A high school in South Carolina has been accused of indoctrinating students after two books that tackle racism and police brutality were placed on the school’s summer reading list.
Both The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, and All American Boys, by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, were put on the summer reading list for the English I class at Wando High School, which is located just north of Charleston, South Carolina.
The Hate U Give chronicles a teenaged narrator after her unarmed best friend is shot by police, while in All American Boys, one of the main characters is brutally beaten by a police officer after being accused of stealing a bag of potato chips. Both books have received widespread critical acclaim and landed on the New York Times Bestseller list.
However, John Blackmon, president of the Fraternal Order of Police Tri-County Lodge #3 — which represents local, state, and federal law enforcement officers in Charleston and Colleton counties — told News2 that he had received “an influx of tremendous outrage at the selections” and wants the books removed.
“Freshmen, they’re at the age where their interactions with law enforcement have been very minimal. They’re not driving yet, they haven’t been stopped for speeding, they don’t have these type of interactions,” Blackmon said. “This is putting in their minds, it’s almost an indoctrination of distrust of police and we’ve got to put a stop to that.”
The students don’t even have to read the two books in question — they’re only required to choose one title from a list of five, including the sci-fi book 23 Minutes, by Vivian Vande Velde, and Going Bovine, by Libba Bray.
But that isn’t stopping Blackmon.
“There are other socio-economic topics that are available and they want to focus half of their effort on negativity towards the police?” Blackmon said. “That seems odd to me.”
In December of last year, South Carolina police officer Michael Slager was sentenced to 20 years in prison for killing Michael Scott, an unarmed African American motorist, during a traffic stop in 2015. After shooting Scott, Slagger then attempted to cover up the crime by blaming it on a dead man.
But the outcry over Wando High School’s freshmen reading list isn’t limited to police — parents have also been complaining. According to the school, it has already received a complaint about the two books in question. It will be now forwarded to a committee, which will review the material and hear from the parent who complained, along with the teacher who assigned the material.