Censorship Will Always Be With US

In this final week of the quarter, I have come to the conclusion that there is no way to get away from censorship, or at least attempts at it. And this is not due to ill-will on anyone's part. Would-be censors and other trammlers upon intellectual freedom are trying to protect us, and our children, from ourselves.

It is hard to conclude that attempts to remove reading material from libraries falls essentially under the same category as me trying to keep the dog from licking open the spot where she jabbed herself with a branch. I know she shouldn't do it because it will ultimately keep the wound from healing. Her brain tells her it itches.

What brought me to this conclusion about censors was looking at some of the history of censorship. Books by Mark Twain, Harper Lee and others have been protested in the past, because they essentially stated that blacks were people too. Now they are being challenged because of unflattering views on blacks. The same happens to books in the Little House on the Prairie Series (you heard me) because of the way the First Nations are depicted. I have to agree that there are unflattering portrayals, but not only is that the way people used to think, it is the way some still do and that is something we need to be aware of. If we try to clean up all objectionable references to everyone everywhere ever, we will have no unexpurgated reading material, along with a lot of people who're shocked senseless by the real world when they walk out of the library.

I know I've discussed this before, and if I keep up with this blog once the course is over, will probably come back to it again. This is because it matters to me. But I've never tried to look at it from the view of the censor. This is something that should be done as well, and is probably the best way to combat it.

What made me really aware of the challenger's perspective was looking at the regulations of Canada, where hate speech is banned. Overall, I like that idea. But it does cause problems when importing books which may appear to have hate speech in their pages. This is done at the discretion of the custom's agent and may never be known to the public, which leads to secret censorship as well. Keeping hate speech down is admirable, but protecting us from the knowledge that hate exists is not the same as making hate go away.

So, I guess the real trick is, convincing the challengers that they aren't protecting us from the evils of the world, but only giving them dark, quiet places to thrive.

Engagement

It has been suggested that I use this forum to discuss the deterioration of the English language, particularly in newscasts. Over useage of such useages as "at the end of the day," and "moving forward," seem to be driving certain aspects of the population a little nuts. While I tend to agree and would love to go off on a rant about the above, as well as other butchery I hear on a daily basis -- nothing has "less" carbs, calories or xylophones than anything else, although it may have FEWER -- or that have sent me up a wall for years -- there is no such word as "snuck." The past tense of sneak to "sneaked" or "to sneak" -- I am ambivalent about where that stands in regard to intellectual freedom. Particularly in libraries. Does not everyone have the right to butcher the English language as they will, outside of English classes, college papers and resumes? What if we started trying to ban books because they people in them didn't talk pretty? So, that is not I will be discussing.

Something that came up recently in class has taken me back to other arguments I've but forward. A punk rocker who supports the use of valium and has his own sexually suggestive lyrics has been up in arms since August against the Multnomah County Library in OR because his son was able to check out out a graphic novel with, well, graphic images. The way this has been portrayed by the father and the media is that this comic was in the "adult" section of the library (read, big flashing neon XXX sign over that section rather than the section with books about the economy and nuclear holocaust). The Library, as everyone should know, does not act as a parent. Kids can check out any books, anything else is censorship.

What needs to happen, in my not so humble opinion, is that if parents care that much about what their kids read, they need to come to the library with them, or at the very least, ask what they checked out as if they're really interested, not as if they're simply looking for an excuse to forbid a book. If your kid is checking out books with graphic sexual images and this bothers you, find out why and then explain why you think this is bad. ENGAGE with the kids. I know it's difficult. A lot of kids, especially teens and (speaking of words I hate) tweens, really don't want to share with their parents. Being certain they're going to get shot down and censored without even having a chance to explain what thier interest in the subject is, is going to make them want to even less.

Kids deserve intellectual freedom too and while it is a parents' job to protect them (further, if the library starts telling kids they can't read certain things, that's going to tick a lot of parents off too) from .... things, unless the parent is involved in the kids' lives, there's no way to know what they're ready for or not or are reading about because they're trying to process some aspect of their world. Intellectual freedom isn't just about allowing anyone to read whatever they want, it's about keeping the world of knowledge open so that people can continue to think and grow and become people engaged with the world.

Define Banned

This is more a question that has arisen in my mind due to the current assignment for this class than an issue I'm grappling with, but as my group is comparing Banned Books in Canada vs those in the US and we're having very little luck finding banned books in Canada. Challenged yes, banned, not so much. It crossed my mind to wonder how we actually defined banned. Banned where? And by whom? Does even one banning count enough to bring a book to notice? It should in my mind, but I'm just wondering.

If anyone actually reads this, what's your opinion?