Things that are banned in some parts of Tennessee, at least in part:
- Any possibility at all of white people feeling discomfort for historical events or current events;
- Historical memoir depicted by anthropomorphized cats and mice, to include dead mice, nude mouse depicting the author's mother's suicide who was a Holocaust survivor, vulgar words by Nazi cats and other terrible real things that happened such as hanging "mice" and shooting them, ... to be read by ~14 year olds as a means of learning some history in a format that 14 year olds would typically appreciate--a graphic novel, i.e. comic book.
Things that are allowed in Tennessee:
- If you find roadkill, you can pick it up and eat it;
- A 9 year old can go hunting...and what that means is that a 9 year old can be given a rifle or shotgun and kill a wild, naked cat or wild, naked mouse or many of them, not to mention other species of animal typical and allowed to be hunted, and quite a lot of them.
I just got through reading the 20 pages of the meeting minutes by the school board, as linked in the OP. There's a lot there, somewhat rambling at times, but from what I can tell, no one objected to teaching the Holocaust. In fact, it seemed most at the meeting praised
Maus as a whole, but a few had specific objections. The main concern seemed to be that there were some naughty words in
Maus that, if said by the students in school, would result in disciplinary action. So, they felt it would seem somewhat hypocritical in that sense to permit
Maus to be used. There seemed to be agreement that if the bad words were sanitized in some way, then
Maus would be acceptable for use by the school. However, there was concern by the school board's lawyer that they could be in violation of the Fair Use Act, and thus could be subject to legal action by the publisher if they did so. So, for that reason, they elected to not go with it. It kind of just boils down to the fact that this community is a little prudish. I never got the sense they were anti-Semitic, as some seem to be implying.
I haven't quite figured out the nude picture thing yet. Apparently, the image in question is of Spiegelmen's mother laying nude in the bathtub after she committed suicide in 1968. Whether his mother is depicted as a "naked mouse" or its an actual photograph of her, is not clear. She is referred to as a "woman", but I have yet to see the image in question, so its hard say how offensive or inoffensive it is.
Personally, not being a comic book kind of guy, I would prefer a straightforward, tell-it-like-it-is approach to teaching the Holocaust. Real photos, personal accounts, etc. But that's just my preference.
By the way, my dad has told me stories of my grandmother stopping to pick up a fresh roadkill and cooking it up for dinner, here in Northern California, back in the 1930's and '40's. And she was no backwoods Granny character from
The Beverly Hillbillies. I don't think that its a particularly awful thing to do myself. Saving the planet a bit, and filling a poor person's tummy. What's wrong with that?
www.bbc.com
