I walked into my American Literature class and sat down. The professor stood in the front of the room and wrote a year on the blackboard.
1492.
This is apparently the beginning of American Literature.
My professor joked about how there were obviously people living in the United Sates before then, but we only had a limited amount of time and needed to cover all the important stuff. That meant we would not be reading anything by Native American or black authors, and only one text would be written by a woman.
Hearing this made me reflect on my entire experience of schooling. Most authors I read were white men, but so many other groups have shared the same space. I have never once read a book, short story or even a journal entry written by a Native American. In my entire time in college, I’ve read one book by a black author, and that was only because I took an LGBT literature course.
With a plethora of minority writers, why are we only reading things written by white men? Because that’s the way it’s always been?
It’s time we break the mold.
Stories like Macbeth can easily be replaced by novels with the same themes. For example, "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe. Both stories follow men who have too much ambition which ultimately leads to their own self-destruction. On the one hand, you have a play written in a language most people can’t understand by someone who, at least in my high school, we were required to read something by every year. On the other hand, you have a novel by a Nigerian author that not only teaches students important lessons but allows them to have insight on life in Nigeria. That’s something no student will learn in any core class. So why are we still reading Shakespeare?
People will tell you that things can’t change because this is the way it’s always been done. But it doesn’t have to be. Women authors, black authors and queer authors exist, we should be taught about them. We can talk to our school boards and write to the heads of the English departments at our universities. We can show others the true injustice that this is and have them rally behind us, behind this idea.
So are you ready to help make a change?
