We'd like to say Hamilton County Board of Education member Rhonda Thurman was right on the mark in complaining about the coarseness found in some books in classrooms and libraries of local public schools. We can't. But she wasn't wrong, either.
The school board member recently complained in online and broadcast media about the vile language and sexually charged content found in some of the books brought to the attention of the board by the group Moms for Liberty.
The books cited were "More Than We Can Tell" by Brigid Kemmerer, "On the Come Up" by Angie Thomas, "Far From the Tree" by Robin Benway and "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas.
"Their parents send them to school expecting us to take care of them," Thurman said of students, "and then we allow them to see this filth. It's just unbelievable to me."
However, the same "filth" that she is talking about is being exchanged in student conversations in the halls of the schools, is in some of their homes as part of regular dialogue, is ubiquitous in the music many of the students listen to, is the language de jour of many movies and television shows they watch, and is rampant in the video games many of them play.
"Any school that allows this kind of talk in their school building, shame on them," Thurman said. "We're not making anybody future-ready with this because you talk like this, your boss will show you the door."
Were it up to us, we'd wipe out of all of the above "filth" in our entertainment. But that's not realistic. That genie is so far out of the bottle that it will never be put back in.
But that doesn't mean we should be fine with it all. And that's where parents come in.
They can't do much about the content in books, music, movies, television and video games sold on the open market, but they can be judicious about what their child reads, sees, hears and plays in their home. And they can help their children understand that the use of vile language and exploitative sexual content need not be the norm to be entertaining.
We also hope they would talk to their children about what they might feel and think when they encounter such content. Talking about such things up front is a much better way of dealing with such situations than hoping they won't see it or pretending it doesn't exist.
If the books are in libraries, we would hope there are ongoing discussions at the state, local and school level about what is appropriate for students. If community members are included in such discussions, that is even better.
But we're not sure that's even realistic, given everyone's time and responsibilities.
We also know that parents, community members, clergy and others have suggested for years that certain books now thought of as classics should be banned.
The American Library Association (ALA) keeps up with these. Among those on the list are "The Catcher in the Rye," "The Grapes of Wrath," "To Kill a Mockingbird," "The Color Purple," "1984" and "Native Son," just to name a few.
According to the organization, "The Color Purple" by Alice Walker was challenged as a summer youth program reading assignment in Chattanooga in 1989 because of its language and "explicitness." "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck was banned from classroom use at Skyline High School in Northwest Alabama in 1983 due to "profanity." The same book was challenged as a summer youth program reading assignment in Chattanooga in 1989 because "Steinbeck is known to have had an anti-business attitude," and "he was very questionable as to his patriotism."
We've read a number of books on the ALA's banned reading list, and we can't say any of them coarsened our speech, desensitized our actions or drove us to protest.
We acknowledge, though, that a constant drumbeat of violent video games, filthy music, offensive movies and television, and shameful language does tend to harden the culture.
At Thurman's request, the next meeting of the school board will include a description of how books are selected for school libraries.
We hope there at least will be an acknowledgment by school officials that they do care about the potential of such books coarsening the culture, that they encourage students to have frank discussions with teachers and parents about the content of books, and that they plan to better monitor what comes into their schools.
As we noted above, we're not going to put the genie back in the bottle, but we should be able to talk openly about what our children are reading and why.