{"id":92,"date":"2006-07-26T21:07:47","date_gmt":"2006-07-27T02:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/weeklyrob.dreamhosters.com\/?p=92"},"modified":"2006-07-26T21:07:47","modified_gmt":"2006-07-27T02:07:47","slug":"here%e2%80%99s-to-an-old-fashioned-book-banning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/?p=92","title":{"rendered":"Here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to an Old-Fashioned Book Banning"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (happily abbreviated to the <\/span>ABFFE<\/a>) has compiled <\/span>a list of banned and challenged books<\/a> (that is, they were, or are in the process of being, challenged or actually banned this year).<\/span><\/p>\n

Some were challenged or banned by school districts, some by retailers, some by public libraries. For each book in the list, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a link to read the details of who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing the challenging and why.<\/p>\n

Jenna Jameson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s autobiographical \u00e2\u20ac\u0153How to Make Love Like a Porn Star\u00e2\u20ac\u009d made the list, thanks to the mayor of Houston, who had decided that it should be kept behind the counter of the public library until further review. The Reviewers decided, strangely enough, to put it with the other biographies. (Not that it ever physically went behind the counter, since \u00e2\u20ac\u0153it has been in constant circulation for months and as of mid-February had a waiting list of 41 patrons.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d)<\/p>\n

Less amusingly, the list also includes these titles:<\/p>\n

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lords of Discipline<\/strong><\/p>\n

To Kill a Mockingbird<\/strong>: One of the mothers was \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stunned\u00e2\u20ac\u009d that this book was on the shelves. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153She acknowledged she hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read the entire book, but strongly felt if it had the word \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nigger\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in it, it shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be used in schools.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thinking, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hadn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t read the entire book\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153flipped through it to find the words she didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t like.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The Hot Zone<\/p>\n

The Catcher in the Rye<\/p>\n

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn<\/p>\n

Black Boy<\/strong><\/p>\n

And more!<\/p>\n

Mostly, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153foul\u00e2\u20ac\u009d language, sexual content, and racial epithets were the offensive bits. Surprise.<\/p>\n

One book, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153On the Bright Side, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God\u00e2\u20ac\u009d apparently had no offensive content at all, except for the title! A father of a student thought the book itself was fine, but that the title \u00e2\u20ac\u0153could influence girls to enter relationships with older men that might result in statutory rape.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Why he didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it might influence them to enter a relationship with the actual god, Eros, I have no idea.<\/p>\n

I guess I should give my opinion in black and white, so here it is:<\/p>\n

Quit banning books from public libraries.<\/p>\n

Having said that, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not as easy to decide what should go on school library shelves, and even more so, what should be required reading for young students. But as I read more of the reasons for removing these books, I keep saying the same things to myself.<\/p>\n

Things such as, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how they talked back then.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but kids need to know about this stuff.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153everyone has these thoughts, shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we let them know that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not freaks?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Or, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153they talk this way themselves; isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t it a good idea to use their language?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

One of the complaints about Mockingbird, for example, was that the language made a student \u00e2\u20ac\u0153uncomfortable.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

GOOD! It should make you feel uncomfortable. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a good thing. That book made me uncomfortable as hell, because I grew up in a house where words like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153nigger\u00e2\u20ac\u009d were inconceivable. Reading about them being casually spoken was a shock. But shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we be shocked and discomforted by racism?<\/p>\n

In the end, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hard for me to believe that anyone was ever really damaged from reading a book. But I know for sure that people have suffered for not reading books. And if the books in the libraries aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t compelling and relevant to kids, then we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll keep seeing it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (happily abbreviated to the ABFFE) has compiled a list of banned and challenged books (that is, they were, or are in the process of being, challenged or actually banned this year). Some were challenged or banned by school districts, some by retailers, some by public libraries. For each […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humanity","category-languagelit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=92"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=92"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=92"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyrob.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=92"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}