Toni Morrison’sThe Bluest Eye has been removed from school media centers in Georgia’s Cobb County School District over concerns about sexually explicit content involving child rape and incest.
What did the Cobb County Superintendent say about the book’s removal?
Cobb County Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced the decision Sept. 17, saying the district determined that passages in Morrison’s 1970 novel were inappropriate for students, according to the school’s website.
The district specifically cited pages 161-163, which depict the rape of an 11-year-old girl by her father. Ragsdale defended the decision during a school board meeting.
“The words speak for themselves,” Ragsdale said. “Both as a father and as a superintendent, I think about a parent having to explain to their sixth-grade daughter after she encounters explicit descriptions of child incest and rape in a book provided at school, without parents’ knowledge.”…