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The Official Book Censorship Thread

This insightful article by author Zadie Smith came across my screen the other day and it seemed to me to have relevance to the language wars that spring up when some Boards of Ed try to keep certain books out of their schools becausee of offensive language.

Speaking in Tongues - The New York Review of Books

I suspect that many Boards of Ed have a goal, among many others, of trying to educate their students to write and speak "better," while many people and parents feel that the everyday speech that we hear and use is "normal."

Zadie Smith's remarks are deeply thought out and very perceptive, and might be of interest to anyone interested in language, even beyond the realm of censorship.
 
lolz^_^ We celebrate banned book week at my school. During this week the library has a banned book display that contains lists of banned books and many of the books themselves. I think it's insane all the different kinds of books that had a case behind them. Some of them I had no doubt that some parent would find a problem with, but there were many other books on the list that I was surprised to find. Banned book week really gets all the students at my school motivated to read, so I think it's really great! (not banning books, or cencorship, but banned book week ^_^)
 
I remember my friend Catherine reading a book from the library at school that really should not have been there! Sex scenes galore, and we were only about 13 :lol: it was a proper bodice-ripper.
 
Up my way (suburbs of NYC) things have certainly changed. I understand that they now show educational videos of everything relevant. And I mean everything. /I bliush to think./ But maybe we are verging toward a mature topic, where students may now know more than we do or did.:whistling:
 
lolz^_^ We celebrate banned book week at my school. During this week the library has a banned book display that contains lists of banned books and many of the books themselves. I think it's insane all the different kinds of books that had a case behind them. Some of them I had no doubt that some parent would find a problem with, but there were many other books on the list that I was surprised to find. Banned book week really gets all the students at my school motivated to read, so I think it's really great! (not banning books, or cencorship, but banned book week ^_^)

I would be writing down the titles.:D
 
An article about banned books and censorship:
It's a typical day in 11th Grade American Lit. You are teaching about Mark Twain and decide that the students would not only enjoy but get a lot out of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The school has purchased enough books for each student to receive one, so you hand them out. Then you spend the rest of the class period discussing a very important issue: Twain's use of the 'n' word throughout the book. You explain that not only do we have to look at the book through the context of the time period, but we also have to understand what Twain was trying to do with his story. He was trying to reveal the plight of the slave. And he was doing it with the vernacular of the time. The students snicker a little. Some might even make wisecracks when they think you're not listening. But you hear and correct them. You make sure they understand the reason behind the word. You ask for any questions or concerns. You tell the students they can come to speak with you later. None do. All seems well.

A week passes. The students have already had their first quiz. Then, you receive a call from the principal. It seems that one of the parents is concerned at the prevalence of the 'n' word in the book. They consider it racist. They want you to quit teaching it. They make hints that they will take the issue further if their needs are not met. What do you do?

This situation is not a pleasant one. But it is not necessarily a rare one either. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the 4th most banned books in schools according to Banned in the U.S.A. by Herbert N. Foerstal. In 1998 three new attacks arose to challenge its inclusion in education.

Reasons for Banned Books

Is censorship in schools good? Is it necessary to ban books? Each person answers these questions differently. This is the core of the problem for educators. Books can be found offensive for many reasons. Here are just some reasons taken from Rethinking Schools Online:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou. Reason: Rape scene, "anti-white"
Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck. Reason: Profanity
Go Ask Alice Anonymous. Reason: Drug use, sexual situations, profanity
A Day No Pigs Would Die Robert Newton Peck. Reason: Depiction of pigs mating and being slaughtered.
Many ways exist to ban books. Our county has a group which reads the questionable book and determines whether its educational value exceeds the weight of the objections against it. However, schools can ban books without this lengthy procedure. They just choose not to order the books in the first place. This is the situation in Hillsborough County, Florida. As reported in the St. Petersburg Times, one elementary school will not stock two of the Harry Potter books by J.K. Rowling because of the "witchcraft themes." As the Principal explained it, the school knew they would get complaints about the books so they did not buy them. Many people, including the American Library Association has spoken out against this. I found an article by Judy Blume on the website for the National Coalition Against Censorship to be very interesting. It's title: Is Harry Potter Evil?

The question that faces us in the future is 'when do we stop?' Do we remove mythology and Arthurian legends because of its references to magic? Do we strip the shelves of medieval literature because it presupposes the existence of saints? Do we remove Macbeth because of the murders and witches? I think that most would say there is a point where we must stop. But who gets to pick the point?

List of ten banned books with their reason for being banned.
and some interesting articles:
Banned Books and Education
 
Loved this article.

From the American Library Association:
The Freedom to Read Statement
The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack. Private groups and public authorities in various parts of the country are working to remove or limit access to reading materials, to censor content in schools, to label "controversial" views, to distribute lists of "objectionable" books or authors, and to purge libraries. These actions apparently rise from a view that our national tradition of free expression is no longer valid; that censorship and suppression are needed to counter threats to safety or national security, as well as to avoid the subversion of politics and the corruption of morals. We, as individuals devoted to reading and as librarians and publishers responsible for disseminating ideas, wish to assert the public interest in the preservation of the freedom to read.

Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be "protected" against what others think may be bad for them. We believe they still favor free enterprise in ideas and expression.

These efforts at suppression are related to a larger pattern of pressures being brought against education, the press, art and images, films, broadcast media, and the Internet. The problem is not only one of actual censorship. The shadow of fear cast by these pressures leads, we suspect, to an even larger voluntary curtailment of expression by those who seek to avoid controversy or unwelcome scrutiny by government officials.

Such pressure toward conformity is perhaps natural to a time of accelerated change. And yet suppression is never more dangerous than in such a time of social tension. Freedom has given the United States the elasticity to endure strain. Freedom keeps open the path of novel and creative solutions, and enables change to come by choice. Every silencing of a heresy, every enforcement of an orthodoxy, diminishes the toughness and resilience of our society and leaves it the less able to deal with controversy and difference.

Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience. The written word is the natural medium for the new idea and the untried voice from which come the original contributions to social growth. It is essential to the extended discussion that serious thought requires, and to the accumulation of knowledge and ideas into organized collections.

We believe that free communication is essential to the preservation of a free society and a creative culture. We believe that these pressures toward conformity present the danger of limiting the range and variety of inquiry and expression on which our democracy and our culture depend. We believe that every American community must jealously guard the freedom to publish and to circulate, in order to preserve its own freedom to read. We believe that publishers and librarians have a profound responsibility to give validity to that freedom to read by making it possible for the readers to choose freely from a variety of offerings.

The freedom to read is guaranteed by the Constitution. Those with faith in free people will stand firm on these constitutional guarantees of essential rights and will exercise the responsibilities that accompany these rights.

We therefore affirm these propositions:

It is in the public interest for publishers and librarians to make available the widest diversity of views and expressions, including those that are unorthodox, unpopular, or considered dangerous by the majority.
Creative thought is by definition new, and what is new is different. The bearer of every new thought is a rebel until that idea is refined and tested. Totalitarian systems attempt to maintain themselves in power by the ruthless suppression of any concept that challenges the established orthodoxy. The power of a democratic system to adapt to change is vastly strengthened by the freedom of its citizens to choose widely from among conflicting opinions offered freely to them. To stifle every nonconformist idea at birth would mark the end of the democratic process. Furthermore, only through the constant activity of weighing and selecting can the democratic mind attain the strength demanded by times like these. We need to know not only what we believe but why we believe it.

Publishers, librarians, and booksellers do not need to endorse every idea or presentation they make available. It would conflict with the public interest for them to establish their own political, moral, or aesthetic views as a standard for determining what should be published or circulated.
Publishers and librarians serve the educational process by helping to make available knowledge and ideas required for the growth of the mind and the increase of learning. They do not foster education by imposing as mentors the patterns of their own thought. The people should have the freedom to read and consider a broader range of ideas than those that may be held by any single librarian or publisher or government or church. It is wrong that what one can read should be confined to what another thinks proper.

It is contrary to the public interest for publishers or librarians to bar access to writings on the basis of the personal history or political affiliations of the author.
No art or literature can flourish if it is to be measured by the political views or private lives of its creators. No society of free people can flourish that draws up lists of writers to whom it will not listen, whatever they may have to say.

There is no place in our society for efforts to coerce the taste of others, to confine adults to the reading matter deemed suitable for adolescents, or to inhibit the efforts of writers to achieve artistic expression.
To some, much of modern expression is shocking. But is not much of life itself shocking? We cut off literature at the source if we prevent writers from dealing with the stuff of life. Parents and teachers have a responsibility to prepare the young to meet the diversity of experiences in life to which they will be exposed, as they have a responsibility to help them learn to think critically for themselves. These are affirmative responsibilities, not to be discharged simply by preventing them from reading works for which they are not yet prepared. In these matters values differ, and values cannot be legislated; nor can machinery be devised that will suit the demands of one group without limiting the freedom of others.

It is not in the public interest to force a reader to accept the prejudgment of a label characterizing any expression or its author as subversive or dangerous.
The ideal of labeling presupposes the existence of individuals or groups with wisdom to determine by authority what is good or bad for others. It presupposes that individuals must be directed in making up their minds about the ideas they examine. But Americans do not need others to do their thinking for them.

It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians, as guardians of the people's freedom to read, to contest encroachments upon that freedom by individuals or groups seeking to impose their own standards or tastes upon the community at large; and by the government whenever it seeks to reduce or deny public access to public information.
It is inevitable in the give and take of the democratic process that the political, the moral, or the aesthetic concepts of an individual or group will occasionally collide with those of another individual or group. In a free society individuals are free to determine for themselves what they wish to read, and each group is free to determine what it will recommend to its freely associated members. But no group has the right to take the law into its own hands, and to impose its own concept of politics or morality upon other members of a democratic society. Freedom is no freedom if it is accorded only to the accepted and the inoffensive. Further, democratic societies are more safe, free, and creative when the free flow of public information is not restricted by governmental prerogative or self-censorship.

It is the responsibility of publishers and librarians to give full meaning to the freedom to read by providing books that enrich the quality and diversity of thought and expression. By the exercise of this affirmative responsibility, they can demonstrate that the answer to a "bad" book is a good one, the answer to a "bad" idea is a good one.
The freedom to read is of little consequence when the reader cannot obtain matter fit for that reader's purpose. What is needed is not only the absence of restraint, but the positive provision of opportunity for the people to read the best that has been thought and said. Books are the major channel by which the intellectual inheritance is handed down, and the principal means of its testing and growth. The defense of the freedom to read requires of all publishers and librarians the utmost of their faculties, and deserves of all Americans the fullest of their support.

We state these propositions neither lightly nor as easy generalizations. We here stake out a lofty claim for the value of the written word. We do so because we believe that it is possessed of enormous variety and usefulness, worthy of cherishing and keeping free. We realize that the application of these propositions may mean the dissemination of ideas and manners of expression that are repugnant to many persons. We do not state these propositions in the comfortable belief that what people read is unimportant. We believe rather that what people read is deeply important; that ideas can be dangerous; but that the suppression of ideas is fatal to a democratic society. Freedom itself is a dangerous way of life, but it is ours.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This statement was originally issued in May of 1953 by the Westchester Conference of the American Library Association and the American Book Publishers Council, which in 1970 consolidated with the American Educational Publishers Institute to become the Association of American Publishers.

Adopted June 25, 1953, by the ALA Council and the AAP Freedom to Read Committee; amended January 28, 1972; January 16, 1991; July 12, 2000; June 30, 2004.

A Joint Statement by:

American Library Association
Association of American Publishers

Subsequently endorsed by:

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
The Association of American University Presses, Inc.
The Children's Book Council
Freedom to Read Foundation
National Association of College Stores
National Coalition Against Censorship
National Council of Teachers of English
The Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression
 
Kite Runner joins gay penguins on top 10 books Americans want banned

Kite Runner joins gay penguins on top 10 books Americans want banned

Khaled Hosseini has joined the illustrious ranks of Philip Pullman and the authors of a story about gay penguins, after his novel The Kite Runner became one of the books that inspired most complaints in America last year.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/16/kite-runner-penguins-censorship
 
I agree with a lot of what you guys are saying.

I think banning books is an attempt to keep children naive and innocent of the evil ways of the world. Someone made the point that movies are a hell of a lot worse -- and I DO remember the time that my 9th grade English teacher forgot to fast forward through the scene in Romeo & Juliet (Leo DiCaprio version) where Juliet rolls out of the bed completely topless. I distinctly remember the boys in my class snickering and making all sorts of comments before the teacher could jump up and fix it. Is that better than profanity in literature?

In my opinion, banning books to avoid exposing kids to some rough stuff is along the lines of abstinence-only sex education -- "don't have sex, period." I'm going to venture that kids WILL have sex and they WILL have exposure to the n-word and they WILL have exposure to rape scenes or racial bigotry. Wouldn't it be better to inform them, teach them, control the learning experience? Have an open discussion about it that helps them to understand a great piece of literature AND life? Help them understand that not everyone has had the same peaceful, suburban life?

Just my two cents.
 
There is a book coming out on May 12, 2009 that many of you may be interested in:

aecx.images_amazon.com_images_I_41wKLKMNWtL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Burn This Book: PEN Writers Speak Out on the Power of the Word

Published in conjunction with the PEN American Center, Burn This Book is a powerful collection of essays that explore the meaning of censorship and the power of literature to inform the way we see the world, and ourselves.

Toni Morrison was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993. She is the author of many novels, including Sula, Song of Solomon, Beloved, and, most recently, A Mercy. She has also received the National Book Critics Circle Award and a Pulitzer Prize for her fiction.
 
Ah the faith that everyone has in the "right" way to do it! The more I see the more I wonder -- seems more and more like trying to describe how to flip a flapjack.
Who says that faith has disappeared?
 
More information about the book from Burn This Book | HarperStudio - Burn This Book.

Published in conjunction with the PEN American Center, Burn this Book is a powerful collection of essays that explore the meaning of censorship, and the power of literature to inform the way we see the world, and ourselves. Contributors include literary heavyweights like Toni Morrison, Salman Rushdie, Orhan Pamuk, David Grossman and Nadine Gordimer, and others.

In “Witness: The Inward Testimony” Nadine Gordimer discusses the role of the writer as observer, and as someone who sees “what is really taking place.” She looks to Proust, Oe, Flaubert, Graham Green to see how their philosophy squares with her own, ultimately concluding “Literature has been and remains a means of people rediscovering themselves.” “In Freedom to Write” Orhan Pamuk elegantly describes escorting Arthur Miller and Harold Pinter around Turkey and how that experience changed his life.
In “The Value of the Word” Salman Rushdie shares a story from Bulgakov’s novel The Master and the Margarita in which the Devil talks to a frustrated writer called “The Master” The writer is so upset with his own work he decides to burn it: “How could you do that?” the Devil asks… “Manuscripts to not burn.” Indeed, manuscripts do not burn, Rushdie argues, but writers do.
As Americans we often take our freedom of speech for granted. When we talk about censorship we talk about China, the former Soviet Union. But the recent presidential election has shined a spotlight on profound acts of censorship in our own backyard. Both provocative and timely, Burn this Book include a sterling list of award winning writers; it sure to ignite spirited dialogue.
 
It could be. It seems to be a subject near and dear to the heart of many of our members.
 
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