Woke teachers want Shakespeare cut from curriculum: 'This is about White supremacy'
The crown teachers once put on William Shakespeare now lies uneasy upon his head as the English playwright comes under assault from teachers who fault his unwoke attitudes regarding race, sexuality, gender and class.
For the new breed of teachers, Shakespeare is seen less as an icon of literature and more as a tool of imperial oppression, an author who should be dissected in class or banished from the curriculum entirely.
“This is about white supremacy and colonization,” declared the
teachers who founded #DisruptTexts, a group that wants staples of
Western literature removed or subjected to withering criticism.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2021/feb/15/woke-teachers-want-shakespeare-cut-curriculum-abou/
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“This is about white supremacy and colonization,” - really?!
Although the UK had indentured servants going back to Roman times, the international slave trade
did not take off until the colonization of the Americas, by which time, Shakespeare was dead.
William Shakespeare, Lived: 1564 - 1616
"Show me the man, I'll show you the crime" - Lavrentiy Beria, USSR secret police
@earl-of-trumps saidcan we agree these people are crazy vocal minorities and stop amplifying their message?
Woke teachers want Shakespeare cut from curriculum: 'This is about White supremacy'
[i]The crown teachers once put on William Shakespeare now lies uneasy upon his head as the English playwright comes under assault from teachers who fault his unwoke attitudes regarding race, sexuality, gender and class.
For the new breed of teachers, Shakespeare is seen les ...[text shortened]... - 1616
"Show me the man, I'll show you the crime" - Lavrentiy Beria, USSR secret police
@earl-of-trumps saidInstead of your typically hysterical exaggerations and overreaction based on articles in right wing propaganda rags, going to the source might be more useful:
Woke teachers want Shakespeare cut from curriculum: 'This is about White supremacy'
[i]The crown teachers once put on William Shakespeare now lies uneasy upon his head as the English playwright comes under assault from teachers who fault his unwoke attitudes regarding race, sexuality, gender and class.
For the new breed of teachers, Shakespeare is seen les ...[text shortened]... - 1616
"Show me the man, I'll show you the crime" - Lavrentiy Beria, USSR secret police
"Overall, we continue to affirm that there is an over-saturation of Shakespeare in our schools and that many teachers continue to unnecessarily place him on a pedestal as a paragon of what all language should be. Though we enjoy reading some of the plots in his plays and acknowledge the depth and complexity within many of his plot arcs and characters, we also find that educators are often taught to see Shakespearean plays as near perfection, his characters as “archetypes”, and to persist in oj indoctrinating students into a false notion of the primacy (and superiority) of the English language.
We do not see these same problematic approaches in other plays where whiteness and the male voice are not centered. The more we learn alongside teachers who are disrupting texts, the more we move away from continuing to give space to these voices; the more we want to decenter the male white voices completely, knowing that our students will read/hear of them before and after their time in our courses is over.
Furthermore, there are schools where Shakespeare is required every year, while no other author is required to be studied in such a pervasive way. Many teachers explain that he and his plays are “universal” and that “one cannot go a day without seeing a reference to Shakespeare in popular culture.” People can also argue that one cannot go a day without seeing biblical references in our popular culture. In fact, Shakespeare makes biblical references, and yet, we don’t teach the Bible each year. English classes (generally speaking) don’t require the Bible as one of the texts in its course curriculum. So, let us be honest, the conversation really isn’t about universality, nor 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.
Considering the violence, misogyny, racism, and more that we encounter in Shakespearean texts, we offer up the notion that we can open our minds and classrooms to texts that celebrate the voices and lives of marginalized people, speak to the students in front of us, and reflect a better society. We can do this by achieving balance and greater inclusion with the examples of excellence we place before students and by applying a forward-facing, critical lens, to these works. It is also imperative that we reflect and act to correct the messages educators and school systems send children about whose language is superior, whose stories are “universal”, and whose history should be carried into the future by means of remaining in the literary canon and thus, our societal collective consciousness."
https://disrupttexts.org/2018/10/25/5-disrupting-shakespeare/
Sounds reasonable to me.
@no1marauder saidMhmmm... would you expect texts from 400 years ago (the reign of Elizabeth I; not known as a peaceful society... especially if you were Catholic) to be “woke”?
Instead of your typically hysterical exaggerations and overreaction based on articles in right wing propaganda rags, going to the source might be more useful:
"Overall, we continue to affirm that there is an over-saturation of Shakespeare in our schools and that many teachers continue to unnecessarily place him on a pedestal as a paragon of what all language should be. ...[text shortened]... sness."
https://disrupttexts.org/2018/10/25/5-disrupting-shakespeare/
Sounds reasonable to me.
You have to place Shakespeare into context. He was to the 17th century what Stephen King is to us. With one very major exception: there weren’t millions of published writers back then. So what he did stuck out.
To suggest that extra attention not be paid to the Bible, The Iliad or Shakespeare is ignoring the cultural significance and impact of literature.
So many references on a daily basis come from these 3 sources, you have to heed attention to them.
Take Romeo and Juliet.
From West Side Story to Grease... all based along this tale.
English words attributed to Shakespeare?
Alligator, bedroom, kissing, downstairs, gossip, etc. More than 1500 words!
But, it’s a brave new world (Shakespeare) and what’s done is done (Shakespeare) so I’ll wear my heart upon my sleeve (Shakespeare) and because the world is my Oyster (Shakespeare), I have to admit it’s all Greek to me (Shakespeare) and I will leave you to your wild goose-chase (Shakespeare).
@Duchess64 - The 'Washington Times' is a hard right-wing propaganda organ with a long record of falsehoods.
Nice deflection, Duchess64... NOT
Shooting the messenger does not disappear what the WOKE fabricators said.
Figures, - you'd run to the side of and protect anyone pillorying a white male icon.
@wildgrass saidNo.. because they do great harm to innocent people and they will continue to.
can we agree these people are crazy vocal minorities and stop amplifying their message?
funny, wildgrass, you object to me WAKING people to the deeds of the fraudsters
but you don't really seem to mind the fraudsters propelling damaging fake news
The post that was quoted here has been removedI’m not in favour of safe spaces in education.
History isn’t a safe place. Never was, never will be.
And as far as I’m concerned, people wanting safe places are suffering from Western privilege: they have no idea what crap it all once was or the crap a lot of people are still suffering.
I say force feed the bastards inquistion after invasion after holocaust and they’ll soon realise that Shakespeare isn’t that much of a bloody problem.
Edit:
As for people saying Shakespeare is only understandable by white people... good grief!
Is Homer only understandable by olive coloured people???
Man oh man. I despair for this bloody planet.
The post that was quoted here has been removedWell, obviously education has to be age appropriate!
I was thinking of 18+ people wanting a safe space.
I don’t think force feeding 7 year olds footage of concentration camps is a good thing!
Maybe I should have made that a bit clearer in my rant...
@no1marauder - This is about an ingrained and internalized elevation of Shakespeare in a way that excludes other voices. This is about white supremacy and colonization.
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So you think if there are more words, it will hide the politically charged words?? Brilliant.
Nobody in America is teaching white supremacy and colonization, an absurd charge.
Now let's get down to what the WOKE liars are really doing.
"... The more we learn alongside teachers who are disrupting texts, the more we move away from continuing to give space to these voices; the more we want to decenter the male white voices completely."
Going after and targeting white people. Let me put this into context so that you will understand.
White Supremacists want to decenter the voices of Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcom X, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Barrack Obama so they won't be uppity examples out there for other nigroes to see.
Jeeez, ya think this might cause problems in America???
RACISTS, that's who WOKE is.
Maybe in the end, Shakespeare is taught so frequently because he is a supremist,
the most supreme writer of the English language.