against sex education being taught in the county and was elected as the only member of the Kanawha County School Board that did not have a college degree. Moore also had four children attending county schools. Moore was concerned by the term dialectology, which implied the teaching of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English as "equally correct" dialects. Historian Carol Mason writes that Moore did not want White children to learn the language used by African Americans with the belief that it would cause the White children "to speak in ghetto dialect!
She requested and received all 300 textbooks, and claimed that she found unsettling quotations from Allen Ginsberg, Sigmund Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex, and convicted Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and by George Jackson. She even took offense to a poem by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's "End Of The World".
She even wanted to ban the acclaimed poet Langston Hughes! In an interview with Jon Ronson on this program, she says in reply to Jon's question "Do you remember an author called Langston Hughes?", "I remember these names. I don't remember exactly what Langston Hughes wrote". That already damns her as being an ignorant insular person!
That is why I find extreme right-wing people so dangerous.
This is another fascinating series from the radio.
2. Dirty Books
Things Fell Apart
Episode 2 of 8
1974. A church minister's wife in West Virginia learns of a brand new curriculum being introduced into her children's school. So she decides to read all 325 new textbooks herself. What she discovers horrifies her so much she instigates a Statewide insurrection. But were some of her concerns based on a misunderstanding?
Yes, I say because she did not understand nuance and interpretation, and that saying the Bible is the only book you need to read is total shit in my opinion.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0011ldn
Here is some background information -
The Kanawha County textbook controversy was a violent school control struggle in the 20th century United States. It led to the largest protests ever in the history of Kanawha County, West Virginia, the shooting of one bystander, and extended school closings. The controversy erupted in 1974 when new, multicultural textbooks were introduced that some parents considered blasphemous.
In 1970, West Virginia's Superintendent of Schools signed a proposal for funding to ensure the training of teachers to "induce change" so that children in the state's educational system could elevate and expand above their own cultural surroundings the state views as limited. On 12 March 1974, the English Language Arts Textbook Committee of Kanawha County, West Virginia recommended 325 books and textbooks to the school board for use in Kanawha schools ranging from kindergarten to 12th grade. The books were selected by the Committee based on state guidelines that had been set, including but not limited to some that books should be "multicultural in content and authorship". An English teacher on the committee stated that although she held strong conservative values, she felt that removing books that showed opposing opinions would be equivalent to "telling lies by omitting ideas I know exist". So, clamping down on debate and forcing a singular conservative view. I found it disgusting! But then is the good old USA!
These textbooks were part of a new state curriculum that included for the first time the concepts of multiculturalism and egalitarianism in textbook writing. Most school board members saw no reason to question the state's decision. That is until this insular closed-minded conservative Alice Moore stepped in.
Alice Moore had previously campaigned against sex education being taught in the county and was elected as the only member of the Kanawha County School Board that did not have a college degree. Moore also had four children attending county schools. Moore was concerned by the term dialectology, which implied the teaching of Appalachian English and African American Vernacular English as "equally correct" dialects. Historian Carol Mason writes that Moore did not want White children to learn the language used by African Americans with the belief that it would cause the White children "to speak in ghetto dialect!
She requested and received all 300 textbooks, and claimed that she found unsettling quotations from Allen Ginsberg, Sigmund Freud's writings on the Oedipus complex, and convicted Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver's "Soul on Ice" and by George Jackson. She even took offense to a poem by Liverpudlian poet Roger McGough's "End Of The World".
She even wanted to ban the acclaimed poet Langston Hughes! In an interview with Jon Ronson on this program, she says in reply to Jon's question "Do you remember an author called Langston Hughes?", "I remember these names. I don't remember exactly what Langston Hughes wrote". That already damns her as being an ignorant insular person!
That is why I find extreme right-wing people so dangerous.
This is another fascinating series from the radio.