Tudamorf
05-02-2007, 06:21 PM
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/05/02/BAGHPPJ8IE1.DTLFive weeks after his book "Kaffir Boy" was abruptly removed from eighth-grade classrooms in Burlingame, author Mark Mathabane visited the students on Tuesday to talk about hard choices of all kinds.
"When you fight for your rights, you are exercising democracy," he told a packed audience of Burlingame Intermediate School students, many of whom had spoken out against the ban imposed by district Superintendent Sonny Da Marto.
"You know, the freedom we should jealously guard is the freedom of our conscience. If that's taken away, that's the worst kind of bondage. So I applaud you."
An award-winning memoir of growing up under South African apartheid during the 1960s and '70s, "Kaffir Boy" has been the subject of debate in classrooms across the country since its publication in 1986; it is as graphic about life under sanctioned racism as it is poignant.
Complaints usually focus on Page 72, a description of men preparing to sodomize young boys so hungry they agree to sell themselves for food.
A Burlingame parent complained on March 27, and Da Marto stopped 116 eighth-graders in four English classes from finishing the book. The action led parents and teachers in the small community to debate the appropriateness not only of Page 72, but of banning a book with no public discussion. Principal Ted Barone responded by inviting the author, who lives in Oregon with his family, to speak to the students.
As a hedge against the wave of bannings, mainly in the religious South, Mathabane authorized an abridgement. The Burlingame students are now reading that edition. It's not Mathabane's preferred version, unless a school chooses to use it after an open discussion of the issues. "When there's a controversy, all sides must be heard," he said.
As Mathabane explained to the students, "Kaffir Boy" is about the life-changing choices that everyone faces, whether they are growing up under apartheid, are world leaders, or are 13-year-olds living a privileged existence in Burlingame.
Page 72 tells of that kind of choice, he said. As a child, Mathabane accompanies the gang of starving 5- to 7-year-old boys to meet the men who will abuse them. He sees what is about to happen -- and runs away. His well-fed companions later calls him a fool. "I was a fool all right," he recalls in the book. "But I was a fool of my own free will."
The abridgement removes or rephrases three sentences, two phrases and one word. Gone are the words "anuses," "penises," "Vaseline" and "hell." The phrase "position himself behind a boy who had his anus in the air" is replaced with "put his hands on one of the boys." The word "hell" is replaced with an ellipsis.
Mathabane said the scene shows that it is possible to make the right choice even in the face of peer pressure -- and hunger.
Superintendent Da Marto didn't see it that way. "I'm very concerned about the morals of our society and that children who don't have support are not prepared emotionally to read it," he said at an April 10 school board meeting.How does recounting a (let's assume accurate) description of oppression hurt "the morals of our society"?
After all, the priests of those religious zealots who want to censor this stuff do the same thing to little boys.
Let them read the book and draw their own judgments (moral and otherwise).
"When you fight for your rights, you are exercising democracy," he told a packed audience of Burlingame Intermediate School students, many of whom had spoken out against the ban imposed by district Superintendent Sonny Da Marto.
"You know, the freedom we should jealously guard is the freedom of our conscience. If that's taken away, that's the worst kind of bondage. So I applaud you."
An award-winning memoir of growing up under South African apartheid during the 1960s and '70s, "Kaffir Boy" has been the subject of debate in classrooms across the country since its publication in 1986; it is as graphic about life under sanctioned racism as it is poignant.
Complaints usually focus on Page 72, a description of men preparing to sodomize young boys so hungry they agree to sell themselves for food.
A Burlingame parent complained on March 27, and Da Marto stopped 116 eighth-graders in four English classes from finishing the book. The action led parents and teachers in the small community to debate the appropriateness not only of Page 72, but of banning a book with no public discussion. Principal Ted Barone responded by inviting the author, who lives in Oregon with his family, to speak to the students.
As a hedge against the wave of bannings, mainly in the religious South, Mathabane authorized an abridgement. The Burlingame students are now reading that edition. It's not Mathabane's preferred version, unless a school chooses to use it after an open discussion of the issues. "When there's a controversy, all sides must be heard," he said.
As Mathabane explained to the students, "Kaffir Boy" is about the life-changing choices that everyone faces, whether they are growing up under apartheid, are world leaders, or are 13-year-olds living a privileged existence in Burlingame.
Page 72 tells of that kind of choice, he said. As a child, Mathabane accompanies the gang of starving 5- to 7-year-old boys to meet the men who will abuse them. He sees what is about to happen -- and runs away. His well-fed companions later calls him a fool. "I was a fool all right," he recalls in the book. "But I was a fool of my own free will."
The abridgement removes or rephrases three sentences, two phrases and one word. Gone are the words "anuses," "penises," "Vaseline" and "hell." The phrase "position himself behind a boy who had his anus in the air" is replaced with "put his hands on one of the boys." The word "hell" is replaced with an ellipsis.
Mathabane said the scene shows that it is possible to make the right choice even in the face of peer pressure -- and hunger.
Superintendent Da Marto didn't see it that way. "I'm very concerned about the morals of our society and that children who don't have support are not prepared emotionally to read it," he said at an April 10 school board meeting.How does recounting a (let's assume accurate) description of oppression hurt "the morals of our society"?
After all, the priests of those religious zealots who want to censor this stuff do the same thing to little boys.
Let them read the book and draw their own judgments (moral and otherwise).