K.C. mom wants 'Mice and Men' removed

KANSAS CITY, Kan., Sept. 23 (UPI) -- A Kansas City, Kan., parent says she wants public school officials to remove John Steinbeck's novel "Of Mice and Men" from a required reading list.

Dana Washington, mother of a 14-year-old son at Washington High School, says she objects to Steinbeck's "violent" and "profuse" use of a racial epithet in the classic novel, KMBC-TV, Kansas City, reported Tuesday.

"The N-word is used more in this paragraph than most rap songs, and I think that's absolutely ridiculous," she told the station. "I'm not asking for the book to be banned, but for it to be removed from the list of required reading in the USD 500 school list.

"I want them to find another book that doesn't use the word so violently and profusely."

"It's not a pleasant part of our history," David Smith, a spokesman for the school district, told KMBC-TV. "But kids these days need opportunities to learn about it, understand it, not in a sanitized 21st-century way, because that's how we move forward in society."