Cheeseheads against Maya Angelou

[Rex Kickass]

http://www.fdlreporter.com/apps/pbcs.dll/a...D=2006611240557

 

FOND DU LAC — Some Fond du Lac parents have asked school officials to remove former U.S. poet laureate Maya Angelou's autobiography from the high school curriculum.

 

Students at Fond du Lac High School read "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" in sophomore advanced English classes.

 

But some parents have objected to passages that describe Angelou's rape and subsequent unwanted pregnancy. About 80 people attended a meeting Tuesday at the school this week to discuss the book and the request to remove it.

 

School Superintendent Gregory Maass said the initial complaint came from one family.

 

"We had a mother and father and student who questioned the book," he said. "The high school provided the student with an alternative book."

 

The parents were not satisfied and asked for the book to be removed from the curriculum, Maass said.

 

Fond du Lac High School Principal Mary Fran Merwin said parents, teachers, principals and at least two ministers spoke at the meeting, where no decision was made. She said the school has used the book for a decade.

 

"It is Angelou's own account of growing up," Merwin said. "It has a number of attributes, and it's a historically relevant story about a black woman growing up in the United States."

 

School board president Gary Sharpe said the request was the first to remove a book in his eight years on the board. A school committee will make a decision on the book, and if parents remain unhappy, they can appeal to the superintendent and school board, he said.

[Gregory Pratt]

My English teacher tells me that people come in to complain about homosexuality in books all the time.

 

Like, Of Mice and Men, Sula and everything by Shakespeare. In the first two cases, of course, you'd have to be ridiculous/never have read the books to think they're about homosexuality or that there are even homosexuals in the book, but there you go.

 

(She also says people b**** about cursewords and things of that sort, too, but not as much as homosexual themes. Says she always asks them, "Have you read the book?" before anything else.)