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Censorship & Book Burnings, Oh My!!

"All the books in the young-adult zone that deal with homosexuality are gay-affirming. That's not balance," she said.
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Do they also require one copy of Little Black Sambo for each copy of Invisible Man?

The four plaintiffs -- who describe themselves as "elderly" in their complaint --- claim their "mental and emotional well-being was damaged by [the] book at the library."
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Wow. That's one powerful book, that can hurt people without them even reading it. What's it printed on, plutonium?
 
That article is so infuriating. Like walking past those books in a library (or *gasp* even reading them) is going to turn kids gay and make them have big sex orgies. Keep kids ignorant, that way they'll never be curious and want to experiment. Ugh. People. Come on.
 
Comeflyaway said:
That article is so infuriating. Like walking past those books in a library (or *gasp* even reading them) is going to turn kids gay and make them have big sex orgies. Keep kids ignorant, that way they'll never be curious and want to experiment. Ugh. People. Come on.
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Hmm. I don't know about every smalltown in the USof A, but the kids in my town who party down by the river are not the ones who spend much time reading, let alone hanging out at the library.
 
Which I think points to a degree of uncertainty in any of us being able to say why or how any of us turns out. Or them.
Not disagreeing, just making a parallel point. :flowers:
 
I guess I'm feeling wishy-washy about this. I would never condone book burnings and nonsense like that or even having a some sort of "naughty book" scarlet letter put on it. But I do want to know what my 12 year old is being exposed to, not so I can run from the room wailing but so I can be aware of what my kid might be thinking about so we can talk about it.

So where does that leave me? Conducting search and seizure raids on book bags and their rooms? It's not my style.:)

I just have to hope that whatever stuff they get exposed to, they've had a strong enough family to teach them right from wrong and decent values (which have nothing to do with sexual orientation, I'm mostly concerned with books glorifying sexs, drugs, and drinking.)
 
Wanting to move books to the adult section seems a pretty mild form of censorship. At least some were willing to attempt reason.
 
Book burning? Are you serious? I wonder how many people who are so offended by these works of literature actually READ the books that have scarred them mentally and threaten to tear down their town brick by brick and destroy there youth lol. Maybe the parents should acutally enter into some form of dialouge with there children so they know that they shouldn't check out or read said books. Instead of trying to censor these books for EVERYONE'S teens. People need to start taking some responsibility upon themselves to find out what your children think on such issues and why they think that, and to expplain your own feelings to your children. I mean noones forcing you to go to the library or forcing your children to do so, how about you just ban your child from the library and only buy books that you see fit? And while ur at it pull them from public school and take away there TV too lol, it's perfectly fine for a parent to express there values and morals onto there children but trying to do that to everyones children is wrong.
 
BlackwaterMerk said:
Book burning? Are you serious? I wonder how many people who are so offended by these works of literature actually READ the books that have scarred them mentally and threaten to tear down their town brick by brick and destroy there youth lol. Maybe the parents should acutally enter into some form of dialouge with there children so they know that they shouldn't check out or read said books. Instead of trying to censor these books for EVERYONE'S teens. People need to start taking some responsibility upon themselves to find out what your children think on such issues and why they think that, and to expplain your own feelings to your children. I mean noones forcing you to go to the library or forcing your children to do so, how about you just ban your child from the library and only buy books that you see fit? And while ur at it pull them from public school and take away there TV too lol, it's perfectly fine for a parent to express there values and morals onto there children but trying to do that to everyones children is wrong.
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It makes more sense to keep the books on the shelf, and spend one's energies discussing the issues they raise. Bad ideas will make themselves obvious..as will the good. I'd still rather my kids read about something I think is evil than have to experience it firsthand because they were not forwarned..
 
I agree with BlackWaterMerck. I too, doubt that the opposition has read the books in question. As stated in the article:

Tyree said book excerpts found on Maziarka's blog had been taken out of context and, in the case of "Wallflower," the criticism missed some of the book's points.

"In this book, there were consequences of ... rape, of indiscriminate sex. Those were not portrayed so glowingly," he said.
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I would surmise that the vast majority of young adult fiction writers don't gloss over consequences, or portray that you can "do anything" and live a utopian life.

I do agree that the library should have countering viewpoints, but a more logical one would be somethting out of the realm of christian young adult fiction books, as opposed to anything related to the "ex-gay" movement such as the Genesis group.
 
beer good said:
Brooklyn library restricts access to book - Yahoo! News

...Tintin?!?
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<Sigh> Why not keep access open to all and let people see the book in it's context? Aside from the great artwork, there's a value in seeing how far we've come from the days when it was common to see African portrayed at simple-minded, animal-like folks. People really wanted to believe that stuff once upon a time. But what do I know? I'm the kid who grew up happily with my Golden Book version of Little Black Sambo..I couldn't see what the fuss was about when I first learned 'Sambo' was a nasty term for a person of African heritage. MY Little Black Sambo was a beautiful Indian, with a gorgeous sari-wearing mom and a handsome turbained father..and he was smart..he tricked the tigers...what was racist about that? THEN, I met my friend who has an antique copy of the story, where he's not only African, but the he and his family are more like the Tintin Africans in the the story above. Oh yeah.. I can see the problem now.
Banning the book, or hiding it, is not the answer.
 
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