SIMI VALLEY : NAACP Wants Book Off Reading List

For the second time in as many weeks, a representative of the Ventura County chapter of the NAACP has asked an east county school board to take a novel off its required reading list.

Theodore Green, who heads the NAACP’s education committee, urged the Simi Valley Unified School District on Tuesday to remove “The Cay” from its core literature list. School district officials said they could not remember ever removing a book from the list, which specifies which books junior high students are expected to read, due to a complaint.

Citing passages that describe one of the main characters as ugly and “just a stupid old black man,” Green said the 1970 book by Theodore Taylor contains derogatory and stereotypical statements.

“We cannot have hate being taught,” Green said. “Hate is the basis of crime.”

Last week, Green requested that the Moorpark school board remove the book from its required reading list, the first time the Ventura County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has requested that school officials stop teaching a certain book.

In the Simi Valley case, the NAACP was approached last year by Beverly Plummer after her son had been offended by the book’s content. He is now an eighth-grader at Sequoia Junior High School.

School officials told Green that once a written complaint was filed, a committee would be appointed to review the book and report to a school district official. Green said he intended to file the complaint within 24 hours.

Board member Judy Barry said she wants to read the book before forming an opinion.

“I have very strong feelings about people being put down because of their race or religion. We have to be sensitive to that,” she said. “But you also can’t judge a book on a page here and a page there.” Plummer, who said she initially talked to officials at Sequoia in the spring, when her son was a seventh-grader, said she plans to file a written complaint herself by Monday.

“As a whole, the book does not project a positive image of black people,” Plummer said Wednesday. “There are other books the students can read. They should be more sensitive to people of color.”