Satrapi Weighs in on Persepolis Ban

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund is keeping this ever-befuddling clusterflub from Chicago Public Schools fresh in our minds by helping share Marjane Satrapi's thoughts on the subject. I am excited to see her talk about the issue, and frustrated that CPS is requiring an ambiguous type of training to teachers before they teach the book. Pseudo-censorship at its finest, laced with half-baked stories and rumors and very little transparent truth from CPS beyond a "We'll do what we want" rhetoric.

Persepolis Being Banned from Chicago Schools?

 
Bleeding Cool News is reporting that Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel Persepolis may be experiencing a controversy. According to a post from the principal of Lane Tech College Prep High School, the book has caught the attention of someone who doesn't want the book available to students.

Read more about this possible censorship case here. You can access the principal's email address and send a letter of support for the book's continued inclusion in this and other Chicago-area schools, which is also a letter of support for students' ability to access it, read it, and learn from it.

Here's a copy of the email I just sent:

Dear Principal Dignam,

Hi there. I'm James Bucky Carter, an English Education professor and comics-and-literacy scholar. My work on comics and education has appeared in publications from MLA, NCTE, ALAN and ASCD. I have been a keynote or featured speaker on the subject at NCTE affiliates in NY, NH, OR, MO, NC, IO, and ID.

I'm writing in support of the graphic novel _Persepolis_, which, according to some media outlets, is being challenged in your schools?:
http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/03/15/persepolis-banned-in-chicagos-schools/

Please trust me when I tell you that Marjane Satrapi's _Persepolis_ is an excellent graphic novel for inclusion in public schools and libraries. As well, my research indicates that it is one of three graphic novels with which teachers are most familiar at the national level (along with Maus and American Born Chinese). Lesson plans and articles have been written on how to teach it. You might see the Marla Harris chapter on teaching it in my book _Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels_, published by NCTE and a best-seller for them. You might see Susan Spangler's chapter on integrating Persepolis into the ELA classroom by visiting the online _Journal of Media Literacy Education_. There is also a rationale for teaching the first volume of Persepolis available on the CDrom/ebook _Rationales for Teaching Graphic Novels_. Alan Webb has some great articles and a book on exploring literature from the Middle East in the American ELA classroom.

Simply put, there is no lack of information regarding teacher's respect for this text or how to use it effectively in a secondary school classroom.

I have recommended _Persepolis_ for secondary audiences for many years. I have taught it in my YA lit classes for many years. While it is true that the book can be seen as controversial from any number of parties (I've had christian students express frustration with it as well as Muslim students), its potential to open dialogue and discourse at a time when our country and the Middle East need to find understandings.... Well, it might be unparallelled.

I encourage you to support this inclusion of _Persepolis_ in your school's classrooms and libraries, to encourage your teachers to support the text as well, and I hope you might share this support across Chicago.

Thank you for the work you do. If I can be of any help, do not hesitate to call upon me.

Sincerely,

JBC

University of Chicago Hosting Comics Mega-Event!

The University of Chicago's Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry is hosting a conference this May. "Comics: Philosophy & Practice Conference" will run from May 18-20 and feature an amazing line-up of top-tier comics talent. Visit the link in this post's title for more information, and be sure to click the "Conference Participants" link too.

Go Maroons!

And Now a Little Midwest Flavah: Jose G.

Centerstage has posted a cool interview with Chicago South Sider and cartoonist Jose Garibaldi. Click this post's title for the read. (Thanks to MH for the link!)

Review of _Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty_

Yummy: The Last Days of a Southside Shorty (September 2010, Lee & Low Books) details the short life of Robert “Yummy” Sandifer, an eleven year old gangbanger in Chicago’s Southside in 1994. Told through Roger, a fictional peer of Yummy’s acting as author G. Neri’s narrator, and excellently illustrated in expressionistic, streaky-when-necessary inks by Randy DuBurke, this graphic novel enrages and saddens.

Yummy, with felony after felony on his juvenile record (which, in 1994, meant he could not be tried as an adult), is seeking to impress his Black Disciple Nation gang bosses when he pulls a hit on a rival. He misses, however, killing a 14 year old girl in the process. His life as a reputed “tough shorty” on the rise comes to an end when fellow Black Disciples Derrick and Crag, 16 and 14 respectively, arrange his execution to get the heat off the gang’s collective back. As Neri explains it, Yummy becomes the poster child for all that is wrong with urban youth when the media, most notably, TIME, cover his story. Yummy the vile, the coldblooded killer, though, was also Yummy the abused, the neglected, the teddy bear-coddling, 60 pound child of drug addicts and prostitutes.

Yummy the victim; Yummy the victimizer: meet an 11 year old stone-cold killer and recoil when thinking about how he was one of hundreds of youngsters still doing the dirty work for America’s gangs. Wonder what it would take to offer these “shorties” a better alternative and gag yourself on the acidy realization that whatever that is, it might not ever be offered or accepted.

The novel leaves one with a burning rage to retroactively make things right in Roger’s world and a gnawing frustration that Yummy’s life and neighborhood might have been too far gone for even the smallest bit of help to have mattered. But, if that is the case, doesn’t it mean giving up hope for children who’ve already lived without it for their entire lives? The ethical tensions in this text do not easily resolve.

Yummy is a worthwhile read for all adolescents, with adult facilitation highly recommended. It may be especially poignant for those young people who have to make excruciating decisions at young ages regarding their safety and status in neighborhoods when it comes to gang life or the much less known and less comfortable something else.

It is not a fun read. But, perhaps it should be a required read. Expect to be angered and disturbed. Yummy grabs at your chest with barbed-wired fingernails and won’t let you go easily. The more you thrash, the more it has got you.

More info on Yummy: http://gregneri.com/yummy.html