Same Author, Two Worlds

An award-winning author is to be lauded in Alabama for his writing this Friday....yet a teacher in South Carolina, Mary Wood, has been reprimanded for using one of that author's books in class.

First, the honors: The Advertiser reports:

Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist, with bestsellers like "The Beautiful Struggle," "We Were Eight Years in Power," "The Water Dancer" and "Between The Word And Me." His books promote social and racial understanding, and foster American storytelling.

When...Coates...visits Montgomery to accept the 2023 Fitzgerald Prize for Literary Excellence, it's not about personal glory. It's about honoring a source of inspiration.

"I'm not the most public of people," said Coates, a Baltimore, Md., native who has a love for author F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing style. "I guess the best way to put this is that I would not do this unless there was something that's a really deep emotional connection. In this case, there really is."

(FULL Advertiser story is HERE) 

MEANWHILE, The Washington Post reports, in Chapin, South Carolina, two students complained when teacher Mary Wood assigned "Between The World and Me" in her all-white student class:

The students wrote in emails that the book — and accompanying videos that Wood, 47, played about systemic racism — made them ashamed to be White, violating a South Carolina proviso that forbids teachers from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” on account of their race.

Reading Coates’s book felt like “reading hate propaganda towards white people,” one student wrote.

 Any wonder that some teachers are retiring?