Cancel Culture is Killing the Classics

Many classic novels are being “cancelled” or challenged on religious, moral, or social grounds for cancel culture begins to censor the world’s historic literature.

Cancel culture has been banning many book titles over the years. Classics such as John Steinbeck’s ‘Of Mice and Men’, Mark Twain’s ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn', George Orwell’s ‘1984’, and various other novels.

Now, the beloved and criticized works of Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird, are being banned in schools due to the character’s use of racist language and the plot centring on an allegation of rape.

The head of the English department at James Gillespie High School in Edinburgh, Alan Crosbie, has decided to no longer teach the classic novel because of its “white saviour” complex and the continuous use of the N-word.

'To Kill a Mockingbird' was published in 1960 and has been studied in schools all over the world, exploring the theme of racial injustice.

The classic novel won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1961, an award for achievement in America for literature, journalism, newspaper, magazine, and music composition.

Rosemary Murphy & Phillip Alford in ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, film edition

Mr Crosbie claims the text is “problematic” and will focus on more modern texts such as 'The Hate you Give', written by Angie Thomas, a novel that represents people of colour and showcases them as the main heroine.

Alan Crosbie made a statement to The Independent newspaper, regarding the banning of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and said: “They are now taught less frequently because those novels are dated and problematical in terms of decolonising the curriculum.

“Their lead characters are not people of colour. The representation of people of colour is dated, and the use of the N-word and the use of the white saviour motif in Mockingbird – these have led us as a department to decide that these really are not texts we want to be teaching the third year anymore.”

In response to Alan Crosbie’s Statement, Mr Robert Yuill, English teacher at St Margaret’s High School, Airdrie, said: “I think it's ridiculous, it’s a text which I have taught many times and I believe that Atticus to me is a shining light, from my perspective, he personifies equality.

“I’m a huge fan of old literature, there is huge merit in what has been written previously, I think we are all influenced by the past.

"It goes down really well in class, kids have come back to me and said ‘I don’t enjoy much of your class, but I enjoyed that book’.

“There are slightly dated views but like the people in the novel, the writer makes it clear that their view should be dismissed and certainly not valued. As far as I'm concerned, it’s a classic.”