The Language Police
Last spring a Brooklyn mother named Jeanne
Heifetz noticed something fishy on New York state's standardized high-school
English exam: an excerpt from
a book she'd once read had been altered. Her curiosity piqued, she gathered
10 exams from the past three years and discovered that most of the literary
passages had been expurgated. References to race, religion, sex and other hot
topics had been removed or softened. A "fat" boy had become "heavy," a "gringo" was
now an "American," and a childhood memoir about visiting "the
Negro section of town" had been stripped of racial content. Elie Wiesel's
declaration that "Man, who was created in God's image, wants to be free
as God is free" had been reduced to the lifeless slogan: "Man wants
to be free."
Faced with public outrage and mocking headlines ("The Elderly Man and
the Sea?"), state officials quickly promised to end
the practice. But nothing about the episode surprised Diane Ravitch. As she
notes in "The
Language Police," the educrats in Albany were just following the rules
of their trade. Like test-makers and textbook publishers everywhere, they had
subjected their exams to the scrutiny of professional "sensitivity reviewers." The
mandate of these red-pencilers? To "eliminate, delete, remove, replace,
revise--that is, censor--offensive material."
On the theory that a proper K-12 education should upset
no one and affirm all, elaborate protocols now exist for the content of classroom
materials.
Ms. Ravitch, the country's soberest, most history-minded education expert--and,
in this case, a whistle-blower extraordinaire--fills her book with one outrageous
example after another (sometimes, alas, to the point of repetition). Especially
useful is her appendix titled "A Glossary of Banned Words, Usages, Stereotypes,
and Topics." Printed in single-spaced small type, it goes on for 32 startling
pages.
[Full
Story]
Here are some other suggestions:
Mark Twain's A Connecticut Northerner in Unelected Ruler Arthur's Court
Leo Tolstoy's Master of Men and Women
Leo Tolstoy's Peace and Peace
Herman Melville's Moby Richard
Ernest Hemingway's The Geriatric in dire need of free prescription drugs and the Sea
Fyodor Dostoevsky' Crime and Rehabilitation
James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Developing Adolescent
Known as 
Louisa May Alcott's Petite Womyn
Jack London's Call of the Domestically-Challenged
William Golding's Ruler of the Winged Insects
Edgar Allan Poe's Ms. Lee
Victor Hugo's The Posture-Challenged Person of the Building-formerly-known-as-Notre Dame
another great argument for home schooling.
Joseph Conrad #1 :
Egalitarian Jim
Joseph Conrad #2 :
The W. E. B. DuBois Professor of African-American Studies aboard the Narcissus
E E Cummings :
The anti-left derogation of "Uncle Sam twitches a liberal titty" in "THANKSGIVING (1956)" is changed to "the US flexes a progressive pectoral."
Actually, some of these reworked versions sound pretty interesting and might be decent books in their own right. I'd especially like to take a gander at Crime and Rehabilitation and Petite Womyn.
Yes, I am at least partly serious.
OK, in all fairness, the sensitivity review board have a rep from like every religious and ethnic group, and they all strike what they feel is offensive.
As stupid as some of these may seem (some of the things that have been stricken were not as dumb, like a cartoon of a couple having sex in the bio exam, and many,many anti-catholic references in the history exams), they head off a LOT of money and time in lawsuits. Whar is sad is that we have come to this.
Harper Lee's To Assist the Suicide of a Mockingbird
Faulkner's As I Lay Pleading for Death with Dignity
Flannery O'Connor's A Good Person is Hard to Find
We can't say anything in the workplace or society that doen't offend someone who chooses to be offended...leading to quiet drones frightened to offer an opinion because they'll be shunned by society. I think all writing should be free of censorship and let the readers decide if they want to read the material or not. If within the context of telling a story you use politically incorrect wording then I think it can be justified if it relates a realistically portrayed situation. Think about that term, "politically incorrect"...now think of how many politicians have written books that are enjoyable to read.
The Sensitivity Reviewers need to get a life. Their version (view) of the world in order not to offend anyone is simply PRETENDING that history (warts & all: S. Foote) and peoples differences do not exist. Let's forget the cake and just serve the icing - they won't know the difference.
I am appalled that these people with their so-called college education, have made it their duty to edit and revise the round world fit in their square picture. They don't have enough decency or knowledge to be ashamed.