Blog 1; 2/2/22; Kolvenbach and King
Central to both Kolvenbach and King are the pleas for people to recognize oppression and actively help instrument societal growth. Kolvenbach states, "personal involvement with innocent suffering, with the injustice others suffer, is the catalyst for solidarity which then gives rise to intellectual inquiry and moral reflection" (34). Kolvenbach urges Jesuit educators to incorporate empathy into education to create "whole" persons. His statement perfectly articulates why books such as The Color Purple should remain off the banned books list. The Color Purple gifts a new world perspective, allowing students to think about society more broadly and with less self-interest. The audience gets the experience of a poor, uneducated, Black, lesbian woman in the early nineteen hundreds. Hopefully, students recognize similar structures of oppression still alive in society today and are inspired to stand in solidarity with those victims. Unfortunately, people tend to take a m...