[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

censorship



For the educators and librarians on this listserv, I thought I'd share this
editorial from American City & County Magazine at
www.americancityandcounty.com


Editor's Viewpoint
It's a sin to kill 'A Mockingbird'
By Janet Ward
In Lindale, Texas, you are exercising the appropriate community values if
you lie about being raped, attempt to lynch innocent people, believe in
terrorizing children and snub those who are a little odd. At least that's
the conclusion I draw based on the town's reaction to Harper Lee's classic
tale, "To Kill a Mockingbird." The book, about a white Alabama lawyer's
quixotic fight to free a wrongly arrested black man and the effect the
battle has on his young children, was kicked off the advanced placement
English reading list in Lindale because "it conflicted with the values of
the community."
Anne Arundel County, Md., took Maya Angelou's "I Know Why The Caged Bird
Sings" off its ninth-grade reading list because it "portrays white people as
being horrible, nasty, stupid people." Much like, until very recently,
ninth-grade history books portrayed black people.
Marysville, Calif., knocked off J. D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye"
because it didn't want the community, which apparently agrees on absolutely
everything else, to be "polarized" over a book.
And one Bridgeport Township, Mich., public school nixed the wondrous Harry
Potter series because it deals -- as do "Snow White," "Cinderella" and
"Hansel and Gretel" -- with magic and witchcraft.
Those are the findings of the American Library Association's Office for
Intellectual Freedom, which released a list of the 100 most frequently
challenged books in honor of Banned Books Week (Sept. 23-30). During the
1990s, the organization tracked more than 5,000 complaints at public schools
and libraries to come up with the Worrisome 100, which includes such titles
as "Of Mice and Men," "Brave New World" and "The Adventures of Huckleberry
Finn."
Across the country, parents who think nothing of letting their children
watch "South Park" and play "Doom" video games, turn into stormtroopers at
the thought of those same children picturing in their minds Harry climbing
onto his broomstick for a rollicking game of Quidditch. And rather than risk
an argument, spineless cities and counties are backing them up.
Here's what I think: Local government officials who let someone convince
them to take "To Kill a Mockingbird" off a high school reading list should
be made to write "I will not censor literary works" 100 times on the
blackboard. Then they should be forced to write an essay comparing and
contrasting the policies of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and the United
States toward literature. Then somebody should throw the book at them.


Paul R. Bergeron
City Clerk
229 Main Street
Nashua, NH 03060
Telephone: 603/589-3004
Fax: 603/594-3464
http://www.gonashua.com/

A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List!

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to listserv@listserv.muohio.edu
      In body of message:  SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname
                    *or*:  UNSUB ARCHIVES
To post a message, send e-mail to archives@listserv.muohio.edu

Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at
     http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html

Problems?  Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <rschmidt@lib.muohio.edu>