Keller @ Large: Keep Your Ignorance To Yourself

BOSTON (CBS) - If ignorance is bliss, then people who pressure schools to ban classic works of literature because they reflect outdated language or beliefs must be some of the happiest folks on earth.

She's just the latest in a long string of examples, but a Virginia parent who successfully lobbied her local high school to ban "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and Harper Lee's "To Kill A Mockingbird" is offering up quotes that have to be heard to be believed.

"This is great literature," she acknowledges. "But there (are so many) racial slurs in there and offensive wording that you can't get past that," referring to the realistic portrayal in both books of the pervasive racism of the times they chronicle.

"So what are we teaching our children?" continues this parent. "We're validating that these words are acceptable, and they are not acceptable by (any) means. There is other literature they can use."

Use to do what?

To convey the grotesque injustice of bigotry, its deep roots in America's past, and the power of the human spirit to overcome it?

This clueless person would cut us all off from access to two of the greatest indictments of racism ever written so as to spare her high schooler – not a very young child, a high schooler! – any potential discomfort.

Wait until her kid gets to college, they might as well move right into one of those absurd "safe rooms" some schools have now for kids who can't handle the real world.

Ignorance is your prerogative, I guess.

All we ask is that you keep it to yourself and away from the kids.

Listen to Jon's commentary: