Five teens, two white and three non white were sentenced to read a list of books about racism and antisemitism. They faced charges after defacing a historic black schoolhouse with swastikas and the words black power and white power. Judge Alex Rueda ― who has librarians in her family ― saw the act as a “teachable moment,” and assigned the young men book and movie reports in lieu of community service or jail time. They will also have to do a research paper on swastikas and attend a Holocaust Museum with their parents. The book cover some of the most racist and antisemitic events in world history. “They have to write either a book report once a month of they can substitute three of the books for a movie review, so I also gave them a list of approved movies that they can watch. And hopefully, what they get out of this year is a greater appreciation for gender, race, religion, bigotry. And then when they go out into the world, they are teachers.” What has happened in the year since the teens were sentenced. One of the teens wrote about “12 Years A Slave,” the story of Solomon Northup, who was kidnapped and forced into slavery, spending 12 years under the brutal rule of a sadistic plantation owner and “Night,” the story of Elie Wiesel and his experience with his father in the Nazi German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. The teen said the books “affected him deeply.” He also said while they studied these events in history class, they only spent a couple of days on the subjects. “I had no idea about how in depth the darkest parts of human history go,” he wrote. Everybody should be treated with equality, no matter the race, religion, sex, or orientation. I will do my best to see to it that I am never this ignorant again.”
Here is a list of the approved books.
1.The Color Purple
2. Native Son – Richard Wright
3. Exodus – Leon Uris
4. Mitla 18- Leon Uris
5. Trinity – Leon Uris
6. My Name is Asher Lev – Chaim Potok
7. The Chosen – Chaim Potok
8. The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemingway
9. Night –Elie Wiesel
10. The Crucible – Arthur Miller
11. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
12. A Thousand Splendid Suns – Khaled Hosseini
13. Things Falls Apart – Chinua Achebe
14. The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
15. To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
16. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
17. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot
18. Caleb’s Crossing – Geraldine Brooks
19. Tortilla Curtain – TC Boyle
20. The Bluest Eye- Toni Morrison
21. A Hope In The Unseen – Ron Suskind
22. Down These Mean Streets – Piri Thomas
23. Black Boy – Richard Wright
24. The Beautiful Struggle – Ta Nehisi Coats
25. The Banality of Evil – Hannah Arendt
26. The Underground Railroad – Colson Whitehead
27. Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi
28. The Rape of Nanking – Iris Chang
29. Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali
30. The Orphan Master’s Son- Adam Johnson
31. The Help – Kathryn Stockett
32. Cry the Beloved Country –Alan Patton
33. Too Late the Phalarope –Alan Paton
34. A Dry White Season –Andre Brink
35. Ghost Soldiers – Hampton Sides
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