CC Answers the Censors

WHAT WILL YOU FIND HERE?


POSTED (chronological order)

RESPONSE -- Mt. Sterling, Kentucky challenge to DEADLINE
RESPONSE -- Camden, Delaware Challenge to WHALE TALK
Coversations an Old Man: In Five Rounds
RESPONSE -- UNKNOWN LOCATION Challenge to THE SLEDDING HILL
RESPONSE -- Iowa Challenge to WHALE TALK
Essay -- Crutcher's Thoughts on Censorship
Typical Private Email from a Censor
Crutcher Response to Censor Email
RESPONSE -- Iowa Challenge to ATHLETIC SHORTS
RESPONSE -- New York Challenge to SARAH BYRNES
RESPONSE -- South Carolina Challenge to WHALE TALK
RESPONSE -- Alabama Challenge to WHALE TALK
RESPONSE -- Rev. Heimbaugh Challenge to WHALE TALK
RESPONSE - Kansas Challenge to STOTAN
RESPONSE -- Michigan Challenge to ATHLETIC SHORTS

 

 
DEADLINE CHALLENGED IN KENTUCKY
Fall 2009

Dr. Daniel Freeman insisted in his October 2009 letter to the Advocate newspaper that he had no desire to "ban" books, as you'll read below.  Following Dr. Freeman's remarks, Chris Crutcher will explain why he disagrees (as featured in the Advocate in November 2009).

Dr. Freeman's Letter

“Clarifying book issue”

This letter is written as a follow-up/clarification of the one that was submitted previously by a number of distinguished Montgomery County High School graduates regarding “banned” books.

I am very pleased to learn how successful these individuals have become, and especially to know that they are keeping close ties with their hometown.

I am an avid reader and I certainly promote and encourage reading by children and adults of all ages. I agree, also, that people should have an opportunity to choose what they read. However, as a school system providing services to students ages 18 and under, I believe that we have some responsibility to our students and their parents, both from an academic and a content standpoint, as it relates to school-based reading materials.

That being said, I want to clarify that no books have been banned in the school system.  There was parent concern expressed about some books that were included on a college prep English reading list. My instructions were that reading materials used in English classes (or other classes) were to be from recognized approved lists and include content that is deemed necessary and appropriate for preparing our students to advance to and excel in college. The school system has a very limited timeframe to deliver essential English curriculum.

We must be extremely focused when selecting resources to achieve the most effective results, particularly at the high school level where achievement (according to state testing) has significantly dropped in the past two years.

In my estimation, for example, the book Lessons from a Dead Girl by Jo Knowles, which among other issues, depicts sexual activities between two eighth grade girls, has not been included on any relevant lists for college preparation, and while there may be adolescents who choose to read it on a personal level, it does not appear to be academically appropriate for the college prep English curriculum.

This content does not appear to me to be necessary to excel on the college board exams or at the university. I have indicated to the staff that any material they believe should be included on the district reading lists for the appropriate subject will be considered if they can demonstrate why it is appropriate and how it relates to the curriculum.

I also cautioned them against presenting bias to their students on the book selection issue (thus the confusion over national banned book week). I will repeat, however, that no books have been banned.

Even though a book may not appear on an approved reading list for a class, an individual still has the option of choosing it through the school media center or the book club to read on his or her own.

Thank you, again, to those that have expressed an interest in this issue. Community involvement and input is important and appreciated.

Daniel Freeman

Ed. D., Superintendent

Montgomery County Schools

Chris Crutcher's Response

I’ve followed the censorship controversy at MCHS with interest because I was informed that it started with my book Deadline.  Having read how your students and alumni responded, I’m aware they’ve said most of what I have to say better than I could.  They clearly understand the value of bringing diverse ideas and points of view into their education.  Were they my children, I’d be proud.


I have also read Superintendent Freeman’s letter to the editor and care to address that.  (As a foot soldier in the battle for intellectual freedom in this country, the irony of his surname is not lost on me.) 

His statement “No books have been banned” and his reasoning for taking the actions he’s taken seem disingenuous to me, because his wording is chillingly similar to the wording of the folks from PABBIS (Parents Against Bad Books In Schools) and other conservative groups who seem to believe that if we all worked together we could control what kids think. 

The “I have to get our students ready for college,” statement also seems ill-thought-out in the light of the brilliantly articulate letter from alumni who have been there recently.  Tell recent graduates of Virginia Tech that issues of grief and loss and loneliness – issues addressed in a number of these books - aren’t important in their literature.  Tell any number of students headed off for college that the who-am-I and-what-is-important issues also addressed in these books, aren’t critical to their success in college and beyond.  And what about any school’s obligation to those students who aren’t going on to college?  One goal of any English or reading teacher is to create lifelong readers, a seemingly dying species.  That doesn’t happen when students aren’t given stories to which they can relate.  We’re not ruling out the “classics” (yes sir, you dare say it); these books are in addition to the classics.

So no books have been banned, but none of these books is available until a resolution is reached.  Were I a member of your community I would loudly protest a policy that removes a book at the point that it is challenged.  That allows would-be censors to disrupt your educational process for several weeks any time they disapprove of a book, even if they eventually loose the challenge.  It smacks of guilty until proven innocent.

As administrators, teachers, librarians or child and adolescent counselors, our clients are kids; not parents, not churches, not other community groups.  Those may be worthy of consideration in our decision making, but if we take our eyes off the students, we take our eyes off our mission.

One last consideration.  I have often seen intimidation tactics directed toward teachers from administration or from community groups in situations such as this.  Public school teachers have chosen a career that is long on hours and short on pay, and sometimes short on appreciation.  I would hope that you as citizens would support whoever might come under fire here.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Crutcher

 

WHALE TALK CHALLENGE, APRIL 2009

To the students, teachers, administrators, school board members and citizens of Camden, Delaware:

           

            It has been brought to my attention that my book Whale Talk has come under challenge at Caesar Rodney High School in your community.  As you might imagine this book has been challenged in other communities, and the outcomes have varied.  Because I have been contacted regarding the challenge, I feel an obligation to tell you why I wrote the book and answer as many questions as I can that generally come up.  I also feel the need to say I have no personal stake in your final decision.  A book censored in a particular high school or school district doesn’t have much effect on the author; nothing like what it has on the teachers and librarians, professionals all, who have chosen that book for reasons particular to their perceptions of the students in their charge, and certainly nothing like what it has on the students.

 

I certainly support any parent who, for whatever reason, wants a say in what his or her own children are exposed to.  Alone in my office, in my capacity as a therapist I might have some different perspectives on that for the parent but from a philosophical standpoint, I stand behind it, and am grateful for any parent who cares enough to participate in his or her child’s education, even if we disagree on the best ways to do that.

 

I have read the specifics of the challenge; let me address those issues:

“All (choice) books contained profane language but “Whale Talk” by Chris Crutcher contains over 140 profane words including the use of the “F” word 17 times.  There is sexual content, drug use, suicide, violence, references to smoking.  Chris Crutcher’s material is famous for his use of profane language in his books geared toward teens.” 

Actually if you were to talk with teachers at the National Council for Teachers of English or the librarians at the American Library Association they would tell you that Chris Crutcher is famous for writing books that people who don’t often read, and particularly boys, will read.  Chris Crutcher is famous mostly among conservative Christians for his use of profane language.  It’s been a while since I’ve read the book but I’ll stipulate to the complainant’s list.  About all I can say is those are issues that young people face today, and yes, I do write about them.

 

“The more a teen hears/reads profanity the more comfortable they become with profanity, therefore, making the profane works a “norm” and okay to use because teens do not have the “impulse control” that adults have.”

 

You know, that sounds good, but it’s way too sweeping a statement to be true from a developmental standpoint.  There are all kinds of teenagers who choose not to curse, though they hear it in the halls of their schools every day.  They make a decision for themselves about whether or not to use that language.   They also make decisions about their behavior, which is considerably more important in my view.  And you know what else?  A lot of them who decide to go ahead and use profanity, for whatever reasons, then grow up to be doctors and lawyers and sociologists and business people and philanthropists and preachers.  And authors.

 “How can you tell a teen not to use profanity – then give him/her required reading that is full of profanity?” 

This one is easy.   You hand out copies of the book and say, “Okay, listen you guys, this book contains language that I can’t, because of school and community policy, allow used in the classroom.  The language is reflective of the characters’ lives and the desperate conditions in which they learn to survive.  And it is also reflective of language used by you, and many times by us, in the safety of our peer groups.  We don’t have to use the language to talk about that desperation, or our responses to it.  I don’t want you to get in trouble and I don’t want me to get in trouble, so let’s keep the class dialogue within the guidelines of the rules.  Okay?”

 

I can’t imagine not getting an “Okay” in return.

 

“Profanity used in the classroom by the teacher or the students can create a poor learning environment for some students.  Not everyone wants to hear, let alone read, profanity.  In addition Christianity is mocked several times and the names of Jesus and God are profaned over a dozen times.”

 

There is no requirement that teachers or students use profanity after they have read this book, or in the process of discussing this book.  Any good teacher lays out the parameters of what is acceptable or not acceptable in his or her classroom.  And while I agree that not everyone wants to hear profanity, it is true also that not everyone wants to hear righteousness and condemnation of the expression of hard lives.  No one dies when a character, out of consternation or irritation says, “Jesus” or “Jesus Christ.”  It may irritate some focused Christians, but those same Christians are unlikely, in my experience, to complain if the leaders or icons of some other religion’s names are taken in vain. 

 

“Under the guise of literature students are being taught that there is a double standard which could create a lack of respect towards authority and rules.”

 

I don’t know what this means.  I don’t know what the double standard is or what any of this has to do with the creation of respect of the lack thereof.   Respect doesn’t happen when we dictate to kids that we require it.  Respect comes back to us when we give it; when we let kids know we are working to understand their perspectives.  

 (I do not perceive any instructional value in the use of this item) “unless it is edited without profanity.” 

The complainant is saying there may be useful information here – indeed instructional information – if only we would take out the cussing.  Hmmmm.  I guess I think that speaks for itself.

 A five year old girl twenty some odd years ago, found her way into my heart because she endured the slings and arrows of a viciously racist step-father and came out still standing.  She is the prototype of the girl who uses many of the “profanities” the complainant objects to in Whale Talk.  If you saw her when I saw her: if you knew her when I knew her, she would break your heart, and her story would make you soar.  Her depiction in my book is reflective of that.  Many of the remaining  “profanities” come from the representation of that vicious step-dad.  I included them in the story to let readers know the truth of what I saw on a daily basis.   Yeah, the kids talk like kids talk.  I’m sure there are also “F” bombs that I, as the author, see as natural.  If you don’t already know, go ask the kids if they talk like that. 

 

In the final chapter of Whale Talk, before the epilogue, the adoptive father of the main character steps in front of a bullet to stop the killing of the above mentioned little girl.  In that single act he finds redemption for some of the horrors he believes he has created in his own life.  His dying words are “You’re going to… have to… forgive him, T.J…. He didn’t had no idea… what he was doing…”  the present day equivalent of “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  I wonder why conservative Christians who consistently want this book removed, don’t embrace that.  It was written intentionally.

 

It amazes me sometimes when censors forget that the teachers their schools have hired are professionals; men and women who have trained at colleges and universities, who have read hundreds, sometimes thousands of books before selecting those they believe fit the populations they teach; men and women who study not only the content areas in which they will teach, but the students to whom they will teach them.  It also amazes me when I see individuals or members of groups with agendas making broad claims about teenagers and about adolescent development that they can’t back up and that don’t jibe with developmental research.  I have to be amused when someone goes to the trouble of counting  words that offend them in a story; as if I’m allowed x number of “F” bombs, but not y number of “F” bombs. 

 

We don’t have to use the language of our teenagers to show them the respect of knowing what that language is and that we are aware of the difficulties of some of their lives. 

 

One statement made in the challenge indicates that some students may be made uncomfortable in an environment in which realistic issues and realistic language are addressed.  I’m not sure education is always supposed to be comfortable.  Life certainly isn’t. 

 

My father was a World War II B-17 pilot who when he was the same age as I was when I graduated college, had flown 35 bombing missions over Germany; eleven before he came back with all his engines.  He was a patriot and a vocal “conservative.”  If you were to run as a “conservative” in our county for any office from Dog Catcher to President of the United States, my dad was your county campaign guy.  He was also on the school board during all my, and my sibling’s, years in public school, and he’d have run a nail through his eye before allowing a book to be censored.  He was a consummate believer in the Constitution he thought he went to war to defend.  He believed the idea of “separation of church and state,” was a concept conceived to protect the church and the state.  My father’s and my politics were very different, but we certainly agreed on that point.

 

If you’ve read this far, I commend you.  I can ramble.  Let me wrap it up by saying thank you for including my words in your discussion.  I realize the issues that confront educators can get complex when religious or political beliefs have to be considered, but in the end, those beliefs aren’t what educate us.  Curiosity educates us. 

 

If there are many students like Michael Watson, whose thoughts on this issue I have read, then the controversy itself has been educational.  He actually says it all far better than I.

 

Thank you for your time and attention.

 

Chris Crutcher

   
 
Conversations of a Deranged Old Man: In Five Rounds

Why the BIG OLD OBAMA BUTTON on the homepage?  Read on… 

ROUND ONE 

From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/14/2008 9:31:08 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: re: info hello,

I just read a great article about you and your books in our local paper (Knoxville News Sentinel). It peaked my interest enough to google you and find your website. ( I have a 12 year old son and a 14 year old daughter)
I didn't read any further than the first line.
Please do not tell me, or anyone else for that matter, who to vote for. Everyone needs to make their own decision, for their own reasons.  No one should vote for a candidate just because someone tells them to. This is important for everyone, but especially the young adults who are voting for the very first time.
I went on your web site to get informatin about your books, not discover your political opinion.
respectfully,
heidy cusick 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/14/2008 3:31:10 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

Heidy, Last time I looked we lived in a free country where freedom of expression is not only allowed, but encouraged.  Vote for Obama! isn't a demand; it's an advertisement.  It states who I want a majority of people to vote for.  I even have one on my lawn.  And guess what.  Not one of my neighbors, who are almost all McCain supporters, told me not to tell them who to vote for.  I guess they were comfortable knowing they could make up their own minds.  Why do I have the feeling that if I'd had the right name up there, you wouldn't have said a word?  I'm sorry to hear (or read) that instead of swallowing the fact that I have a political opinion and reading on to discover whatever it was you were interested in from reading the newspaper article, you jumped off the site.  But that's part of YOUR first amendment rights and I applaud you for exercising them.    Chris Crutcher  

ROUND ONE PS 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/14/2008 4:10:44 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info

AND I'm assuming you're aware the voting age in the United States is 18, so if a young person, say 12 or 14, were to fall under the mesmerizing effect of my half-inch high Vote For Obama, they couldn't actually do it. 

ROUND TWO

In a message dated 10/15/2008 4:39:16 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it writes: 

I am a Obama supporter, but not one of you or your books and will spread the word... 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 7:52:14 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

Feel free.  You haven't read my books, so you don't know that.  You are just one more angry person that wants things your way.  I hope you get them.  CC 

ROUND THREE 

In a message dated 10/15/2008 4:40:40 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it writes: 

AND you are a complete idiot....
I am on a crusade to spread the word about your rudeness and disrespect.
I certainly DO NOT want someone like you around my 12 and 14 year old. 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 7:55:58 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

My rudeness and disrespect is only in response to yours.  What an arrogant and self-centered thing to do: visit my web site and tell me what YOU think should or shouldn't be on it.  All you had to do was read click off.  I happen to believe in the American voting system, and the right of every person to say what they believe in.  Any person can go on there and simply say they don't agree.  Go back and read your original letter and then come back and tell me how disrespectful I am.  CC 

ROUND FOUR 

From: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 9:58:44 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

I went on your web site to learn about your books. You posting your political opinion is using BAD JUDGEMENT and UNPROFESSIONAL. That's what your yard sign is for. I don't go listen to a singer I enjoy because of their singing and expect to hear their political views. I DON'T CARE. That is not why I would be there and that is not why I visited your site.
I was not disrespectful in my original email, however you sound like a deranged old man in all of yours. Getting extremely defensive, why so sensitive Chris?  You sound as if you have a screw lose...go medicate.
BOTTOM LINE: whom ever you are behind, it should not be advertised on your web site for your books. I AM RIGHT - YOU ARE WRONG.
please DO NOT contact me again, I have better things to do than "talk" to an idiot as you.

oh, and about Obama, I lied. 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 11:28:22 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info

Believe me, I knew when you said it that you were lying about Obama.  And it probably wouldn't be a good idea for you to go to my web site again because I have published our correspondence word for word.  I want to make sure that people know what a deranged old man I am and how RIGHT you are and how WRONG I am.  It's MY web site, you idiot.  And you also lied about why you went there in the first place.  Chris Crutcher 

ROUND FIVE  

In a message dated 10/15/2008 11:46:24 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it writes:

YOU just don't get it. My kids love to read and I am always looking for new books/authors for them to experience. THAT IS WHY I went to your web site. I have not said one word your political views. They are yours, I just don't care to know them, I wanted to know about your BOOKS.
and I don't have a sign in my yard. Just grass, tree's flowers and kids playing...
Not certain who I will vote for yet, there is not one good candidate, but I must choose , because it is the American way...and my right and my duty. 

From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 11:54:03 A.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info If you wanted to know about my books you would have gone to look at my books.  I've read enough of your ranting to know you aren't going to be intimidated by the word Obama if you really wanted to know about my books.  But it's a lot of fun watching you try to make a case for something you can't make a case for. 
  

THE END?  We'll see. 

ROUND SIX

 In a message dated 10/15/2008 12:11:05 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it writes: 

why are you so righteous? Why can't you just believe I am a mom looking for new books for her kids, because that is exactly who I am.
no conspiracies or ulterior motives...sorry to disappoint you

 From: Stotan717
To: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
Sent: 10/15/2008 12:28:09 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time
Subj: Re: info 

Look Heidy, there's no disappointment.  I don't care enough to be disappointed.  I don't believe you're simply a mom looking for new books for your kids for the reason I just gave you: because you saw a small vote for Obama! sign and decided it was more important to tell me what you didn't want to see on my web site than it was to go find out about the books.  I don't care whether or not you give my books to your kids.  There are plenty of great authors out there who aren't "deranged old men" to keep your kids reading good literature well into adulthood.  But if you want to criticize me for what I put on my web site, don't expect that I won't respond.  I don't accept your basic premises.  You say I'm defensive when I don't feel defensive at all.  That's your term.  You call me righteous when I don't feel righteous at all.  That's your term.  You become derisive and call me deranged.  Many of my friends might agree with you on that, but, again, it's your term.  There are all kinds of personal things on my web site; things that I believe in and things that inform my stories.  You seem to think you have the right to go there and criticize my choices of what to post.  And YOU DO!  And I have the right to answer you.  I knew you weren't telling the truth about being an Obama supporter when I read it, but I gave you the benefit of the doubt.  I don't care whom you support.  That's your business.  But when the entire agenda for your first email was to tell me I'm not supposed to put personal things  - and my political view was the personal thing you chose - I knew there was more of an agenda.  Whether I'm deranged or not, it can't be any other way.  I'm not interested in whether or not you put political signs in your yard, I'm interested in whether you go up to the houses of those who do, and tell them you don't think they should be telling you or your kids how to vote.  I mean, their signs are on personal property, but they're visible from the street, which is public property; just as my sign was on my personal web site, visible to you if you choose to pass by.   I make a case and you call me a name: righteous, defensive, deranged. 

And I admit, I called you an idiot, for which I apologize.  I got carried away by feeling so incredulous.  CC  
 

September 28, 2008

Earlier this week, I got a letter from Mark Rogers, geographic location undisclosed.  In honor of BANNED BOOKS WEEK, I thought I'd post my response here.     CC


Dear Mark Rogers,.

I received your email containing the threat to get all my books banned from your son's school.  You must be a very influential and powerful citizen.  I couldn't keep all your issues in mind at one time, so I've answered you in point by point. 

Are you right on the mark or Mark on the Right?

Chris Crutcher. My 12 year old son checked out "Deadline" this week at his middle school library. It was recommended to him by a friend who said it was "cool". After reading some I was appalled that this was allowed to be at the school. I am in the process to have this and your other books removed from the school. You can call it "censorship" or you can call it "filtering". Am I endangering my son or just forcing him to be more selective in his choice of books. I am upset that my school librarian thought that she had the last say on what was appropriate for my son. I am more concerned that you think that you are helping youth by talking so blatantly about social concerns in a way that is defiant, foul and very perverse.

I'm guessing your son's librarian didn't think she had the last say on what was appropriate for your son.  I'm guessing she wanted to have a wide selection of books so that all kids could find something they might like to read.  I'm guessing your son isn't the only kid in his school.  You might want to check out why your son's friend thought the book was "cool."  And you might want to check into your own belief system which seems to include taking the book away from your son's friend as well from him.  And if I were in your shoes I'd be way more interested in what my son thought after he read the book (or chose not to) and in having a conversation with him about it so I could tell him my objections.  You ask if you're endangering your son or just forcing him to be more selective in his choice of books.  It sounds to me as if in your world he doesn't have a choice of books.  You have a choice of his books.  I mean, that's the point, right?   And by the way, Mark, you don't know what I think I am doing.  Truth is, I could flood your inbox with emails from kids and adults alike who love the book and believe it gave them a different, better, perspective on their lives.  I'd be glad to do that, if you'd like. 

In researching your background it seams that this challenge is not new to you, something that you are proud of as well. I quote, "I've been on the top 10 most-banned books list three years in a row, And I say that with a note of pride." What are your real intentions here Mr. Crutcher, to help a really messed up generation of young people or to see how many reactions you can get out of the conservative, church going, up standing, moral people of America.  You use your "art" as a sounding board for your political and social views. It does not set a good and moral standard, nor does it up lift or inspire. I think you have a twisted agenda when you can say that your intentions are to "relate to young people" by using foul language and talking about having sex or being a homosexual or a racist parent, Well I say not in my back yard Mr. Crutcher. You do not have permission or the right to help my child.

Actually, you may be happy to know we have a point of agreement.  I totally agree that you have the right to tell your twelve-year-old child what he can read and what he can think.  You have every right to take the book away from him after he's checked it out and you've read it.  The two of you can work that out in therapy when he's fifteen.  But the school isn't your back yard, Mark.  It's every student's and every parent's back yard.  And it's my back yard, Mark.  It has a library.  I didn't read anywhere in your email that you're an expert in education.  The teachers there are; as is the librarian.  They spent years and money on that specific education. 

You quoted me correctly regarding the banned books list.  Do you know why I say that "with a note of pride?"  Because if you look at banned books lists year after year, they are filled with some of the best literature of our time.  There are normally at least two Pulitzer Prize winning works of fiction on that list.  Names like Twain, Vonnegut, Angelou, Cormier, Walker, Blume and Shakespeare are on that list.  The "note of pride," for me is to be mentioned in the same breath as the masters, though I in no way consider myself a master. 

Look, if I were to spend my time seeing how many reactions I can get out of "conservative, church-going, upstanding, moral people of America," my job would be too easy.  What a narcissistic, arrogant thing for you to say.  I'm interested in where you get the right (other than that you live in America and you can say any ill-thought-out thing you want to say) to call your Christian perspective the only moral perspective.  I know a lot of Christians who are embarrassed by your claim to represent them.  They believe people need to make choices to grow; they believe Christ thought the same thing, and Mark, they are every bit as moral as you.  Beyond that, one doesn't have to be Christian to be moral.  One has to be moral to be moral.  I challenge you to find anything on my web site or in anything I've said in public that even remotely approaches your charge that I "relate to young people by using foul language and talking about having sex or being homosexual or a racist parent."  I've certainly written about gays and I've certainly written about racists.  And I've certainly used realistic language.  Those things exist in our culture and I write about them.  Sue me. 

It is a shame that my tax dollars went to buy your attempt to spread your liberal minded views to the most impressionable. You hide behind this notion that if we don't let our children be "free thinkers" and tolerate any form of social defiance that they will somehow lose respect for, or lose the trust to communicate freely with us parents. I will say that trust and respect comes from children seeing adults acting like adults and not children. Standing for what is right and living it in front of them. You do not have to talk like them or dress like them, or heaven forbid act like them to earn the right to say what is socially right and wrong, because that is the real issue here isn't it Mr. Crutcher. It is not yours or anybody else's place to say what is socially or politically acceptable to my son, that is MY place. If I say homosexual relations are not socially acceptable and is wrong that is what I have a right to as a parent. The school, political parties, or authors cannot take that right from me. The same goes for foul language, disrespecting adults, sexual relations, rape, murder, assaulting old ladies, you get my drift.

Boy, do I ever get your drift.  However it's no bigger a shame that some of your tax dollars go for things you don't agree with than it is that some of mine go to cover the truth that your group is tax exempt.  Hey, welcome to America.  The difference between us in that regard is that I am more than willing to pay taxes for things I don't agree with because I understand that in a free country, the fact that everyone has a point of view is celebrated.  Your simple assertion that you know what is "right" because you have a belief system is just that: simple.  I find it interesting that you have something against letting children be "free thinkers," as if anyone could stop that.  It's behavior that we need to pay attention to, Mark, not thinking.  I won't take the time here to address the last truly powerful dude on the world stage who was against "free thinking."  I agree it is not for anyone else to say what is socially or politically acceptable to your son, as much as it isn't your place to say that for other people's kids.  I'm totally willing to let you try to control what your son sees and hears and thinks; as I said earlier, the two of you can work that out in therapy when he's older, or he can work it out for himself if you're unwilling to engage him should he discover the world to be different from what you described.  And you're correct, you do have the right to teach your son to be intolerant of a group of people who make up approximately ten percent of the population of the world – I wonder how God let that slip by – and who feel they have the right to express their love and regard for each other the same way you do, and have that love and regard be accepted by the free society in which they live.  A shorter way to put that is, you have the right to teach your son to be a bigot.  By the way, I don't "talk like them" or "dress like them."   My jeans are out of date and most teenagers wouldn't be caught dead in my choice of shirts.  I rarely call anyone "dude" or "bro" in my day to day conversations, the above reference to Adolph Hitler notwithstanding.

I am sure you do not agree with me and think I am an over protective parent with a hidden agenda of his own, well you would be half correct, there is not a Protect the Rights of Parents Organization that I am aware of, so I have to protect him from free thinkers like you who do not think there is a difference in right and wrong only the perspective in which we approach right and wrong. Again I quote "My point is that good and bad, or good and evil, are relative terms, and they are also terms of perspective?"

Believe me, I don't think your agenda is hidden, and I don't know whether you're an overprotective parent or not.  That too is a relative term.  I also didn't say there is no difference between right and wrong.  I said they are relative terms, and also terms of perspective. 

This E-mail will be sent to the local media and to other outlets to expose as many people as possible for your lack of respect and contempt for the parent and anybody else that does not see it "your way" .

Mark Rogers

I'm sure they'll be happy to get it.  And I'm sure they'll jump right on your bandwagon to expose my lack of respect and contempt for etc. etc. etc.  I can't have contempt for you, Mark.  I don't know you.  I'm betting if I did I'd see a guy who has a lot of concern and regard for his son, and I'll bet his son feels loved.  As an advocate of child protection for more than twenty five years and as an educator for ten years prior, I can have nothing but respect for that.  What I have contempt for is your simple notion that you have the answers for everyone.  I know kids who are crushed by your kind of inflexibility.  I'm bewildered by any group that calls itself moral at the same time it cares less about how children feel than about how that group thinks.  I am bewildered at the idea that for a free people to be truly free, they have to allow a small group of control freaks to control thought.  I'm flummoxed by any group of people who mask their fear with righteousness. 

You're not an educator, Mark.  You're not a child developmentalist.  You're a guy with concern for your kid.  So be concerned.  Restrict him from whatever books and video games and television programs and movies you want to.  Show him what you believe to be right and wrong.  Lead by example.  I don't have any right to stop you from doing that and I wouldn't try.  But I will continue to write stories that reflect what I see, whether people like you choose to make personal attacks or not.  In my view I have an obligation to the people who do believe they get something from my books, to continue to write, whether you want to take poorly-thought-out shots at me or not. 

Believe me I had second thoughts about even responding to your email.  Cooler heads on my side of this debate often say we need to find common ground to talk this censorship issue out, and there are times I attempt to do that.  But as I said, your agenda isn't hidden and your heels are dug in as deeply as are mine.   My father used to tell me that when a fool and a wise man argue, it's hard for those on the outside to tell which is which.  But hey, Mark, there's your lesson in perspective, because I'll bet each of us has a different idea of who the wise man is. 


Chris Crutcher

 

6 March 2007

 

To the Citizens of Missouri Valley, Iowa

 

Hello.  My name is Chris Crutcher.  You may have heard of me.  My book Whale Talk and the teacher using it in his classroom have recently come under fire from Pastor Slaughter at the Missouri Valley Church of Christ.  The pastor and I have recently had email correspondence, and I was lead to believe his part in the controversy was relatively low key.  Then I found a copy of his original letter to the editor. 

 

So here’s mine.  I spent ten years as a teacher and then director in a small k-12 alternative school in Oakland, California back in the seventies, then began working as a therapist with families involved in child abuse and neglect for the eighties and much of the nineties.  Though I only do a little of that work now, I’m still chairperson for the Spokane Child Protection Team, consulting with social workers on particularly difficult cases.  I say that only to let you know where many of my stories come from.  Real life.  Hard times. 

 

What Pastor Slaughter neglected to mention after scanning the early pages of my book is that the language is reflective of a vicious racist character in the story, and when the five year old girl who has lived in the verbal (and sometimes physical) crosshairs of that character gets into a play therapy session, she screams them out to let the world know what her world is like.  It’s a cry for help that gets answered. 

 

The pastor’s tactic of giving you the harsh language completely out of context is a time honored one.  Believe me, I know.  That, along with his call for the teacher to be publicly chastised (“The teacher involved should put forth a formal apology to the three groups the school has promised in their own words to support”) is, in my opinion, nothing more than thinly veiled bullying.  And like most bullying, it’s ill informed. 

 

In his email he assured me he didn’t want public visibility, that this was for a greater cause.  Yet no one who has contacted me about this issue doesn’t know his name.  I have a feeling this is one of those issues that could have been settled quietly.  I know there is some argument regarding whether or not the kids were told they could select an alternative book, but I’m guessing the offended kids or parents could have walked into the teacher’s room, stated their complaints and had a different book assigned.  I don’t know the teacher involved, but I haven’t been in a school in this country in the past ten years where that isn’t true, and I visit at least fifty schools per year.

 

When Pastor Slaughter says the themes in the book are not for your tenth grade students, I wonder whether he even knows what the themes are, having read (by his own admission to me) only the first third- to half of the book.  What seems to have offended him was language.  A lot of that language offends me, too, in the sense that there are people out there being talked to like that.  If we really believed that merely hearing, or reading, that language does as much damage as Pastor Slaughter intimates, we would put monitors in the halls and all over the school grounds and expel anyone who uses it.  And in most cases we would be expelling the pearls of our youth. 

After quoting as much “bad” language as he could in nineteen lines, Pastor Slaughter asked in his letter to the editor what the class discussions must “sound like?”  I allowed my imagination to go there.  I imagined the teacher and the kids agreeing to be respectful in their discussion.  I imagined them talking about what a horrible life was being lived by the girl in the eye of that racist hurricane.  I imagined anger and rage that it happens, and I imagine dealing with some solutions.  That sounds dangerously close to my idea of good education.

 

It bothers me that Mr. Slaughter feels the need to “protect” the members of his church from stories like this and language like this and pays no attention to the kids who live those lives.  All of you know kids who grow up in hate.  They sit in the classrooms of our schools, distrustful, betrayed; feeling like second-class citizens whose lives don’t matter.  When folks like Mr. Slaughter call for censoring their stories, they don’t realize they are censoring the kids themselves.  “Your life isn’t worth being talked about.  We don’t care what you feel like; we just want you to behave.  Don’t rub off on our kids.” 

 

Whatever happened to “the least of my brethren?”  What ever happened to leaving the flock to save the one lamb in peril?  Mr. Slaughter heads a far less courageous church than the one I grew up in. 

 

The pastor teaches out of a book that promotes love and forgiveness as well as any book ever written.  It also calls for the killing of homosexuals, describes adultery, lying betrayal and all kinds of violence.  I’m guessing he doesn’t have an alternate book for those readers who take issue with those things.  My own pastor, when I was in high school, sat me down and talked with me about the times in which those things occurred and were written, and worked with me to understand the majesty of the book.  I’m not comparing Whale Talk with The Bible, but the process opened up discussion that put my pastor on the short list of people to turn to in any of my many adolescent crises.

 

I have a feeling I haven’t said anything most of you don’t already know, whether you agree with me or not.  In his email to me, Pastor Slaughter said the parents of your community “have had problems in the past of being isolated and made to feel stupid for questioning things.”  He didn’t necessarily want me to repeat that, but after he called my book “filth” I didn’t see a lot of reason to honor that particular wish.  I grew up in a town about a third the size of yours.  We called ourselves “hicks” and sometimes felt “less than” kids from the larger more cosmopolitan towns down around Boise and Nampa.  But there was plenty of wisdom in that town, as I’m sure there is in yours; plenty of capability for rational thinking and for making connection with our youth. 

 

What I would encourage you to do, rather than censoring the book, is listen to your kids’ responses to it.  And for you kids, stand up and let the adults of your community know who you are.  For some reason our culture makes it hard for adolescents and adults to communicate, but that doesn’t need to be.

 

Should the school board decide to censor the book, let me make some recommendations for others that should also go.  Start with all mine.  Then take out Pulitzer Prize winners To Kill a Mockingbird and The Color Purple.  Huckleberry Finn has to go.  Walter Dean Myer’s stunning book of a young man going to war (how much more timely could that be) Fallen Angels had better be cleared out also.  The list goes on and on. 

 

Thank you for your attention, and when I’m close to your community I’d be more than happy to take an extra day and talk with some of you, whether you agree with me or not.  We all want the best for our kids. 

 

Sincerely,

 Chris Crutcher  
 

Some Thoughts About Censorship And Censors

 And Other Things That Hack Me Off Big Time
by Chris Crutcher

 

The emails below are standard for what I’ve been getting for years, but particularly lately with all the censorship of Whale Talk. I’ve heard other authors who are admittedly less divisive than I am, say we should try to find common ground on this issue. I can’t see that there is common ground. I used to think that the one thing I had in common with the censors was that we all wanted the best for kids, and it was only the questions of what is best and how to achieve it that stood in our way. But I don’t think that any more.

 

The letters and emails I get are all about philosophy, nearly always Christian philosophy. Realistic language, gay characters, issues of teenage pregnancy, child abuse, deceit are called filth. Over and over I read and hear that word. If a gay teenager or a pregnant schoolgirl also reads that, she has to believe her life is thought to be filth. I’m sorry, but I can’t see how that is wanting the best for those particular kids.

 

I’m tired of hearing that I don’t have Christian values and morals, not because it hurts my feelings, but because it’s tedious. I spent Sundays during my teenage years dressed in robes lighting candles in the Episcopalian Church in Cascade, Idaho. The man who was pastor there is still a close friend, and there is no doubt I received guidance from him that I still follow. The picture of Jesus I received there is still one I respect. So get off my back about morals and values; they aren’t philosophies, they’re behaviors. Here’s a value for you. Be decent. Here’s a moral for you. Be decent. Here’s another one of each. Embrace it all.

 

I love the “innocuous” emails I’ve received lately asking where my research comes from stating one in ten people is gay, or that the gay teen suicide rate is three times the heterosexual suicide rate, or that one in three girls and one in six boys has been sexually mistreated. (One woman told me she was writing a book, as if she’s going to footnote Chris Crutcher instead of the real research.)  I take middle numbers from the research I know, but that’s not the point. The point is that these people seem to believe if we get the numbers lowered enough, we can give up having to pay attention.

 

What happened to the Shepherd who left the entire flock to save one lamb?  He didn’t leave to save ten percent of the sheep, he left to save one. Does the phrase the least of thy brethren (which I take to mean the person hurting the most) ring a bell?  Look, it isn’t about one book or five books, or PABBIS’ list of legions. It’s about bringing up scary, tough issues that make people uneasy, but that exist for all of us.

 

I’m not anti-Christian. I’m not the anti-Christ. (Nor is Judy Blume, or Maya Angelou, or Robert Cormier or Kurt Vonnegut or Walter Dean Myers. Nope, not Brent Hartinger either). Christians write me all the time, expressing embarrassment for the conservative Christian ramblings and their mission to “cleanse” school curriculums and libraries.

 

I stand for the right of parents to forbid their children to read a particular book. Someone in my old line of work will make a hundred fifty dollars an hour when those children come as twenty and thirty year old adults trying to deal with the power struggles of their childhoods. I don’t like it, but I stand for that right. I don’t, however, stand for the right to decide what other people’s kids read.

 

So I guess I have one thing to say to the censors:  Shut up.

 
 

March 2006

Subj:     ???
Date:     3/7/2006 9:50:43 AM Pacific Standard Time
From:    shes4given@ ---
To:        This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
 
I question your motives. Lets take out God, good and evil, morals, clean language, conservative viewpoints of any kind in our schools.  Lets replace them with the propaganda that you so highly esteem to indoctrinate your own religious views (yes they are religious).  Maybe we will have a nation of free thinking people that aren't really free thinkers at all.  They have been ushered into a world whose reality exalts their own morality as the god of all tolerable thinking.  No good or evil.  No right or wrong, no parental authority, or school authority, or presidential authority.  Sounds like an extremely political and personal belief system that you want to persuade our kids with.  You appear to be extremely intolerant to those who disagree with you.  Somehow in your thinking , right is wrong, and wrong is right?  Maybe if we blur the words, we will all develop our own reality, which isn't our own at all.  Tolerance, and free speech is believing that I also allow the free speech and opinions of others to have relevance.  Why do you target young people?  I am sure that as a therapist you are quite aware of the power you have to plant your own religious agenda into the minds of those who are discovering who they are.  How about a book or blog on balance in free speech.  How about challenging kids with a balanced book that would allow them to come up with some of their own conclusions about life, instead of yours.  Maybe a story of tolerance of someone that you completely disagree with.  Possibly a conservative, christian student who has lost his right to have any hope of free speech about his beliefs in our public schools.  Maybe a family that has conservative viewpoints politically that comes into the overwhelming and powerful attack from those who disagree with them.  Or perhaps a book on a girl who becomes pregnant and strongly disagrees with abortion and yet comes face to face with a society hell bent on showing her how wrong she is in what it consides to be narrow minded, uniformed, paranoia.  These subjects I am sure would not promote your own agenda with our kids, and besides they would probably be censored because someone would decide that there is no tolerance when it comes to conservative or religious free speech.  Again sir, I question your motives.
 
A concerned and conservative parent.
 

Crutcher Responds

Subj:     Re: ???
Date:    3/11/2006 5:17:27 PM Pacific Standard Time
From:   This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it
To:       shes4given@ ---

I thought I'd give you a chance to identify yourself, but you seem to be satisfied with having said what you have to say.  So I'll answer as best I can.  I find your use of the word "sir" somewhat disingenuous, in that it is usually reserved as a term of respect and in this case the context does not warrant that.  When you're writing tongue-in-cheek it is sometimes helpful to put quotes around words you intend to be ironic.  Given your screen name, I'll assume you are a "ma'am." 

I'd be interested to know where you ever read that I want morals, clean language or conservative viewpoints of any kind out of our schools.  I've never said that and I don't promote it.  I do promote separating church and state in the spirit of the U.S. Constitution because I believe that is best for the church and the state.  I have no problem with studying the Bible in public schools when it is studied along with the good books of other major religions.  I'm pretty sure you've never read or heard me say there should be no parental, school or presidential authority.
 
But let's get down to your accusations: targeting kids, pushing my "religious agenda," intolerance.  I worked full time as a counselor for fifteen years and part-time for a number of years after that.  Never in all that time did I counsel a girl to get an abortion, tell a kid there was no right or wrong, promote visciousness or intolrance against parents or schools (or the president).  I'm not sure why it's convenient for you to think differently.
 
So here's what I think.  I think you haven't read my work.  I think you don't know that I have a character in a book who has an abortion and can't resolve it because she did it when she didn't have guidance or information.  I think you don't know I have characters in books who are Christians and also heroes.  I think you're shooting at me with approximate language because you haven't bothered to inform yourself.  When you question my motives, you don't state the question.  You intimate, I guess, that I sit around thinking of ways to corrupt kids; make their lives worse.  It would be an interesting individual who would devote his or her life to that.  Have you run that through your imagination to see what it would look like? 
 
See, the problem with seeing the world in terms of good and evil is that if you think you're good, then people who don't believe and behave the way you do, are evil.
 
It would be helpful to me, "ma'am", if when you're questioning my motives, you'd be more direct.  I thought your email was very well written, by the way.  It is seldom I get emails from "concerned conservative parents" that are as articulate as they are uninformed.
 
Chris Crutcher
 

December 19, 2005 -- IOWA

Dear Superintendent Plugge,

 

I am the author of the short story “A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune” which, I understand, has come into the cross-hairs of the censors in your district.  I thought you  might find it helpful to have the author’s point of view.  You probably know I have been in this position before, with this book and with others; some for the same reasons, others for different reasons.  I say that only to let you know I have no personal investment in the outcome.  From a financial point of view these challenges don’t affect me.  They usually increase sales in the area where the book is challenged because of increased curiosity, and may dampen them in surrounding areas where teachers or administrators are afraid of getting into conflict with the loud minority who think we can best protect our children by keeping realities from them.

 

I’m also not interested in entering into the free speech/intellectual freedom argument wherein one side says we have to keep our kids safe by censoring what they see and the other says it’s fine for any parent to censor what his/her own kids read, but not fine for them to make those decisions for all parents.  We either believe in basic intellectual freedom or we don’t.  We either believe in our own abilities as adults to help our kids process tough information or we don’t, and not many minds are going to change regurgitating those arguments.

 

But when it comes to the question of removing material that addresses homosexuality, maybe we should have some considerations that land closer to home.  It makes no more sense to say that stories like “Angus” or “Am I Blue” or any of Brent Hartinger’s or Alex Sanchez’s stories “promote” homosexuality than it does to say that Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex promotes sexual fantasies about one’s mother, or that The Bible promotes crucifying our heroes and “laying” without “begetting.”  Those are simply things that happen in the stories that are up for discussion.

 

When one of your teachers looks out over any given junior high or high school classroom, he/she sees one in ten children who are gay.  Contrary to what the far right Christian community thinks, they didn’t choose to be gay.  I’ve worked as a child and family counselor for more than twenty years and with the exception of a few female clients who had been horribly sexually mistreated throughout their lives, not one gay client has ever said she or he had a choice.  You might ask your censors if they can remember back to the day they “decided” to become heterosexual. 

 

Because they are forced to lead repressed lives, gay kids have a three times greater suicide rate than heterosexual kids.  We cannot, as educators, pretend not to know those statistics, and when we know them and still choose to bow to the censors, we become accomplices in the results of their depression, because when we censor these stories, we censor these kids.  We tell them loud and clear that they have good reason for that depression, and for thoughts of looking for a way out.  We can’t pretend to not know what we know. 

 

Educators, particularly social studies teachers, are fond of repeating the old saying, “Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”  I couldn’t agree more.  Overwhelmingly, modern censors are made up of conservative Christians.  You might want to visit some Ku Klux Klan history and listen to them evoke the name of God to back their bigotry.  And make no mistake about it; if you engage in policy that diminishes a tenth (or even a hundredth) of a population that is born into their circumstances, you are a bigot.  I don’t care how many houses you build in Latin America or how many days you volunteer to work at the local Food Bank or how much money you tithe or give to charity.   We believe in equality or we don’t; we believe in justice or we don’t, and hiding the truths of people’s lives is unjust. 

 

A thirteen year old gay boy that I worked with recently (who has given me permission to air his views) told me the thing that hurts him most is that for the next four years he will be unable to let anyone know who he really is.  He can’t allow the most powerful forces of his adolescence to be made evident even in harmless flirtation because of the possible consequences.  Nobody wants to be Matthew Shepherd.  But he also told me the kids these days aren’t as bigoted as the adults.  That gives me hope for our kids, but shames me as an adult.  It should shame us all.   

 

I believe there will be a time, hopefully before I die, when we look back on the way we have treated gays and the issue of homosexuality at the opening of the twenty first century, in the same way we now look back at the beginning of the civil rights era and wonder how such large portions of our population could have pandered to such bigotry.  And we will look back at ourselves and be forced to say, in the privacy of our own thoughts, whether we were part of the problem or part of the solution.   If you’re an educator, there will be no in-between.

 

You have teachers in your schools willing to take on these subjects and work with kids on the qualities of understanding and acceptance.  Where that is done well, instances of bullying always decrease.  Bullying is a top-ten hot button item in schools these days.

 

I should also say that in my travels to districts where my books are challenged and in my dealings with the teachers and parents who are affected, I have found, even in the most conservative areas, fewer people who advocate censoring books than don’t.  And I have many letters from lifetime Christians who are embarrassed by the vocal fringe of their religion.

 

I don’t speak from outside the world of education.  I was a high school social studies teacher, director of a K-12 alternative school for troubled kids in my earlier career, and currently give more than a hundred presentations per year to middle and high school classes, and another fifty or so to teachers and librarians.

 

Sincerely,

 

Chris Crutcher
 
October 2005 -- NEW YORK
 
When STAYING FAT FOR SARAH BYRNES is challenged, there are things a school board might want to know.  For example, the event of Sarah Byrne''s burning comes from a real life event; I didn't dream up something for the sake of shock.  The story is meant to be a celebration of friendship under fire: a young boy is saved by an unlikely ally and returns the favor when the stakes are at their highest.  What I like most about the mail I receive is the number of kids who say they wish they had, or could be, a friend like that.   
 
If the attacks the book receives are from the religious right, I can say this: the book was never meant to be an attack on Christianity, but rather to expose the dangers of rigidity. 
 
Steve Ellerby and his father are every bit the Christians Brittain and his father are and I think they portray those ideals well.  I know the discussions about teenage pregnancy and spiritual values held in CAT class often irk the religious right, but those are issues I've heard day in and day out in my office as a child and family therapist, and I can't tell you the number of kids I've counseled who refuse to turn to their parents for help when they make a mistake in an arena in which those parents appear to be unforgiving. 
 
School teachers, counselors and administrators are under siege in our culture these days.  A classroom of twenty five or thirty contains one in three girls and one if six boys who have been sexually mistreated.  There are likely two or three gay kids there; or at least kids struggling mightily with their sexual identity.  Then there are those who are physically abused, or who are never allowed to be "good enough" or are physically neglected to the point that school work becomes almost impossible.  Those kids turn to eating disorders, cutting and other self destructive behaviors.  There is no way for educators to figure out who those kids are; most are expert at hiding their misery from adults. 
 
Educators are put into further difficulty, being asked to up the anxiety all the way around by testing kids into comas.  Good stories are one of few resources we have left to make connections with kids.  They provide a level playing field for adults to talk about real life with kids, while allowing both to keep their personal safety.  It's a lot easier to talk about the struggles of a character in a book than it is to divulge personal information, and therefore make connections they would be otherwise unable to make.  Hey, school is tough enough, for everyone. 
 
The argument that "We can't have kids reading language we don't allow them to use," is also kind of silly in my view.  I know all kinds of people who work in banks or offices who don't go there and speak Stephen King-ese though they read Stephen King.  What people need to remember about a story, particularly one told in first person, is that there is an intimacy created between the reader and the character; the same intimacy created between the writer and the character.  Those stories are told realistically so they will be received realistically. 
 
More and more is being asked of educators, with fewer and fewer resources, and larger classes.  Learning is supposed to be interesting and passionate and fun.  To make that happen we need avenues of connection, and good, tough stories provide that.  I'm often told that, even though there may be kids in our schools who have gone through what my characters have gone through, and worse, what about those kids who have "healthy" home lives.  My answer to that is that they should know about the people around them; compassion is created through that, and we can use as much of that as we can find.  And even kids with "healthy" backgrounds sometimes feel outside and alone.  It seems foolish to think we can protect our kids through ignorance. 
 
The voice of Sarah Byrnes is a real voice.  The situations come from real life situations.  It has been my experience, through talking with teachers and kids and from receiving letters and emails, that the book brings about lively discussion and often makes kids re-think their opinions of others who have had tough times.
 
It is interesting that on November 8, the night of your meeting, I'll be in your state receiving an intellectual freedom award from the National Coalition Against Censorship for my participation in this struggle all over the country.  Good luck, and let me know if there's anything more I can do. 
 
Thanks for your good work.  I can't tell you how aware I am that you and those like you are on the front lines with stories like Sarah Byrnes and Whale Talk etc., and how much I appreciate it.  Good luck, and let me know if there's anything more I can do. 
 
Chris Crutcher
 

March 2005 -- ALABAMA

 

To the Citizens of the Limestone School District, and to the Board of Education:

 

I understand there is a challenge to the use of my book Whale Talk in your schools and I thought it might be of some help to talk about what is behind the story.  From what I have been told, the major issue is the language used by the characters in the book.  Probably the most offensive scene, taken out of context, would be on page 68 and 69 where a four and a half year old mixed race girl is working in a play therapy session, mirroring what her life is like living with a racist stepfather and a mother who won’t protect her.  In the course of her therapy she is taking the role of the offender, yelling out all the names that she herself endures on a daily basis.  Because she is screaming the words, they are in large font, which, I assume, makes them even more offensive to those paging through the book.  The scene read in the context of the story, I believe, is heartbreaking.  It is also true.  It is something I have seen played out by a real four and a half year old mixed race girl in that very situation.  Of course some things have been changed to fit this story, and to mask it from the real event, but it is real, and it is actually milder that what I witnessed in that case, and in hundreds of others. 

 

Censors can make a case for zero tolerance in language.  They can make the argument that since we don’t allow our children to use that language in schools, we also shouldn’t give them stories in which it is used.  But that’s an easy thing to deal with, and I’ve seen it done a hundred times.  Teachers bring up the offensiveness of the language and talk about why it’s used to make a story real.  We don’t have to use the language to talk about the story in the classroom, but we can certainly talk about the raw power of any good story told in its native tongue. 

 

I worked full time as a therapist in the world of child abuse and neglect for fifteen years, and continue to do pro-bono work even today.  I hear stories like these and stories far worse on a regular basis.  I am struck by the fact that the kids I hear them from, populate our classrooms.  They do not tell their stories because many of them feel shame because they are treated that way, and they hold the secret; the only real power they have over their situations.  They would rather be angry or depressed than vulnerable, and so they sit, many of them believing they are alone.  Stories like Whale Talk and other, far better stories, let them know they are not alone, while not forcing them to talk about their personal situations at the same time.  When we censor these stories, we censor the kids themselves.  Imagine falling in love with a book because somehow it mirrors your life, and gives meaning to it, and may even offer solutions to your personal situation, only to have those in power over you censor it because it is offensive.  All but the most hard nosed of us might think our very lives were offensive. 

 

I think people who believe we can protect our children by keeping them ignorant of hard times and the language those times are told in, don’t realize that by showing our fear of issues and language that are “everyday” to our children, we take ourselves off that short list of people to turn to in a real crisis.

 

Whale Talk is a tough book, but it is also a compassionate book, about telling the truth and about redemption.  I didn’t draw the tough parts out of thin air; they are stories handed to me by people in pain. 

 

When a teacher looks out over his or her classroom, he/she is looking at one in three girls who have been sexually mistreated, one in five boys.  That doesn’t take into consideration the number of kids who have been beaten, locked up, or simply never allowed to be good enough.  Stories are buffered in fiction and therefore allow discussion of issues that would not otherwise be brought up.  They save many students.  I’d think twice before I allowed them to be taken away.

 

You should know that I have no personal agenda in whether or not you keep Whale Talk.  It get challenged some certain number of times every year and it gets praised some certain number of times every year.  Your decision won’t impact my income or my self-esteem.  You have a lot more to lose here than I have, and that’s why I take time to state my case.  The kids you turn your backs on when you take away their stories, are the ones who lose, as well as you as a community of adults who may appear to fear their truths.  Remember, if you take Whale Talk out, you can take any book out, and could easily cheat your children out of Alice Walker and Judy Blume and Kurt Vonnegut and Mark Twain and Walter Dean Myers, and Christopher Paul Curtis and Lois Lowry and Pat Conroy to name a few.

 

Sincerely,

 

Chris Crutcher
 

March 2005 -- ALABAMA TEENS

 

To the Students of the Limestone School District:

 

Recently my book, Whale Talk, was banned in your school district, and I thought I might address that.  First, let it be known that I don’t take it personally.  None of the four school board members who voted to take the book out of your reach knows me and I have no reason to believe any of them bear me ill will.  From all I have read, I believe the stated reason the book was banned was for “curses”, which, where I come from are called “cuss words.” 

 

Arguably the two most offensive passages in the story occur when a four and a half year old bi-racial girl screams out the names she is called on a regular basis by her racist stepfather and later when that same racist stepfather is drunkenly threatening the foster family that is keeping her safe. 

 

In the 1980’s and early 1990’s when I was working as a child abuse and neglect therapist in the Spokane (Washington) Community Mental Health Center, I worked with a young bi-racial girl living in circumstances much like those depicted in the book.  Her biological father didn’t even know of her existence and her mother didn’t have the emotional strength to keep her out of the eye of the hurricane of her stepfather’s hatred.  She couldn’t eat at the table until her younger, white stepbrothers had finished. She wasn’t allowed to play with toys until they were broken and handed over to her.  The first time I saw her she was standing over a sink, trying to wash the brown off her skin so her (step) daddy would love her.  Time and time again in therapy she expressed the self contempt she had gained believing there was something fundamentally wrong with her because there was no way to find acceptance in her his world.  In play therapy she was allowed to work through her life trauma to ultimately better understand that it was not her fault she was treated as she was, and to come to a better understanding (in a four-year-old’s way of understanding) of the world she lived in.  The language that little girl used was even tougher than what my character used in Whale Talk. 

 

When Whale Talk gets challenged or banned, it’s often because a parent who hasn’t read the book runs across that passage or one like it, sees the words (which in this case are in large font because the little girl is screaming) and decides they are a danger to you.  They describe the story, more often than not without reading it, as obscene or vulgar or evil --or all three. 

 

But what’s truly obscene is that I know a real girl in the real world who has gone through this.  What’s obscene is that so do you, even if you’re not aware of the specifics.  What’s obscene is that you know kids who have gone through, and are going through, worse. 

 

What’s obscene is that kids who are mal-treated often grow up angry and depressed and anxious and desperate.  They experience crippling difficulties in school, in social relations and in all matters of self-esteem.  They use the language I use in the story and worse because it is all they have to try to match what is inside to the outside world.  They need to be recognized, and brought into your fold.  Often we adults can’t help them, but you can.  I write the stories I write to bring things like this to your attention because I believe if kids who are treated badly are to survive, they will survive through the acceptance of their peers, and that acceptance will come from understanding.  It’s true; I’m asking a lot from you. 

 

Let me tell you something else I think is obscene.  I think it obscene that your school board doesn’t trust you enough to know you can read harsh stories, told in their native tongue, and make decisions for yourself what you think of the issues or the language.  It is astonishing to me that grown men, in this case, don’t believe you can think for yourselves.  Some of you could have voted in the last election.  Many more of you will be eligible in the next.  Some of you may be going to war.

 

It is not a big deal that Whale Talk was removed from your school library shelves.  There are plenty of good books out there that your school board hasn’t had a chance to ban yet.  But consider this. 

 

About a decade ago, a stellar author named Walter Dean Myers wrote Fallen Angels, a story about a young African American man fighting in Vietnam.  Walter told his story, using the language of soldiers at war.  It was pretty much the language I used to talk about this four-year-old girl, who was also at war.  Fallen Angels, a critically acclaimed book is constantly under the same attack that Whale Talk is under from your school board.  Think about this a minute.  In the not too distant future many of you will be soldiers also asked to fight in the name of your country.  Statistics say a few of your number will also be writers.  Imagine risking your life in war, coming back to tell your story in as real a fashion as you can, only to have your children told they can’t read your story in your school because the school board won’t tolerate the realistic language in which you tell it.  They not only tell their children it can’t be part of their education, they tell your children it can’t be part of their education. 

 

I have no problem at all with any or all of you pick up Whale Talk, reading a couple of chapters, or even a couple of pages, not liking it, slamming it shut and never opening it again.  I don’t even have a problem with that if you do because you are offended by the situations -- or the language.  I don’t have a problem with that because it’s your choice.  I trust you to know what you like and what you don’t, and what’s good for you in terms of literature; the same way the United States Supreme Court trusted high school students when they ruled in their favor in the landmark case of known as the Board of Education vs. Pico. 

 

I can’t change the minds of people who believe that the best way to keep kids safe is to keep you ignorant.  What I can, and will do is this:  Donate copies of Whale Talk to your public library, which is a lot less likely to try to think for you.  I can urge you to take a look at it and decide for yourselves.  I can encourage you to stand up for your own intellectual freedom; to choose what you want to read about and talk about and explore.  I can encourage you to let those members of your school board who don’t trust you with tough material, know you are a lot more savvy than they think you are, and that there is no way they can capture your intellectual freedom with the silliness of banning a book from the library shelves.  There are plenty of places to get books. 

 

I have to be honest.  I don’t think the only reason those four school board members wanted Whale Talk out of your schools was language.  I could be wrong - it’s certainly happened before - but I think there are other issues in the book that make them uncomfortable.  But even on language alone, if you accept the banning of this book, you should demand that they also remove other books in which that language exists.  Start with Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Color Purple, then go to Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  You certainly can’t allow any of my other ten books there, nor any of Robert Cormier’s, many of Walter Dean Myers’ or Tim O’Brien’s (The Things They Carried may well be one of the ten best written books of the twentieth century).  Sherman Alexi, the great Native American writer is out, hands down and there is no way you can be allowed to cast your eyes upon Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.  If you accept this “protection” from your school board, demand that they step up and truly protect you. 

 

I may seem somewhat flip here but I believe that adolescence is an extremely important time in any human’s development.  There are hundreds of questions about relationship and career and identity, and you are handcuffed to look at them when a group of men who believe that the depiction of true, rough language is a top-priority moral issue.  I trust you to read my book, or any of the other, far more familiar books mentioned above, and decide for yourselves what you think of them.  It wouldn’t be completely over the top for you to expect your school board to do the same.  Remember this: your school board is there to make decisions to further your education, not keep themselves in their own comfort zones.

 

I do want to compliment those members and the superintendent who voted against the banning.  It does my heart good to know there are many educators out there who understand that good education requires the opening rather than the closing of minds.  Again, this isn’t about Whale Talk, it really isn’t.  It’s about you.

 

Sincerely, 

 

Chris Crutcher
 

February 14, 2005 -- Rev. Himebaugh

 

To Whom It May Concern:

 

I read the “Letter to the Editor” from Reverend Ken Himebaugh with interest  The Christian Right has launched an assault on literature and curriculum all over the country and this one seems no less unimaginative.  My books are not even in upper fifty percent of the top 100 banned books list, so it isn’t just a fight about Whale Talk that is coming.  It’s a fight about a canon of wonderful literature they want to take away from your kids because of accurate language and tough issues.  I will forever fight for their right to take it from their own kids – I can deal with those kids when they come into my therapy office, haunted by control issues – but I will also forever fight to stop them from taking it away from yours.  And I will fight for schools and teachers to stand up for that canon of literature and for educators’ expertise on issues of curriculum and student-teacher relationship, the latter being the absolute cornerstone of effective teaching.

 

Reverend Himebaugh references you to page 125 in Whale Talk, hoping, I think, to get you to read the words and not the context.  Let me save you the effort.  You will find the “f” word, the “n” word and the “b” word, which references an earlier scene in which a four-and- a-half year-old bi-racial girl, working out in play therapy the life trauma visited upon her by a cruel, racist stepfather, screams out the names she hears herself called every day.  The therapist working with her – also bi-racial, and color blind – walks through the hell of her life with her, encouraging accurate expression in the quest for some sense of congruence.  It is a spot-on depiction of real therapy, based on a real life in the U.S. of A.  The scene on page 125 shows the drunken racist stepfather at work.

 

The Reverend Himebaugh takes an easy argument: it’s damaging to let our kids read language that corrupts the mind and attacks innocence.  The Christian Right he represents says it to you and me time after time.  They capture the language, using words like “vulgar”, “corrupt”, “trash” and “evil”, in an attempt to get us to accept their context for these terms.   If they really believed it, not one of their kids would attend public school, because the language used is the native language of adolescence and the native language of hard times.  When a student reads a book in which the narrator is a teenager, the relationship that student develops is with the narrator, not the author.  Think about it, when you read To Kill a Mockingbird, were you listening to Harper Lee or Scout?  When you read Huckleberry Finn, were you engaged with Huck or Mark Twain?  If I’ve done my job adequately, the last time you’ll see Chris Crutcher is when you turn the title page.  After that, you’re in the world of TJ Jones. 

 

At the risk of being offensive, I have to say Reverend Himebaugh’s argument is a lazy one.  It ignores basic child development.  Adolescents are in a developmental stage of “pushing away” to find their own identities and they need something solid and non-judgmental to push away from.  If I could cure one significant ill of adolescence by making my stories unrealistic in the way Reverend Himebaugh would have me, I’d do it in a minute, but the only ill I’d affect is one that plagues adults suffering from control-based dogma, and another would replace it before the first slash of my editor’s pen.  You can’t keep those thoughts out of kids’ minds, you can only appear righteous by standing up to attack the morals of people like Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Robert Cormier, Judy Blume and Walter Dean Meyers. 

 

I grew up attending a fundamental Christian church that believed they could scare me into being moral rather than letting me find my way to morality through my relationships with others.  They scared me to a less fundamental church where I was an acolyte for all of my high school years.  That church entertained my flexible spiritual ideas.  The pastor was thoughtful and wise and encouraged curiosity.  He knew how we talked and asked only that we didn’t talk that way around him.  Because he respected who we were, we respected his wishes and listened engaged him.  Where are those Christians today when the likes of Reverend Himebaugh spews forth with his ill-thought-out judgments?  Where are the Christians I used to know, who believed in freedom, and in discourse and dissent? Where are the Christians who had some idea of what Jesus was really all about in his time?  They better step up, or they will once again be embarrassed by the likes of Ken Himebaugh.

 

My father was a World War II B-17 pilot who had flown thirty five missions over Germany by the time he was the approximately my college graduation age.  He was the Valley County Republican campaign chairman for every candidate from President of the United States to state representative.  He once told me, only half-jokingly, that if he ran the zoo the Republicans would run Dan Smoot for President, Curtis LeMay for Vice President and let Barry Goldwater run the liberal wing of the party.  (For you readers under 45, read that as, “Right wingers called my ol’ man a right winger.”)  But he’d have run a nail through his eye before allowing a book to be banned on his watch, and he’d have fought his party to the death had they shown even the remotest signs of embarking on this current right wing/religious quest for mind control.  He believed there was no subject that couldn’t be discussed rationally and he believed in embracing a wide range of ideas in order to come to a conclusion.   Where are those conservatives, the ones who understand that the words conservative and conservation come from the same root?

 

If we follow the words-and-ideas-poison-the-mind philosophy of Reverend Himebaugh, our message to teenagers says, don’t fill your minds with information and make choices for yourselves.  That philosophy requires that we turn our backs on our trial-and-error nature, and in doing so we broaden the chasm between ourselves and our kids.  I’ve spent most of my adult life working with kids in crisis of one kind or another and telling stories based on what I learned from them.  I know that when teachers look out over almost any classroom they stand before one in three girls who have been sexually mistreated, one in five boys.  That doesn’t count the number who have been physically, emotionally and psychologically abused in other ways.  There are kids who cut their arms, starve themselves, eat and throw up, drink alcohol, take drugs, in order to keep themselves out of black holes of depression and anxiety. They have no way to tell us because the only control they have left is control of the secrets of their lives, and because our culture allows the loud scolding voices of the Reverend Himebaughs to go unchallenged. Those voices are so shrill our kids can’t be heard. Reading about characters with whom they can relate makes them feel less alone.  Discussing those characters lets them know how others feel, and may bring them closer to talking about their lives and moving toward responsible resolution.  I have a thousand emails telling me that is true.  When we ban their stories, we are banning them.  To those who say their children don’t have those kinds of lives, I say this:  Don’t be so sure, but if you’re right, they still spend six hours a day sitting in a room with other children who do have those kinds of lives, and learning to lead lives of inclusion couldn’t be such a bad thing for them.  You do not protect your children by keeping them ignorant. 

 

It will easy for Reverend Himebaugh’s followers to dismiss what I say here.  An article in the Grand Rapids newspaper only a few days ago stated my book, Athletic Shorts was flying off library and bookstore shelves.  If Crutcher can keep this dialogue going, he’ll be rich.  Hey, I get ten percent of every book sold.  My take from this fiasco won’t pay the cost of all copies of Whale Talk I’ll send to your public library should you take this book off your school shelves.  It’s always interesting to watch the Christian Right assign motive to those of us who write realistic stories.  They almost always go with greed or fame or some evil wish to corrupt.  But ask yourself if that makes sense.  If you knew Robert Cormier (whose The Chocolate War is on top on the challenged list this year) or Judy Blume or Walter Dean Myers for crying out loud, you’d know that simply can’t be true.  These are people of impeccable integrity; the best of the best trying to get the emotional information of adolescents out there in good stories, and making connections with those adolescents in the process.  The Reverend Himebaugh has every right to keep his own child(ren) from what he considers the evil of controversial ideas.  He has no right to keep your children from it, too.

 

Chris Crutcher
 

February 14, 2005 -- KANSAS

Blue Valley School District

 

I’d like to address the controversy in your school district regarding the proposed removal of certain books from the high school curriculum including my novel, Stotan!   There seems to be a push by the conservative right across the country to become involved in school curriculum.  I say that because other of my books are currently being challenged elsewhere, and the tactics are similar.  I have to say I’m unnerved sometimes at the arrogance of groups who ignore the expertise of educators in pushing their agenda.  I can’t speak for the authors of the other books in question, but I can say I wrote Stotan! with the idea of addressing questions of teenage friendship, racial issues, loss, and human responsibility.  The language used in the story is the language used by teenagers.  The issues they face are issues faced by teenagers.  My belief is that when kids read contemporary stories about characters they can relate to, they become more discerning and better educated, and more sensitive to the plights of their peers.  The idea that we can educate better through ignorance makes me shake my head.

 

But what I really want to address is the damage the censors do to their own relationships with their kids and to the school-student relationships in those few times when they are successful in removing a book from the shelves.  You will find very few adolescents unable to handle the controversial material presented in most adolescent literature.  You will find very few who don’t hear - in spades - walking through the halls, the words they read in any of those books.  They’ve all confronted some version of the issues presented, or have friends confronting those issues.  When we tell teenagers we don’t want them reading a story about them, told in its native tongue, we are saying we don’t trust them to handle it and we don’t trust ourselves to carry on a reasonable conversation with them.  We tell them there is safety in ignorance.  And when a crisis comes, we have taken ourselves off the short list of people to turn to.

 

Though I maintain a strong philosophy of intellectual freedom, more of my passion for this argument comes from my work as a therapist.  Day after day I hear kids say they can’t tell their parents what they’re telling me for fear of the response.  They worry about being disowned.  They worry about punishment.  But the biggest and most common worry is that of disappointment.  “I can’t talk with my parents because I can’t stand their disappointment when I make a mistake.  My parents are afraid to hear about my life.”   

 

We telegraph our fear to kids by avoiding certain subjects.  We set up what they will not tell us or what they will lie about.  Good stories have the capability of bridging that gap.  While teenagers may not find the courage to talk about their own lives, they can summon it in a minute to talk about fictional characters’ lives, and if we’re willing to engage them, the next natural step is to edge toward talking about the real thing.  If a teenager hears his or her mother railing on about the evils of a story including teenage pregnancy, or eating disorders, or sexual behavior, what are they going to do if and when they get caught in the middle of one of those issues in their own lives?  They certainly aren’t going to the person who can’t even stand to have the issue talked about in a work of fiction.  You don’t protect your children with censorship.  You diminish them, and you weaken your relationship.

 

If you could hear what I hear.

 

One last thing I believe should be considered by anyone passing judgment on these books.  Don’t be fooled by the way the censors try to capture the language.  I’ve been to a number of web sites, and I’ve heard their complaints first hand.  They state their case using terms like “vulgar” and “ inappropriate” and “trash” and “evil.”  They claim to know what is developmentally appropriate, ignoring what licensed child developmentalists say.   If they can get you to accept their terms as descriptions of these books, they give themselves a significant edge in the discussion.  I haven’t read all the books on the list, but those are not accurate terms for the ones I have read.  It is dishonest to argue in that fashion and I encourage anyone who engages them to call it what it is. 

 

Most of the time I don’t take these challenges personally, and that is true this time.  I have had, however, great experiences with the teachers in the Blue Valley district and the Olathe district and I want to support those good people.
 

February 5, 2005 -- MICHIGAN

To the Parents and Students
(and the Surrounding Community)
of Ottawa Montessori Academy
Grand Rapids, Michigan

 

I spent last Friday dealing with the fallout after kids in Ms. Bouwhuis’ seventh grade classroom read my story “Telephone Man” from Athletic Shorts, and felt I needed to be sure you understood where the story came from and what I was thinking when I wrote it. 

 

“Telephone Man” is a story about a young borderline autistic boy who lives in a home with a racist father.  In public his father hides his racism, but in the privacy of his home and in front of his family, is unashamed and vocal about it.  Telephone Man doesn’t have an “editing function” in his brain, so he repeats at his ethnically diverse school what he hears at home, and it causes him much difficulty.  Because he believes what his father tells him, he thinks the African American students at his school mean him harm, but discovers they are more tolerant of his condition than he is of their race when they come to save him from a certain beating.  In the end, he walks away for the first time in his life, beginning to see that his father is wrong. 

 

I hate the words Telephone Man uses as much as any of you do.  That’s why I put them in the story.  They are the words of raw racism and they are depicted as such.  The “n” word (and I use that euphemism only because it seems we have lost our capability to speak real truth) is probably the single most vile word in our nation’s historical vocabulary, a sadistic weapon of a word that has been used in this nation’s history like a hammer.  You don’t hide a word like that.  You expose it.  You tell the truth about it.  Unlike the people who are challenging the story, I have confidence in our children’s intellectual ability to understand that. 

 

I grew up in a time when the words in “Telephone Man” were used openly, and I bear the shame of a race who allowed that to be so.  When I was in the third or fourth grade I discovered that one of my good friend’s parents had been put into concentration camps during World War II simply because they were of Japanese origin.  Our government called them “interment” camps, but in fact they had been given a few days to gather all the belongings they could carry and were then relocated to the camps.  The belongings they couldn’t carry, as well as their land holdings, were confiscated and never returned. 

 

In 1969 I was to be hired as the swimming coach at Eastern Washington State College for the following year, but was fired before I could actually take the position because I supported the Black Student Union and the few black football and basketball players’ right to raise their fists during the national anthem, a gesture meant to highlight the racial inequities existing in our country at the time.  Many of you adults will remember that salute was first raised by Tommy Smith and John Carlos from the top of the Olympic podium in a hugely courageous gesture that cost them their Olympic medals. 

 

I’m not particularly brave and I’m not particularly wise.  My sacrifices in the name of racism don’t measure one percent of 1 on a scale of 1 to 10 compared to the sacrifices of millions of minorities in this country before and throughout my lifetime, but I have consistently tried to contribute what I could to the fight for equality.  I have long believed my greatest contribution to that notion, other than my personal behavior, was my stories.  So maybe you can imagine my heartbreak when I read that the head of your local NAACP called my story “trash.” 

 

Most of the time I engage in this censorship battle with the conservative Christian right and I eagerly rise to it because I believe they want to take away our freedoms in the name of freedom.  But the NAACP is an organization for which I have always held nothing but reverence.  Their members stood resolute in the face of death during the fifties and sixties when our country was being torn apart because of our bigotry and when law enforcement in many parts of the country turned its back on the law and on basic human decency. 

           

So my heart hammers in my throat when I have to say to Hazel Lewis, “This time I think you’re wrong.  I think you read the words and didn’t read the story, and while I believe your heart and mind are in the right place, I also think you don’t trust our children’s capabilities for higher level thinking.  ‘Telephone Man’ is about how bigotry flows down the generational river through innocence.  It’s hard to imagine how you can go back over the sequence of the past few days’ events and call for Patricia Bouwhuis’ firing.  I don’t know exactly what happened in the classroom, whether or not students registered discomfort, or what was said in preparation for the reading, but from all I’ve read I have to believe she brought the story into the classroom out of sensitivity, rather than insensitivity.  I have never known your organization to be one that wasn’t active in the art of bringing together people with divergent backgrounds and views.  The NAACP I know is about understanding.  I should also say there are African American teachers all over this country who have lauded this and other of my stories.”

 

As I said, I normally have this fight with the conservative Christian right.  When I talked to the Grand Rapids Press I mistakenly believed that was the case.  I used the word “unapologetic” in my defense of “Telephone Man.”  Now, knowing where the challenge came from, I remain unapologetic.  “Telephone Man”, like at least five of my novels, is unflinchingly anti-racist.  I trust the students of your school, including you seventh graders, to find that message in the story.

 

The color of our skin has to do, more than anything else, with our long-ago ancestors’ proximity to the equator.  It’s a biological response to the sun.  In other words, our skin color is mostly about ancient weather.  The problems we have on this planet about different skin colors are man-made.  I am as diminished as any other human by racism or sexism or any of the other ism that thrives on exclusivity.  None of us is equal until we’re all equal. 

 

Beyond that, censorship is un-American.  It’s one thing for a parent to take a book out of the hands of his or her child, quite another to take it away from all kids.  Censorship leads to ignorance, and for that reason alone, can’t be tolerated.  If you are a student who is offended by “Telephone Man” my hope is that you will stand up and refuse to read it; demand to read another book in its place.  If you are a student who does like it, I hope you will stand up for it, because in doing that, you’re not standing up for my story, you’re standing up for yourself. 

 

In the end, I hope everyone walks away from this knowing something he or she didn’t know before.  I certainly know a lot more about my allies and my detractors.

 

I’m going to be in Holland, Michigan at the Herrick District Library on March 10 at 7:00 p.m., and would be more than happy to spend time talking about this face to face with any of you, should you have the desire. 

 

Sincerely,

 

Chris Crutcher
 

Related Links and Contact Info

Students Speak Out
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Blue Valley School District
http://www.bluevalleyk12.org/
15020 Metcalf Avenue
P.O. Box 23901
Overland Park, Kansas 66283-0901
Main Phone: (913) 239-4000
FAX: (913) 239-4150
Email Form CLICK HERE

Citizens for Literary Standards in Schools
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