South Carolina police object to high-school reading list

[Solly Mack]

A police union in South Carolina has challenged the inclusion of Angie Thomas’s multiple award-winning novel about police brutality, The Hate U Give, on a school’s summer reading list, describing it as “almost an indoctrination of distrust of police”.

The intervention from the Fraternal Order of Police Tri-County Lodge #3 came after Wando high school’s ninth-grade class was asked to read one of eight novels over the summer holidays. Two of the titles upset the police union: The Hate U Give, which follows a teenage girl after she witnesses the shooting of her unarmed best friend by a police officer, and Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely’s All American Boys, which sees a teenage boy trying to overcome his distrust of the police after he is wrongly suspected of shoplifting and then beaten by an officer.

In fact, there are eight books on the reading list, only two of which tackle police brutality. Thomas’s book was inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement, but also includes a character, the main protagonist’s uncle, who is a black police officer and positive role model. It has won prizes including the Waterstones children’s book award, while All American Boys is the recipient of the Walter Dean Myers award for outstanding children’s literature.


“I don’t actually believe that book-judging is a legitimate part of the business of policing,” wrote Neil Gaiman. “Local police union leader John Blackmon claims that they are only responding to the public reaching out to them to complain about the reading list. Because when people don’t like the books their kids are asked to read, they call the police.”

[lapfog_1]

1. The police do a fine job of causing distrust of police all on their own. - n/t

[Solly Mack]

2. Yes, they do.

[DemocracyMouse]

5. STARTING with the shooting of innocents, then RUBBING it in with amped up strobes.

I am horrified by the killings. I am disgusted by the strobe lights which are part of the early warnings that fascist theatrics are emerging to numb and weaken public resistance. The cops and their "accessories" are being glorified. One feeds the other.

SOLUTIONS:
1) No local prosecutors to white-wash police crime.
2) Citizen oversight of police forces.
3) A national reform of police culture, including studies of the over-use of (and dangerous, driver distracting) strobes, de-fanging other abusive police culture such as militaristic weaponry, loud, in-your-face signage, and lack of de-escalation training (which is oroven to work).

[Bettie]

3. Yeah, if cops don't want people to distrust them

they might try less shooting of unarmed black people.

And last I checked, cops don't get to decide reading material for schools either.

[Solly Mack]

4. Exactly.

They bring the distrust on themselves.

[pwb]

6. Cops where i live suck.

Nationally they seem to be good at showing up after the crime and harassing the survivors. But the overtime must be nice when they all hang around doing nothing. The books were banned because the truth hurts. Cops need to stop protecting their bad apples and our grand juries need to stop siding with cops that do bad things. When the bad cops get away with the lying and other shit they do, the others see it and feel they will get away with it too.

[Solly Mack]

7. The books haven't been banned - yet - per the article

For the police to even have a say is ludicrous.

[treestar]

8. Education as indoctrination is a right wing authoritarian thing

They want to do the indoctrinating.

That someone could think for themselves is out of the question. As if, simply reading Mein Kampf will make you a Nazi.

[Solly Mack]

9. They want happy stories of police helping everyone and not the reality.

Teaching the lie would actually be a form of conditioning.

[brer cat]

10. I had to read this sentence several times

before I could believe it was actually on a printed page:

"Because when people don’t like the books their kids are asked to read, they call the police.”

Really, Charleston? Who do you call if you don't like the school lunch...the FBI? Why do I think John Blackmon had to work at keeping a straight face when he said that?

[Solly Mack]

11. That was Gaiman being facetious.

[peggysue2]

12. LOL!!

Because when people don’t like the books their kids are asked to read, they call the police.


Oh, I agree. In some alternate Universe this certainly is the way books are censored. Call the police.

I wonder if the PD recognized the snark.

Probably not.

Just another example of what we're fighting against. In this case, literary critics dressed in police uniforms.

Ugh!

[Solly Mack]

13. They got their feelings hurt and now want to control how they are perceived

but they don't want to actually do anything about their behavior, which would change how they are perceived.

No - they attack books instead.

[uponit7771]

14. Well yeah, its the books !! Shooting people in the back has NOTHING to do with the distrust!!

[Solly Mack]

15. That is their take on it. The books are indoctrinating kids against them.

Books about police brutality - bad.

Police brutality - crickets