#DisruptTexts Mob Cancels Classic Literature to Combat “White Supremacy”

The books most of us read while in school are on the chopping block as “woke” teachers seek to erase literature that is too “White” from the curriculum. The movement #DisruptTexts is seeking to have Homer, Shakespeare, Melville, Hawthorne, and even “progressives” like Harper Lee removed from the classroom so as to combat the terrible toxicity of “Whiteness.”

Dominican-American educator and author Lorena Germán posted on Twitter November 30:

Did y’all know that many of the ‘classics’ were written before the 50s? Think of US society before then and the values that shaped this nation afterwards. THAT is what is in those books. That is why we gotta switch it up. It ain’t just about ‘being old.’ #DisruptTexts.”

Jessica Cluess, an author of Young Adult fiction, who is known for including “social justice” themes, responded to this obvious insanity with some common sense. She pointed out that the texts being currently criticized were actually critiques of the power structures of their time:

Yeah, that embodiment of brutal subjugation and toxic masculinity, Walden. Sit and spin on a tack… If you think Upton Sinclair was on the side of the meat-packing industry then you are a fool and should sit down and feel bad about yourself.”

Cluess is now being called a racist for opposing #DisruptTexts, so she deleted her commentary and decided to grovel for forgiveness.

Cluess’ apology was not nearly enough for the anti-White mob, who can never be appeased.

The author was condemned by her agent, Brooks Sherman, who ended up dropping her as a client for her “racist” tweets. He has since deleted his own twitter account. If you oppose anything “woke,” then you are automatically racist to these people.

This is the power of the #DisruptTexts mob, which Germán started in 2018. Her movement is all about getting rid of the “classics” from school literature. According to the website:

#DisruptTexts requires that we as educators interrogate our own biases, center the voices of BIPOC in literature, help students develop a critical lens, and work in community with other antiracist and BIPOC educators. Together we will bring about change in society.

The argument for why these classics need to be taught to children, including ones from poor backgrounds, is that it provides them with cultural literacy, but #DisruptTexts essentially wants to be rid of White culture entirely, making this argument moot.

From Quillette:

But the #DisruptTexts movement does not conceive of education as the process, inter alia, of transmitting Western cultural heritage to the next generation. Why would they, when they perceive that heritage to be a dark and lamentable catalogue of human crime? Why should they give primacy to literature which interprets the world through the white gaze? “Let us be honest,” Germán admits, “the conversation really isn’t about universality, and this isn’t about being equipped to identify all possible cultural references. This is about an ingrained and internalized elevation of Shakespeare in a way that excludes other voices. This is about white supremacy and colonization.”

To Kill a Mockingbird was voted “America’s Favorite Novel” in a PBS competition in 2018, but #DisruptTexts finds that Atticus Finch is a white savior, and an ineffectual one at that. And Lord of the Flies, a novel featuring “elite, upperclass, private school [students] who are white, cisgender, European males,” is condemned for what it implies about civilization and savagery. So #DisruptTexts has created reading guides which pair the classics with complementary YA literature by authors of color, an intelligent and appropriate remedy for the lack of diversity in the canon. However, the curated list is diverse in everything but theme—five of the eight books are about teenagers of various ethnicities struggling with their identity. One of the recommended reads is Ibram X. Kendi’s Antiracist Baby.

#DisruptTexts has actually partnered with Penguin Publishing to recommend teachers use Antiracist Baby as a “picture book that empowers parents and children to uproot racism in our society and in ourselves… to help readers recognize and reflect on bias in their daily lives.”

Quillette reports on the success of this movement of dedicated “anti-racist” teachers:

And while the average parent may never have heard of #DisruptTexts, the movement has made a significant impact in public education. Notwithstanding their insurrectionary rhetoric and the clenched fist on their movement’s Twitter profile, these activists are not obliged to disguise their efforts “to fuel resistance and positive social transformation” and “bring the power of literacy for collective liberation.” They are not forced, like the teachers of the McCarthy era, to take a loyalty oath. On the contrary, the co-founders speak at educational conferences and workshops, they are promoted by Tolerance, a subsidiary program of the Southern Poverty Law Center; they are featured on the websites and publications of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and the International Literacy Association; they have a regular column in the journal of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), whose next convention is dedicated to “Equity, Justice and Anti-Racist Teaching”; and Penguin Books has partnered with them to promote YA novels by BIPOC authors.

The movement helped a teacher in Lawrence Massachusetts remove Homer’s The Odyssey from the school district’s curriculum, because “White supremacy” or something. The Scarlet Letter has been removed elsewhere for promoting “slut-shaming,” even though it is actually a critique of such puritan practices. Shakespeare is being removed because his works were written “at a time when hate-ridden sentiments prevailed.”

A podcaster says that “it is the stance against To Kill a Mockingbird and The Great Gatsby that has met [with] the most white fragility.” Apparently White people are not exactly ready to ditch the canon in favor of today’s “woke” authors, who would benefit financially from classics being replaced by their books.

Young Adults author Randy Ribay had a glowing review of #DisruptTexts during his speech at a workshop for the National Council of Teachers of English. He recommended that teachers coach students to use “three critical lenses—feminist, Marxist, and post-colonial.”

Some of the teachers are being met with resistance from uppity White students. A teacher in Chicago reported that the way she taught Lord of the Flies “caused students to LOUDLY challenge ideas that I set forth… In these discussions, I felt exposed and understood what antiracist (or anti-imperialist, anti-white supremacist) teaching should feel like… I came away with questions about who was benefiting as a result of these discussions and who was harmed. Yes, some white students changed their perspectives, but at what cost and to whom?”

One of the commenters on the Quillette article rightly notes how the anti-Whites are always moving their goal posts.

Wow. We sure went from “we need diverse books so everyone can feel represented” to “cancel the canon because ewww wypipo” kinda quickly.

This #DisruptTexts movement is just one aspect of the White genocide agenda, where White people’s history is being completely distorted and removed so that we are eventually eliminated from the future.

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