Watching a show on family legacy I heard a black woman pride herself on not reading "Huckleberry Finn". It's ironic because Twain was openly against the racist politics of the South and his story was an attempt to show the unfairness of the system. Its almost as if unless a work is by a person of color people are supposed to shun it. Yet my kids were assigned books by writers such as Allende, Chinua Achebe, Maya Angelou. Should we have our children be so shallow in their understanding that they can't see the shared humanity of "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" "Number the Stars" and "Things Fall Apart?" By doing so, parents and woke teachers are giving students of color LESS rather than MORE. Shouldn't the timeline of our history include Mark Twain along with Harriet Beecher Stowe and Phillis Wheatley? I have no problem with a diverse curriculum, but to offer it as either or is a mistake.
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