Fahrenheit 451
by Ray BradburyThis book is about censorship and those who ban books for fear of creating too much individualism and independent thought. In late 1998, this book was removed from the required reading list of the West Marion High School in Foxworth, Mississippi. A parent complained of the use of the words "God damn" in the book. Subsequently, the superintendent instructed the the teacher to remove the book from the required reading list.
Also on that list was Twain's Huckleberry Finn (banned for the use of the word "nigger") and Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath (also banned for language--and, likely, by the current administration for its frank depiction of the Great Depression)
Now, a school library in Virginia has pulled Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition. Because she confesses, in her own words, that she has an affair with another young Jew being hidden in the same attic. Yup, she had sex on the attic stairs sometime before the Nazis found and murdered her, and some modern stick-up-the-ass-prude parent thinks it's not fit for modern kids to see a girl from Hitler's Germany stealing a few precious moments to lose her virginity before she dies.
These twits make me sick. They dare to carp about their first amendment rights while they do this in the name of decency and taste.
These actions are no better than what they howl about the left doing to silence conservative opinion.
Nobody has a right not to be offended. And nobody has a right to withhold the right to learn and the right to choose what to read from anybody else.
I have no problem with a parent telling their kid, "I don't want you reading this book" (though the kid may very well find a way to read it, and more power to 'em if they do). I DO have a problem with a parent saying, "I don't want ANY kid reading this book."
ReplyDeleteOne thing the banners don't think about is, if we allow banning, everyone gets a shot at it - and so books they might INSIST their kids read get banned by someone else.
More and more, I keep saying that "You do not have the right not to be offended" should be a Constitutional amendment. Because too damn many people either forget that it's true, or don't want to believe that it is.
Hmmm....
ReplyDeleteLet's ban DONALD DUCK because he doesn't where pants!
I agree, Ricki. My mother used to forbid me to read sci-fi/fantasy, because it was "evil"--I just left it in my locker at school, and read the other stuff I liked, like the Bronte sisters and (ironically, given Mom's refusal to let me read romance novels) D.H. Lawrence, at home.
ReplyDeleteOCM--Don't joke. Some schools have banned Milne's Winnie the Pooh books because of that.
In the process, who makes this decision on censoring/banning
ReplyDeletecertain books?
In those libraries that have computers, do they block "certain' web sites?
I don't know who makes the decisions. Probably an administration (either in a school or a city/county library system) that's gotten a complaint from someone who's gotten their panties in a wad about something.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about public libraries, but a friend of mine who teaches science at a local high school told me she's unable to pull up YouTube videos--even the ones posted of the neat do-it-yourself science projects--or anything even remotely similar. The school's filters don't permit anything but .edu sites, e-mail, and a few research-oriented sites.
Though, that's a whole 'nother kettle of fish. My younger sibling and some friends found a recipe for home-made C-4 type explosive when they were researching the Vietnam war for history class, and blew a hole in one of the science class's lab tables because their recipe wasn't real stable (gasoline and packing peanuts), and one of them stuck a match in the glob and lit it.
Oh perfect...here I am reading Anne Frank's book, and I have only gotten to the part where Anne is having feelings for Peter. Geez, why finish the book now? It's been the most interesting part in the story! So much for the suspense. Thank you very much! : )
ReplyDeleteAmazing how this book is offensive, but the books now being promoted by the Safe Schools Czar are considered acceptable? What a twisted world we live in.