Banning books should never be part of our cultureDate: 2/28/2023 Something that has always been chilling to me is the concept of banning and destroying books. Perhaps because I’m a baby boomer who was very aware of the history of World War II and the destruction of books – and the ban against some books immediately conjures up the images of Nazis having book bonfires.
In the 1950s, American parents swayed by the nonsensical but inflammatory rhetoric of the book “Seduction of the Innocent” burned comic books.
In 1966, John Lennon made a statement in an interview about religion; he said, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I’ll be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ’n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
That quote propelled the burning of Beatles albums, among other actions.
Freedom of speech is a very demanding entity. It compels us as a society to accept differences in opinion. It requires us to be engaged on issues rather than just reading a headline and thinking we understand something. It challenges us to question our own opinions. It compels discussion.
Today, we are in the midst of a national movement to ban books from schools that offend some people’s political viewpoints and religion.
Florida has received much press about this issue, but it is not the only state that is banning books in schools.
Hey, I get it. If you are a racist, a homophobe or a person who wants to advocate a political agenda, book banning sounds pretty good. You don’t want your kids not to have the same thoughts as you do.
Not all Americans support banning books. According to a CBS news poll released last year, more than eight in 10 people surveyed don’t believe books should be banned from schools “for discussing race and criticizing U.S. history.”
That is heartening.
According to a study by PEN America from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, the banning of books in schools is not limited to Florida, which has received the most press. One hundred thirty-eight school districts in 32 states have banned books.
Massachusetts has banned no books. However, Vermont and Rhode Island have banned books in the 1 to 10 range. New York has banned in the 26 to 50 range. The states with the greatest amount of censorship have been Texas with a range of 751 to 1,000 bans and Florida with 501 to 750 bans
What was in these books that resulted in this action? Again, according to the report: Among the 1,648 unique banned book titles in the Index,
• 674 banned book titles (41 percent) explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+ (this includes a specific subset of titles for transgender characters or stories – 145 titles, or 9 percent);
• 659 banned book titles (40 percent) contain protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color;
• 338 banned book titles (21 percent) directly address issues of race and racism;
• 357 banned book titles (22 percent) contain sexual content of varying kinds, including novels with some level of description of sexual experiences of teenagers, stories about teen pregnancy, sexual assault and abortion as well as informational books about puberty, sex or relationships;
• 161 banned book titles (10 percent) have themes related to rights and activism;
• 141 banned book titles (9 percent) are either biography, autobiography, or memoir; and
• 64 banned book titles (4 percent) include characters and stories that reflect religious minorities, such as Jewish, Muslim and other faith traditions.
The organization has identified at least 50 groups pushing for the ban.
If you as a parent or guardian of a school-aged child have an issue with something in a curriculum, shouldn’t you have a discussion about it with a teacher instead of crying for a book ban? Shouldn’t you also question just why the subject of a book is bothering you?
Many folks on the conservative side of the aisle like to quote our founding fathers about a variety of issues. Our most conflicted founding father, Thomas Jefferson, wrote the following: “Are we to have a censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? And who is thus to dogmatize religious opinions for our citizens? Whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? Is a priest to be our inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule of what we are to read, and what we must believe?”
G. Michael Dobbs has worked for Reminder Publishing for 22 years of his nearly 50-year-career in the Western Mass. media scene, and previously served as the executive editor. He has spent his time with the publisher covering local politics, interesting people and events.The opinions expressed within the article are that of the author’s and do not represent the opinions and beliefs of the paper.
|
