Chris’s answer to “Does anyone like that the author wrote the railroad as a physical, operating one? I felt it unnece…” > Likes and Comments
9 likes · Like
If high school students are using novels to learn about history, we have a bigger problem. Besides, I think this book does a brilliant job illustrating what life was like for a slave in the antebellum South.
If this is the only book read by a high school or college kid about this topic that is a really sad indictment of the state of education, not a valid critique of the metaphoric treatment of the topic by Colton Whitehead. This book is not for the History classroom.
Why should books written about the horrors of Black history in the way that the author chooses have to be written with some white high school kid in mind who doesn’t bother to even use wikipedia to figure out what the Underground Railroad is? Yess such entitlement to have whitewashed history and then to add criticism and boundaries in the creative expression of a Black author because the white kid won’t get it is really absurd to me. I do give more value to the opinions of people wondering how much it added to the story or not or what he was accomplishing but really shaking my head at this particular point.
back to top
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Catherine
(new)
Feb 19, 2018 04:41AM
If high school students are using novels to learn about history, we have a bigger problem. Besides, I think this book does a brilliant job illustrating what life was like for a slave in the antebellum South.
reply
|
flag
If this is the only book read by a high school or college kid about this topic that is a really sad indictment of the state of education, not a valid critique of the metaphoric treatment of the topic by Colton Whitehead. This book is not for the History classroom.
Why should books written about the horrors of Black history in the way that the author chooses have to be written with some white high school kid in mind who doesn’t bother to even use wikipedia to figure out what the Underground Railroad is? Yess such entitlement to have whitewashed history and then to add criticism and boundaries in the creative expression of a Black author because the white kid won’t get it is really absurd to me. I do give more value to the opinions of people wondering how much it added to the story or not or what he was accomplishing but really shaking my head at this particular point.
