What you’ve linked is not saying “we must read these authors because their skin is black”. It is saying “their black skin has caused them to live a life different from other authors, which has caused them to write something different from other authors, and we want to know about that.”
Based on our back and forth here, it seems you have presented a conversation you claim happens “often” that you’ve neither heard personally nor can cite an instance of it. This conversation is a strong caricature of teachers calling parents “racists” for not agreeing with their book choice.
Meanwhile the evidence you’ve linked to shows nothing of the kind. TFA doesn’t support it, nor does the article you linked.
What the Harvard article says is that the topics contained in literature written by white men who are now dead are not relatable to a diverse classroom. Unsurprisingly, people write what they know, and as is true with all people, straight white male people don’t know a whole lot about the lived experience of people who are not them e.g. gay, black, and women etc. One way to get this perspective is to read books by authors in those demographics.
Again, this is not the same as saying “we must read these authors because they are black.” There are many black authors who are not being suggested, and it’s not black authors to the exclusion of everyone else. What they have to say in their books is how the books get chosen. We are talking about content, not color. Does the color of the author change the content? Yes. And that’s the point, but it’s not racist to recognize that and want to learn from it.
So again I ask: where is the conversation between parents and students that you’ve heard often happening? I really want to know the answer to this and It’s concerning you are evading that question.
Right, and the parents aren't saying "I refuse to let kids read any books by black authors", they are saying "don't put books into the curriculum just because the authors are black". I know the way I presented them wasn't 100% accurate, but I'd argue that it is way more accurate of their position than their representation of the parents position.
Now, the point isn't which of those sides are right. The point is that one side here argues that the others should get rejected by society since their position shouldn't be tolerated. I believe that side shouldn't do that. I believe the people who argues like that are way more damaging to society than the side they are arguing against.
But that is about banning topics, not being upset because your kid came home with a book by a black author. I agree that is bad, but that wasn't what this discussion was about.
> (Funnily enough I don't see such massive pushback when teachers set kids the objective of reading a book with a European author, or a book written over 100 years ago...)
Yeah, some of the pushback will be motivated by racism, but labelling all pushback as racism wont do you any favours.
Perhaps a small minority of parents picketing the first black kids to arrive at their kids' school, did so out of sincere belief that race had no more place in determining catchment areas than admissions (and the whole all white status quo from carefully drawn districts was just something they incidentally sought to protect), but anybody arguing that the real intolerance wasn't the people pushing back against black kids arriving at their kids' school but the people who suggested the pushback was mainly driven by racism would obviously be arguing in bad faith...
Let me tell you my point of view. I am an educator, and so I have bigger stake in this issue than most here on HN, who I would think are by a large majority in the tech field. I don't know what your profession is, but could you imagine if you found out what you say is happening between teachers and parents were happening in your field? You would want to know exactly where that was happening, right? Because as a person in this field, you would have some power and authority in that community to affect real change. To stamp out that behavior. Right? That's where I am at now. If what you're saying is true, I'm really upset by that, because it reflects directly on my profession and myself, and I'd like to use my position to stop it from happening.
So when you tell me that a conversation is happening like you described, I want to know specifics. What organizations, what teachers? I'm trying to understand if this is a perception you have of the issue through the lens of social media, or if you have actual knowledge since you wrote a specific conversation down that you said happened many times. I was wondering if this conversation was rooted in your experience, or if you had some other source as the basis for this conversation. I'm eager to get to the actual substance because then we can see where the nuance lies.
For example, as proof of your assertion that teachers are choosing books for racist reasons, you linked to a source that shows just the opposite -- that books were chosen because they provide perspectives not present in the existing curriculum. You further claimed that parents are saying "don't put books into the curriculum just because the authors are black", but your own evidence shows that is not happening. So maybe this is where the discrepancy lies. One group has a misperception about the motivations of the other. That's something we can work to solve.
So where is the evidence it is happening? What is leading you and others to claim it is? Because again, as an educator, I want to attack that directly. I can't attack that with vague anecdotes. You don't like it either, right? Help me help you.
People happily label pushback to such movements as "racist parents" and similar. I believe that people pushing back against movements shouldn't get rejected by society, this is the controversial part.