Navigating "Tough Conversations": Why was the 2021 All School Read Born a Crime Cancelled?

Last July, Needham High students and teachers received an email from Mr. Sicotte regarding the summer’s all school read. A summer reading committee had settled on comedian Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, a memoir about Noah’s childhood through South African apartheid, but the school ultimately decided not to require this book. This announcement email explained, “​​recently Trevor Noah shared a monologue on The Daily Show that addressed the conflict between Israel and Palestine in a way that caused further division. As we looked into the monologue, we found social media posts that are not positive models for the students in our community.”

In Trevor Noah’s clip regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he, in short, explained that both sides were in the wrong, but Israel was essentially the big guy that should pick on a country their own size. All in all, Noah’s response was fairly tame and middle of the road. The social media posts referred to in Mr. Sicotte’s email were a series of anti-Semitic tweets by Noah nearly a decade ago. As two Jewish teenagers, we personally were not especially harmed by these tweets or the discussion of Israel’s politics. We think that the majority white student body reading Noah’s book and hearing his lived experience would have been way more important than a series of tweets he made. While we understand where the decision came from, we would have loved to see an acknowledgment of his views and tweets alongside the reading and discussion of Noah’s book.

In a conversation with Mr. Sicotte, he explained that the administration and teachers were simply not prepared to have these “tough” conversations with students. He emphasized that the administration was not permanently canceling Noah’s memoir but rather delaying it until the school is ready to have these conversations.

Why are these tweets where the administration draws the line for what requires a tough conversation? Earlier this year in an AP Literature section, students read Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. This book is a classic piece of literature, but it is of course, quite problematic, since it was written in the 14th century. For example, Dante made Judas one of the key sinners deep in hell for killing Jesus. Compared to Dante, Noah’s tweets and remarks are child-play, yet students still read and learn from books like Inferno. Instead of simply not reading this problematic piece of literature, the class took note of the anti-Semitism and discussed it. It was as simple as that, and through reading this iconic book, we gained insight into how it shaped literature. Our teacher trusted us to have these difficult conversations, and through it, we gained so much.

In our Needham High classrooms, these “difficult conversations” only consistently come up after traumatic events. Teacher-guided discussions in all of our classes follow racist and anti-Semitic graffiti, the 2020 Black Lives Matter Movement Protests, or the January 6th Insurrection. Students discuss these topics in a somewhat forced manner class after class, and we have come to recognize these as awkward conversations where a bunch of students will sit in silence and someone else will likely play devil’s advocate.

How can we enable students to have difficult conversations outside the scope of traumatic events so we don’t have to cancel a book because we don’t know how to have them? In our Needham High experience, we really only have engaged in true productive conversations like this in classes or student groups like AP Government and AP English Language––where curriculum centers difficult current events or rhetoric––or in spaces like Courageous Conversations on Race, Students Advocating for Equity, or The NewspapHER––where students self-select to engage in conversations surrounding our school, race, gender, and activism.

As a school, we need to train all students to have these conversations, not just the students who self-select to learn how. So, how do we get there?

These conversations need to be embedded in our classes, starting in 9th grade. 9th graders should learn the norms of approaching difficult conversations — speaking from personal experience, understanding intent vs. impact, confidentiality, etc. And this starts with teachers modeling this for students: approaching discussions and texts with empathy, perspective, and care. If we focus our attention on ensuring every student knows how to engage in difficult conversations about difficult issues, then we can approach complicated texts and issues without fear.

As we prepare students for life beyond graduation, they need to be able to have difficult conversations: to grapple with balancing authors’ stances on complicated politics and their lived experiences. Let’s get there, as a school, by practicing having “tough conversations,” by holding each other accountable, and by approaching discussions with an open mind. And then, we believe Needham High absolutely can, and should, read Born a Crime.