The Bluest Eye Under Attack in Klein ISD

Here's a Way to Fight Back (In Any District)

Toni Morrison: honored on a US postage stamp; under attack in US schools.

A small but angry contingent of speakers took over public comment at the June 12 meeting of the Board of Trustees of Klein ISD (outside of Houston). Their complaint: a teacher assigned Toni Morrison’s oft-challenged novel The Bluest Eye in a dual-credit (high school + college) course offered in conjunction with Lone Star College.

Let me repeat that, with emphasis: the book was part of a college-credit course offered in conjunction with a local community college.

All of the speakers claimed to be related to a 16-year-old student in the class. A speaker who said she’s the student’s mother started the fireworks, reading word-for-word the scene, about 200 pages into the book, where 11-year-old Pecola Breedlove is raped by her father, Cholly. After her, speakers claiming to be the student’s aunt, father, grandfather and grandmother took the podium. They continued with the out-of-context excerpts, they called the book “trash” and “destructive” and called for “immediate action to protect our community’s children and teenagers.” They asked the board to reconsider the district’s affiliation with Lone Star College. The scene culminated with the grandmother tearfully telling the board, “You’ve caused destruction in the lives of children” and demanding, “Please change your signage up there to say, ‘Enters with a promise, exits with porn!’”

A few facts are important to know about these complaints. First, the book is not part of a required course and, according to the district’s Chief Academic Officer, parents sign waivers acknowledging that the class’s texts include mature content. Further, students can request alternative assignments for any text. Finally, before students read The Bluest Eye in the course, the instructor previewed the book’s difficult passages and gave students the option of not reading them.

Oh—one more thing: going after AP and dual-credit courses seems to be the book-banners’ next objective.

It’s unclear whether the complaints were accompanied by formal challenges to The Bluest Eye. Discussion of the book was not on the agenda, so no action was taken at the meeting. Nonetheless, it will be important to see what happens with this issue moving forward. The district’s next scheduled meeting is Monday, July 10. In addition, Klein ISD is one of the few big Texas school districts with a trustee election this November, and it’s likely that calls for censorship will be front-and-center in the campaigns leading up to Election Day.

As an aside, a few months ago I pointed out the absurdity of suggesting that the mass removal of books from school libraries wouldn’t affect classroom instruction. In fact, I specifically expressed skepticism that “parents who demand The Bluest Eye be removed from libraries would be okay with their kids bringing the book home as assigned reading.”

Did I call it or what?¹

Anyway, if you’ve followed this newsletter for any amount of time, you know that nothing fires me up like attacks on Toni Morrison’s writing—especially since those attacks usually come from people who haven’t read the books, and thus imagine Morrison’s books (which are actually intensely moral) are depraved. So, after watching people who clearly hadn’t read The Bluest Eye demanding to know “how this has some redeeming educational value,” I did my thing.

What’s my thing? Making educational resources.

FACTS & CONTEXT: THE BLUEST EYE

This is a “Fact & Context” sheet for The Bluest Eye that you can use in Klein ISD or anywhere the book is challenged. Specifically, I included:

• Facts about the book itself and justification for its use with high-level high school students,

• context for the book’s difficult passages,

• quotes from readers who value the book, and

• “comps”—books with similar content, themes, and quality that have also been included in high school reading lists for years.

I imagine this resource could provide talking points at school board meetings or could be sent directly to wavering trustees. And I’ve also included a few downloadable images that can be shared on social media.

This is part of a larger project I’ll hopefully be writing more about in the next few weeks. Basically, I’ve been thinking about how devastating websites like BookLooks.org and LaVerna in the Library have been to anti-censorship efforts. Remember, most of the people making decisions about books like The Bluest Eye don’t know Toni Morrison from Tony the Tiger, and have neither the time nor the obligation to read challenged books in full. Those websites allow book banners to frame books in the most negative light possible, and that framing is often the only introduction parents, school board members, and legislators are getting for these books. As a result, sometimes all people know about these books are passages that, frankly, can be shocking to folks who don’t have the work’s full context.

We have to provide that context, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how to do that. More coming.

1. One of the community members who objected to The Bluest Eye specifically asked the board “how you can remove The Bluest Eye from your library because it’s not educationally appropriate but then allow it to be used as required reading [in a class].”