The Bennington Banner has This One on Catherine Burns, who says far from being a relic of history, restrictions limiting which books are allowed on library shelves or made available for sale at bookstores may actually be a growing problem.
“The most current problem right now is parental influence,” she said. “Parents or school administrators will not have read the full book, but just have heard about some offensive language in one scene and jump to conclusions.”
The limited understanding of advocates.
Intellectual freedom advocates have generally failed to see the parallel between banning books and banning access to public records of our cities public libraries.
How true…
I have to agree with the professor on one key issue above all others, and that is that banning a book on the basis of language is totally unacceptable.
It amazes me how up in arms people get over language and that they rarely consider the context of the work. Sure Mark Twain used the word “nigger” in his books. At that time and place in American history, that was what most Southerners called Black people. Right or wrong, that’s simply how it was. And today I have a problem seeing the logic surrounding banning something because of the word nigger when the people who are supposed to be offended by the term (African Americans) have made the word such a part of their popular culture. Don’t believe me? Take a listen to the popular rap artists today like Nelly, DMX, or Ja Rule. To them, (especially to DMX) nigger isn’t a word, it’s a comma. The popular Black comedians like Chris Rocks, and the classic comedians like Richard Pryor all employ the use of the word.
I’d love to see the statistics on who pushes for the banning of books like Huckleberry Finn or Tom Sawyer. By that I mean, what races actually work to ban these books? Is it primarily Black people or is it overly apologetic white folks? If anyone knows where I could find such information I’d be very obliged if you could point it out to me.
And then going a step further, banning a book because it has “dirty” language in it is ludicrous. Any attempt to “protect” children from such language is about as likely to succeed as an attempt to protect children from plastic.Just as plastic is all around us and makes up a significant portion of our lives, so too is foul language. Profanity is just as much a part of any cultural landscape as the clothes you wear. Just as each culture has their own concept of fashion, they also have their own flavour of dirty words. If you’re looking for a real kick, check out
Japanese Slang Uncensored. You too can learn to swear and curse like a Buddhist monk.
I’m sure that book will be up for banning too as soon as they find out about it.