#just because this one guy sucks shit doesn't mean a whole culture should be destroyed hello

[dearqueerdeers]

sorry i know you reblogged this post like two days ago i was scrolling through the tags but re: the english teacher who said you couldnt call the male character abusive bc of his culture, was the novel in question things fall apart by chinua achebe bc if so that is NUTS thats like explicitly part of the point of that novel

YEAH IT WAS!! IT WAS THINGS FALL APART!!! THATS WHAT I WAS SAYING!!!

me n my friend spent like 30 mins after class arguing with her after a class discussion and she just kept saying that he wasn't abusive bc in his culture his actions weren't abusive and we were like. that's not how that works actually?

AND it got even stupider than that. bc I had convinced the English department at my school to give out a list of content warnings for their books at the beginning of the semester, so that students who needed could request an alternate book assignment if the material would be too upsetting for them. And the teacher refused to put abuse as a content warning for Things Fall Apart under the same "you can't call it abusive because it's cultural!!" reasoning. I tried MULTIPLE times to explain that while the character in the novel may not see it as abuse, any student who had faced or was currently facing abuse at home most certainly WOULD, and she still just held her ground about it not actually being abuse (and therefore not needing a warning)