(Back at it again with banned works show entry 2 of 3. This is “Compliance.”)
When the topic of censorship comes up, a lot of well-meaning observers tend to insist that librarians will heroically beat back any enemies of the First Amendment and inevitably triumph over the narrow-minded forces of evil, saving everyone.
What they fail to take into account is that while librarians are tasked with making up for many failures in our society, they are also from our society. Racist librarians and administrators exist and make life hell for librarians of color. Queerphobic librarians and administrators exist and make life hell for queer librarians. When your coworkers or employers already think less of you for who you are, even just hanging on to your job becomes a struggle; you are expected to endure a deluge of microaggressions and open vitriol, and seeking support or even speaking up for someone in a similar situation makes you the problem.
So when bigots demand the cancellation of literacy programs and the removal of books from the collection out of their determination to keep the Other firmly Othered, librarians often comply, sometimes even preemptively. Some are unable to safely advocate for even a print version of experiences they share. Others simply agree with the bigots who want the content gone.
Reading “Maus” was formative for me. But decades later, other public school students in Tennessee will be denied that same experience. Despite it being part of a state-approved eighth grade curriculum, the members of the school board in McMinn County, outside of Chattanooga, banned “Maus” in a unanimous vote earlier this month.
The vote finally received media attention Wednesday, just hours before the start of Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“Why would they ban a book I like??? I mean, I understand why they’re banning a book I don’t like, but why ban a book I do like??”
Casual reminder then when the US says “banned books,” they usually mean “books individual school districts have removed from their libraries, usually for middle schools, but also occasionally for high schools because parents have complained that they do not want their child to have unmonitered access to it for a variety of reasons, which usually include sex and drug use, but also sometimes just means that schools have removed it from required reading for student assignments because, while children can undertake these books on their own, there are concerns about whether or not the content is acceptable for the varying maturity levels of the class they’ve been presented to.”
I.e., America doesn’t ban books; parents interact with their schools to define what is and isn’t age appropriate for kids to have unmitigated access to, just like they should be doing in every other circumstance.
So, in honor of America being a free speech beacon to the world, here are six books actually banned and illegal for readers to get their hands on today:
The Satanic Verses (Bangladesh, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Kuwait, Liberia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Senegal, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand)
In the universe where these do exist, they are all fantasy/horror novels. Possibly they’re also no longer in print or are cult favourites, perhaps some are banned in schools or impossible to buy due to complex publishing rights disputes.
If you think of any synopses for these then let me know!
Kate Chopin was born Katherine O’Flaherty on February 8, 1850, in Louisiana. She was a novelist and short story writer, and is considered the first Southern feminist writer of the 20th-century. Her book, “The Awakening”, was considered ahead of its time and caused such controversy, that it ended Chopin’s writing career. After being banned several times, it remained out of print until the 1970’s. Today, the book is considered a classic in feminist fiction.
“Despondency had come upon her there in the wakeful night, and had never lifted. There was no one thing in the world that she desired…The children appeared before her like antagonists who had overcome her, who had overpowered and sought to drag her into the soul’s slavery for the rest of her days. But she knew a way to elude them. She was not thinking of these things when she walked down to the beach.
The water of the Gulf stretched out before her, gleaming with the million lights of the sun. The voice of the sea is seductive, never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander in abysses of solitude. All along the white beach, up and down, there was no living thing in sight.”
Publishers, authors, and bookseller groups have joined the Unite Against Book Bans campaign
The American Library Association this week announced that more than 25 major organizations, including a host of publishers and author and bookseller groups, have joined its Unite Against Book Bans campaign, an effort to help communities defend the freedom to read.
Launched in April, the group aims to raise awareness about the surge in book bans and related legislation emerging around the country, reports Andrew Albanese, Publishers Weekly senior writer.
Among the groups declaring their support for the effort are the American Booksellers Association Free Expression Initiative, the American Federation of Teachers, as well as major publishers such as Macmillan, Penguin Random House, and Simon & Schuster.
“Awareness is a big part of the mission—but you’d have to be pretty out of the loop not to be aware of what’s going on here,” says Albanese.
“Awareness alone does not protect your freedom to read. This is one of those things where you need to show up—show up to your school board and library board and city council meetings, and get involved,” he tells CCC’s Chris Kenneally.
Join us on Thursday, June 9th at 2pm EDT / 11am PDT, as our panel of experienced librarians and industry professionals — Moni Barrette, Betsy Gomez, Jack Phoenix — present a brief history of comics challenges, and offer a range of proven strategies for reviewing and protecting your collections, your staff, and your community.
Oh no! I use Tumblr so rarely that I forgot to mention the biggest coolest project I’ve ever been involved in! A few years ago, I learned out of nowhere that my wife had been interrofated by the secret military police for helping run a secret, illegal fascism-fighting reading group under the thumb of an evil dictator.
We wrote a graphic novel about it called Banned Book Club! It is one of the best reviewed boos of the year, a #1 seller in YA History Comics, and Black Nerd Problems called it “The Daring Memoir That Comes Once A Generation!“
Ken Kesey - One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Methuen, 1962, UK Signed First Edition
London, Methuen, 1962. Hardback first edition and first impression. Inscribed by the author “For / Erik / Kese”. The signature is accompanied with Kesey’s Totem Stamp. A near fine book in a very good jacket. Some bumping to the spine tips. Jacket spine with some browning. Two small punctures to the rear, probably from a staple, passes through jacket, lower board and a couple of gatherings. Generally decent with a little ageing. Jacket designed by Kenneth Farnhill. A highly-challenged and regularly banned book, best known for the five-times Oscar award-winning film.
To benefit PEN America’s work defending freedom of expression, Penguin Random House is partnering with Margaret Atwood and Sotheby’s to offer an unburnable edition of the classic, and often banned, novel The Handmaid’s Tale.
, The United States is going through an out of control wave of booking banning. The top reasons books end up challenged or banned are:
Unsuited to age (this usually means that a book has foul language or sex in it – this includes legit sexual education books) Religious viewpoint (translated: “anti-Christian” or pro-something-other-than-Christian) LGBTQ+ content Racism – I really don’t think this…
people on this website be like “it’s actually school’s fault that i don’t know how to read because i wanted to write my essay on the divergent trilogy and that BITCH mrs. clarkson made us study 1984 instead. anyway here’s a 10 tweet thread of easily disproven misinformation about a 3 year old news story and btw, who is toni morrison?”
i KNOW most of y’all are lying about being in the gifted program as children because none of you could pass the basic reading comprehension assessment they give third graders today
this post is mean and I never read divergent or whatever the fuck but 1984 sucks and is rape apologism so if somebody wanted to write about divergent or whatever good for them
this reply is like literally exactly what op is talking about lol. like firstly ops point isn’t “1984 is good”, ops point is that analysing complex stories teaches you how to form opinions and think for yourself. and like secondly in 1984 you’re supposed to think damn it’s fucked up that he’s thinking that way about her, i wonder if this ties in with the central theme of “a society like this will fuck you in the head”? (this is the thinking for yourself part). like do you think orwell just put that in for fun? do you think that just because winston is the protagonist you’re supposed to agree with everything he does?
You know I feel like this post just gave me an epiphany for what is wrong with how Tumblr Fandom/Internet Fandom responds to media-or not *wrong* but makes it very hard to respond to anything but a morally correct, and heroic protagonist.
When an English teacher, or reader, taught or picked up 1984, it wasn’t with the intention they were going to love the protagonist. They picked it up with the intention of reading a whole story and trying to grasp the theme or catharsis from the story. If the protagonist was a *shitty* person it played into the the themes or the story, because it wasn’t about morally judging the book or *liking* or feeling attachment to the protagonist. Sometimes and often times, books were just about gaining another perspective.
No one read Lolita expecting to endear, or like, or be inspired by Humbert. You are supposed to be upset by his behavior, you don’t read Lolita with the intention of being inspired. You read it to learn more about what the fuck is going on inside someone’s head when they behave like that. How children get sucked into abusive situations. Or read “The Great Gatsby” not because they want to fall in love with Gatsby or Nick, but to better understand and analyze the experience of the 1920s or destitution of the American Dream.
A lot of internet and fandom culture has changed that though. When we say something like “I love the Great Gatsby” it comes with the idea or association that means you must *love* or relate to one of the characters. And maybe you do, but the first assumption is not longer about the quality of the work or themes, or cathartic impact-it’s about character admiration. And with that character admiration, in tumblr stan culture, or kin culture, or exalting characters with fanart/romance/so on you don’t just ‘admire’ or find that character ‘compelling’ it now translates to ‘you LOVE that character’ or you ‘DIRECTLY relate to that character.’
You can’t say “I love how Humbert is written, it’s so fascinating and dark”, without it directly translating you somehow relate to a child abuser or condone his actions. Taking in media has become an act of worship and connection. We no longer watch meant to just see the story as a whole, we watch expecting to connect to a character and if we offer them our “worship” as it’s become, as opposed to just attention or interest study as it traditionally was, it means we are condoning the character or saying we directly empathize with all their actions.
I think that’s why there is often now so much fuss over *toxic* characters or not. Or whether that classical novel is showing good or bad things anymore. We’re treating the characters as people we should love or want to draw or write about. Sometimes a story is just about getting the the theme or catharsis or learning another perspective. We don’t NEED to like the character. Or we don’t HAVE to like a character to be impressed by how they’re written or intrigued by their behavior.
I think if internet culture could learn to view stories as small insights into other lives or single takes of one perspective instead of purposeful moral inspirations we’d be a lot less worried about how toxic or not toxic they are.
Seriously!
And this is where “unhealthy relationships” in fiction come in too. Well-written, complex stories of bad relationships aren’t supposed to be good and healthy examples. If it’s held up that way (Twilight), then the issue is the writing and the writer. Unhealthy relationships in, say, Anna Karenina are obviously unhealthy but they are, to misquote James Joyce “portals to discovery.” You can know that a fictional relationships is seriously bad and still find it interesting. Psychology! Complexity!
Also I want to add that some characters (Humbert Humbert is a good one) are written so that if and when you find yourself sympathizing or saying “Yeah, I know that feeling” you’re supposed to stop and consider that. Not in terms of “I am a sick individual and deserve to die.” but more like “is it possible to have compassion for terrible people?” and “what is it in our culture or my upbringing that makes me think like I do?”
I’ve heard way too many people say “I will never read Lolita because of what it encourages” and I just…you’re missing the point? Completely? Like, you’re so missing the point that it’s almost meta? You’re not supposed to like Humbert??? You’re supposed to either be like “wow, gross, dude” or “oh fuck, wait, why do I have even 1 thing in common with this guy?” Nabokov is not going to be straightforward with you!
It’s like the jokes about being mad at your teacher for asking why the sky is blue in a certain book. Maybe there really is a reason. Did you think of that? For a bunch of people who’ll write thesis-length defenses of your favorite ships and trace down one instance in one minute of one episode of the 15 season show to prove that you’re right, it concerns me that you’re not as willing to look at a lot of other things with any depth. To say nothing of multi-chapter fanfic.
If you surround yourself with only good and pure and wholesome media approved by the purity-culture police, then you just don’t get to do a lot of introspection and I think that’s kind of a shame. I feel like it really limits your view of the world.
I dunno. There’s a weird kind of anti-intellectualism disguised as protection and good intent sometimes. Or it feels like the kind of prudishness that labels some books “dirty” and the people who read them equally disgusting, but just relies on social ostracism to enforce the labels. You know, “Think of the children!!”
Anyway, I’m going to go read some dirty, dirty literature now. Like 1984.
saw someone on the dash say that at this point theyre just going to buy maus if they see it in stores bc they “dont feel comfy” pirating such an important book. and like dude art spiegelman himself explicitly said, during that zoom conversation he had w chattanooga jewish federation like 2 days ago, that he wants libraries to use donated old copies of maus instead of buying new ones bc he quote “doesnt need the money”…. feel free to pirate maus here
Banned Books we is coming to an end and as such I feel it deserves a blog entry to close out the week. Let’s go over some facts about book banning in particular to Young Adult literature. Censorship is a big concern for librarians and we’re often the ones having to argue against a ban or take criticism for purchasing books to be put in a collection. While some may believe book banning is a thing of the past, like when you hear about Hitler and the Nazi’s burning books. However book banning and challenges still occur today, quite frequently in fact. In 2013 306 challenges were reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom and those only the challenges that were reported. Banned Books Week, which generally occurs in the last week of September, is a way we highlight the issue of censorship and also celebrate it’s failure.
What is Censorship?
“The removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational materials — of images, ideas, and information — on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of standards applied by the censor.”
Challenges and Banning: What’s the difference?
Challenging a book means an individual or organization is protesting the book’s presence within an institution (school or library for example). It is calling for that book to be banned. Banning is when a challenge succeeds and a book is removed from an institution.
Why are books banned?
Books are banned because people don’t approve of it’s contents and as such believe that they should dictate what others can read. While librarians firmly believe in a parent’s right to monitor and restrict their own child’s reading habits it doesn’t give them the right to dictate others.
The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom:
the material was considered to be “sexually explicit”
the material contained “offensive language”
the materials was “unsuited to any age group”
Other reasons have come up as well. Harry Potter has often be challenged/banned because it has witchcraft and Animal Farm because it featured talking animals. The reasons books are challenged is as numerous as the people who want them banned.
Top Ten Most Banned Books of 2013
1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3.The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4.Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5.The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6 A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
