William Shakespeare, you have been canceled.
An increasing number of awakened teachers refuse to study the Bard – accusing his classics of promoting “misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogyny.”
A lot of English literature teachers told the School Library Journal (SLJ) how they abandon “Hamlet”, “Macbeth” and “Romeo and Juliet” to “make room for modern, diverse and inclusive voices”.
“Shakespeare was an instrument used to ‘civilize’ the black and brown people of the English Empire,” insisted Shakespeare scholar Ayanna Thompson, a professor of English at Arizona State University.
Teachers must also “challenge the white” assumption that Shakespeare’s works are “universal,” insisted Jeffrey Austin, who is head of the English literature department at a high school in Michigan.
Former Washington public school teacher Claire Bruncke told the SLJ that she kicked Bard out of the classroom to “deviate from the center of the narrative of white, Cisgian, and heterosexual men.”
“The removal of Shakespeare was a step I could easily take to work towards this. And it proved useful for my students “, she insisted.
Other teachers have said that they adhere to Shakespeare, but reformulate their work with a more modern goal.
Sarah Mulhern Gross, an English teacher at High Technology High School in Lincroft, NJ, said she teaches “Romeo and Juliet” “with part of the analysis of toxic masculinity.”
In her SLJ article, “To Teach or Not To Teach,” librarian Amanda MacGregor recognized Bard as “a genius wordmith” responsible for “masterful puns, creative use of language, biting spirit, puns.” and innovative characters ”.
However, he understood why so many teachers were “fighting” and eventually “abandoning Shakespeare’s opera.”
“Shakespeare’s works are full of problematic, outdated ideas, with a lot of misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, anti-Semitism and misogyny,” wrote MacGregor, with the final word meaning misogyny for black women.