Two interesting Blogs on PC and Israel - Volokh
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[David Bernstein, 7:38 AM]
KillingTo Kill a Mockingbird: An Indianapolis High School has cancelled a production of To Kill a Mockingbird after African American parents and the NAACP protested that the play contains the "N" word. "The NAACP insisted the word 'nigger,' while used for positive effect by the writers, would be offensive to many in a mixed crowd of high school families. Goshorn, weighing audience sensitivity along with the youthfulness of the cast, asked the play's publisher for permission to edit around the word. The answer was no."
My general view on such controversies is that given the cruelty of children, and the incompetence of many teachers, it's not the worst thing in the world to avoid teaching offensive material in the classroom. Why teach The Merchant of Venice to junior high school kids, if Julius Caeser will work just as well, without spreading the anti-Semitism or making Jewish kids suffer the taunts of classmates, as often happens when Merchant is taught? Merchant can surely be taught in a sensitive way, exploring along with the literary merits of the play the history of European anti-Semitism, the scapegoating of Jews, etc., but many teachers simply aren't up to it.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a different story entirely, especially when the play is being presented at the high school level, and mainly it's adult reaction, not the reaction of the kids involved, that is of concern. While Merchant is in fact anti-Semitic (though Shylock is not entirely unsympathetic), Mockingbird is one of the great anti-racist works of alltime. I read it in eighth grade and again in ninth grade and don't remember any of my classmates having any reaction except the anti-racist reaction the author intended. If the fear is that parents wouldn't understand the underlying message and would focus on the use of the "n word," a short explanation of the underlying message of the play by the theater teacher should have solved the problem.
The cancellation was especially unfortunate because the high school actors had already rehearsed for several weeks. The message that is being sent to these kids is that hypersensitive individuals can stifle even productive, progressive exploration of racial issues because of fear and ignorance. Unfortunately, it's a lesson that they are likely to relearn when they go to our p.c. universities, and when they encounter what passes for racial and sexual harassment law in their future workplaces.
[David Bernstein, 7:14 AM]
More on Palestinian Ignorance of Israel: A reader writes:
I spent a week in Israel ... with a group of editorial writers. There is no shortage of people eager to talk with a busload of American editorial writers, as you can imagine. We had a meeting with Arafat, no less, and with a number of mid-level PA officials, governors and mayors and the like. Not Arafat or his immediate circle, but just about everybody else we met lower down, was staggeringly ignorant. They knew almost nothing about Israel, completely mischaracterized its reasons for acting as it did and for all you could tell, might never have spoken to an Israeli in their lives.
They'd tell us things like, "We are suffering under the cruelest occupation in history" or "Israel is using all its military power against us" neither of which is true even now, when things are much worse than they were then.
I dunno, maybe it sounds better in Arabic and it is just a manner of speaking, but even so not having the cultural knowledge to realize that they are discredting themselves with people who do not speak in that manner is another kind of ignorance.
And these were people of some prominence, one would hope better informed that the average Palestinian.
But just about every Israeli we met, Jewish or Arab, from Simon Peres down to the hotel clerks, was eager to talk politics and could lay out quite accurately for you the central claims of the Palestinian arguments even when they strongly disagreed with them.
The PLO strategy to keep the Palestinian people poor and ignorant so they would be easy to manipulate has succeeded brilliantly, with catastrophic effects.
To make matters worse, Israel since Oslo has pursued a top-down strategy, hoping peace with the Palestinians can be imposed by PA leaders from above. Meanwhile, Israel has completely ignored the Palestinian public. From what I read, I gather that many, perhaps most, Palestinians see Israel's nascent security wall, roadblocks, and other harsh security measures purely as collective punishment, having no real concept that Israel is reacting as best it can to suicide murders. It could not possibly be do anything but good, for Israel to occasionally use its helicopters and F-16s to drop Arabic leaflets on Palestinian cities explaining the Israeli position, and noting that the Palestinian public was much better off in every way before the Second Intifada began. Sample proposed title of leaflet: Want an end to the roadblocks? Stop suicide murders.
An Arabic-language radio station targeted at the Palestinians, especially young Palestinians attracted (or who would be attracted if they knew about it) to Israel's thriving youth culture, would help as well.
Are any Palestinians willing to listen? There seem to be plenty of Palestinians willing to "collaborate" with Israel, which is how Israel is able to target top Hamas and Jihad officials. I'm sure many of them have venal motives, but I suspect that at least part of the motivation for some informers is abhorrence of these groups, including fear and loathing of a potential Islamic theocracy. And enough Palestinians had contact with Israel through employment and other things to recognize the truth of much of what Israel would have to say.
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