Brickbat: This Again?
('To Kill a Mockingbird')
The Peel, Ontario, school board has urged teachers not to use To Kill a Mockingbird in their classrooms. A directive sent to teachers notes the n-word appears 19 times in the book. And in a sign that board members possibly haven't actually read the book and certainly didn't understand it if they did, the memo notes that the book's "racist themes make it violent and oppressive for black students."