SIMI VALLEY : NAACP Takes Book Complaint to State

The Ventura County chapter of the NAACP plans to ask for removal of the novel “The Cay” from the state Department of Education optional reading list when a committee reviewing the book meets today in Sacramento, an NAACP official said.

The local branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People has made similar appeals to the Simi Valley and Moorpark school districts but concluded that a decision by the state would have more impact, NAACP Vice President Theodore Green said Thursday.

The novel “taints the image of black males,” Green said.

A nine-member panel was appointed to decide if the book should stay on the state’s list of books recommended to supplement required reading, said Diane Levin, a language arts coordinator with the Department of Education.

Local school districts are not required to follow the state’s recommendations, but most use the state’s list to select mandatory and optional teaching materials, Levin said.

The review of “The Cay” was prompted by complaints from the NAACP and the parents of a Simi Valley junior high school boy offended by the book, Levin said.

The book is about a white boy stranded in the Caribbean who befriends an older black man, said committee member Donna Bessant. Through the friendship, the boy confronts the racism he was raised with, said Bessant, who was on the committee when the book was approved for use in the state’s public schools several years ago.

The novel provides a forum for discussing issues of race and ethnicity in the classroom, said Bessant, who is a coordinator of instructional materials in the Monterey-Peninsula Unified School District.

But Green said the student who complained was the only black in the class and felt traumatized by the stereotypical depiction of black men in the book. That should be how the book is judged, he said.

A final decision by the committee could be made by the end of the month, Levin said.