According to Canada’s National Post of Jan. 13, Toronto’s Catholic school board has banned from its classrooms all literary works written by White people which contain the abominable N-word. Among the masterpieces so designated are novels such as Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. The decision is a perfect example of the woke Left’s ludicrous willingness to fashion its policies not in accordance with the dictates of Reason, but in deference to the hurt feelings of those who have the emotional maturity of a 10 year old.
Twain’s work, published 140 years ago, is a celebration of the relationship between Huck, who is on the run from his abusive father, and Jim, an escaped slave with whom he develops a warm friendship. Given the author’s desire to recreate the realities of his day, the N-word is used repeatedly throughout the novel which nevertheless is a powerful indictment of the racism of its era. It was, for its time, a truly progressive work. To Kill a Mockingbird, familiar to most due to its highly successful film adaptation, tells the story of Atticus Finch, an Alabama lawyer who puts his career and life on the line in defending Tom Robinson, a Black man unjustly accused of rape. Killed while attempting to escape custody after his wrongful conviction, Robinson is the innocent mockingbird of the work’s title, his death a symbol of the ugly racism still prevalent throughout the South 65 years ago.
The use of the N-word by Black writers, you may have noted, is not a problem for the school board in question. Its decision to ban certain books is based solely on the skin color of their authors. It is Identity Politics in all its absurdity, the moral/intellectual substance of the banned works apparently being irrelevant. I cite this issue because it graphically illustrates the moral/intellectual bankruptcy which has come to characterize the contemporary Left. It’s ultimate target, if you haven’t noticed, is the Culture of White, Western Civilization itself.