Opinion: It’s time to rethink our schools' reading lists for diversity

By Anjali Enjeti, Al Jazeera, adapted by Newsela staff? 06/08/2018

Harper Lee's "Go Set a Watchman" book ready to be released on July 14, 2015, and Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" at a Harper Lee celebration at Barnes & Noble in New York City on July 13, 2015. Photo: Laura Cavanaugh/Getty Images

Recently, a school district in Minnesota decided to remove Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird" from its required reading list. The books were dropped because they include words that are harmful to people of color. The books will remain on a list that students have the option of reading, though.

While this is an important step, it barely addresses a more deeply troubling issue. Many beloved books by white authors are racist and damaging to students of color. The hurtful words they contain are merely the beginning of why these books should be left out of literature lessons.

A Common, Unhealthy Theme

Both "Huck Finn" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" incorporate the common "white savior" and "magical negro or native" themes. This is where native, brown and black characters exist as mere devices to help white characters to develop. Jim in "Huck Finn" and Tom Robinson in "To Kill a Mockingbird" are flat and stereotypical. They neither make decisions for themselves nor act fully human. They exist in deplorable conditions only to be pitied by more complete white characters.

The non-white characters are victims whose victimhood is the core idea behind the white savior plot. The more helpless these characters are, the greater and more courageous the white savior's rescue seems.

Not Everyone Agrees With The Decision

Some critics argue that the Minnesota school district's decision was a mistake. The books should be kept because "Huck Finn" and "To Kill a Mockingbird" teach students about racism. This is only the case for white students, however. Native, brown and black students do not learn anything about racism from books that stereotype people of color.

Instead, white savior books support extremely demeaning ideas about native, black and brown people. In these books, people of color exist only to serve the needs and goals of the white characters. Reading these works could increase students' stress levels or hurt their self-esteem. It could limit their ability to see themselves as powerful people who can change the world.

Novels that incorporate the white savior theme are sometimes considered to be among the best books of all time. However, the white savior theme shows poor writing skills. It leads authors to create characters who are not complete.

Character Association

Take "To Kill a Mockingbird." In the book, a white lawyer named Atticus Finch defends Tom Robinson, a black man. Robinson is falsely blamed for attacking a white woman, Mayella Ewell, in Alabama in the 1930s. After he is found guilty, Tom attempts to escape from prison and is shot and killed.

Tom, as a character, exists only to be saved by Atticus. He exists only to teach the white community about racism.

In a creative writing class, I asked students to give words that describe Atticus Finch. Their words filled an entire dry-erase board. Generous. Intellectual. Forthright. Moral. When I asked them to do the same for Tom Robinson, they stumbled a bit. Eventually, they suggested selfless and kind, for the occasional free labor he did for his accuser, Mayella Ewell. Other than what Tom says in court during his trial, where he is playing the role of victim to serve this white savior plot, we learn little else about him. We know nothing about what kind of father he is, what interests he has. Harper Lee gives Tom little substance or dimension.

Students do not learn as much from flat characters like Tom. They should read more authors of color and experience the richly drawn characters they create. Native, black and brown characters should not simply serve as targets of white violence or lessons for white people to learn from. They should play central roles in their own stories, with a full range of emotions and personalities. They should not be subjected to what Toni Morrison has called the "white gaze." This is when people of color's lives are viewed only within white people's imagination or understanding of them.

A Deeper Understanding With New Books

We do not need and have never needed texts that incorporate racist themes. Authors of many backgrounds have been writing about their own communities as far back in time as white authors. Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" or Octavia Butler's "Kindred" could replace "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" or "To Kill a Mockingbird." If that happens, students, particularly white students, will not only be reading more challenging, realistic and layered books about the black community. They will also understand prejudice at a deeper level.

What's more, we can also teach books about people of color that celebrate joy and love, health and success. Native, black and brown stories do not always need to be about suffering. Positive stories can teach valuable lessons about social and political issues, too.

The conversation about racism in school texts must go far above and beyond a conversation about hurtful words. Students of color deserve to have the same privilege in education that white students have always had. They must have the opportunity to examine and imagine the full extent of their humanity in literature.

If people can evolve to become more accepting of others, should not our books evolve, too?