South Carolina Police Challenge Summer Reading Titles

[mahatmakanejeeves]

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Not, I'm afraid, a joke headline: South Carolina Police Challenge Summer Reading Titles http://cbldf.org/2018/06/35034/

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South Carolina Police Challenge Summer Reading Titles
June 28, 2018
By Patricia Mastricolo

Community members, cops, and parents in one South Carolina school district are all pushing back against two summer reading books they believe propagate anti-police feelings. The books, The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, were on a list of four titles for students taking an English 1 College Prep course. Both books mentioned have received numerous awards and accolades, including the Coretta Scott King Honor.

The president of the Fraternal Order of Police for Tri-County Lodge #3 told local news,

“It’s almost an indoctrination of distrust of police and we’ve got to put a stop to that. There are other socio-economic topics that are available and they want to focus half of their effort on negativity towards the police? That seems odd to me.”

Block an neglected to mention that The Hate U Give also depicts a police officer as one of the strong moral centers, a father figure, and positive role model for the main character Starr in the book. Angie Thomas’ debut novel is about Starr Carter, an African American 16 year old girl, who witnesses her unarmed best friend, Khalil, shot and killed by a white police officer. Starr’s Uncle Carlos is a detective on the same police force and remains a strong counterpoint to the the officer who shot Khalil.
....

[dameatball]

1. Must not be enough crime going on to keep them busy. Now they are censoring books.

[left-of-center2012]

2. All American Boys by Jason Reynolds, Brendan Kiely

Rashad is absent again today.
That’s the sidewalk graffiti that started it all…

Well, no, actually, a lady tripping over Rashad at the store, making him drop a bag of chips, was what started it all. Because it didn’t matter what Rashad said next—that it was an accident, that he wasn’t stealing—the cop just kept pounding him. Over and over, pummeling him into the pavement. So then Rashad, an ROTC kid with mad art skills, was absent again…and again…stuck in a hospital room. Why? Because it looked like he was stealing. And he was a black kid in baggy clothes. So he must have been stealing.

And that’s what Quinn, a white kid, saw. He saw his best friend’s older brother beating the daylights out of a classmate. At first Quinn doesn’t tell a soul…He’s not even sure he understands it. And does it matter? The whole thing was caught on camera, anyway. But when the school—and nation—start to divide on what happens, blame spreads like wildfire fed by ugly words like “racism” and “police brutality.” Quinn realizes he’s got to understand it, because, bystander or not, he’s a part of history. He just has to figure out what side of history that will be.

Rashad and Quinn—one black, one white, both American—face the unspeakable truth that racism and prejudice didn’t die after the civil rights movement. There’s a future at stake, a future where no one else will have to be absent because of police brutality. They just have to risk everything to change the world.

Cuz that’s how it can end.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25657130-all-american-boys