This is Banned Book Week. You may have heard about this somewhere or other. For me it's been from the Half Price Books twitter feed, where they've been promoting it like it's going out of style. Which is kind of ironic because the actual practice of banning books has gone out of style. What do I mean? Well, if you look at the list starting here, you'll see what I mean. Is there anything here that you can't buy on Amazon today? No? Well how can that be, seeing as how they are banned books?
The reason is simple, these are all cases of things that were banned in the past, most of them more than a generation ago. At least one was 'banned' because a single Barnes & Noble store didn't want to stock it. That reflects bad judgment on on the part of that single store but it's far from a book being 'banned'. (By the way, if I go to the feminist bookstore at Chicago and 48th and find that they have nothing by Glen Beck can I claim that he's been banned?)
The worst part of this whole week is that they spotlight 'challenged' books. These are books that a parent (somewhere) has decided is too mature for their child. Now I'm guessing that I'd disagree with the parent in the vast majority of these cases but I don't think their actions are outrageous. Lord knows that I read things my folks wouldn't have approved of. I can only imagine that my kids will do the same.
A couple of years ago we had a local case where an older African American man didn't want Huck Finn taught because he thought it set back the anti N-word efforts. I think that on balance this is an over-reaction. What I don't think is that this man's efforts were so morally suspect that we should call him a book-banner. And yet that's what he is according to the Banned Books Week folks.
It's akin to saying that supporting under age drinking laws makes one a prohibitionist.
This gets under my skin for another reason. Salman Rushdie joined twitter this week and it reminded me of the saga that surrounded 'The Satanic Verses'. If you don't remember much of it, here's a pretty good recap. Rushdie wrote a book that mocked Islam and had a fatwa put on him. He lived in constant fear for his life for many years. Now that is a banned book.
As a thought experiment, what would happen if a high school teacher had his students read the Satanic Verses? Think there would be some parental push back? Think some school officials would question the choice? I do. And I don't think that would necessarily be bad.
But it wouldn't be book banning.
2 comments:
Ugh - that list made me cranky.
I love that there's a book called "The Glass Teat" about television broadcasting - ha!
There is a point of banning some books for certain ages of kids. I see censorship in what books our public library has and how quickly they get rid of good Christian writer's books. Steve
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