It's Banned Book Week, again.
It's Banned Book Week Again
Mon, 2010-09-27 15:58
#1
bagkitty
It's Banned Book Week Again
Mon, 2010-09-27 16:02
#2
bagkitty
And a new addition to the list: Most recently, on September 8th, a Stockton Missouri school board voted 7 - 0 to uphold the ban on Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian:
Alexie's novel about a teenage boy growing up on an Indian reservation who decides to attend an all-white high school was already banned from a Crook County High School classroom in Prineville, Ore., in 2008 after one parent complained that the protagonist's discussion of masturbation was "offensive." The book was challenged again in Illinois in 2009 by a group of Antioch High School parents who objected to its vulgar and racist language, but was ultimately retained on the school's summer reading list.
And a special bonus link, an interview with the author.
Mon, 2010-09-27 16:11
#3
"Part-time Indian"? Are you fucking kidding me? It should be banned, and burned. Racist trash. Disgusting.
OK, I just checked the author and he's FN, so it's OK. All clear.
Mon, 2010-09-27 16:21
#4
bagkitty
I love the insightful analysis that is offered in some of your posts E.Tamaran. @#2 is not one of those posts though.
Mon, 2010-09-27 17:21
#5
No books should be banned or burned. This crazy practice has to stop. I've been reading that down south they have been getting mighty riled up by books with sexuality in it, especially anything even remotely same sex. Book burnin' and banning appear to be the new favourite past times of the religious wrong.
Tue, 2010-09-28 09:04
#6
[url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/27/operation-dark-heart-turn_n_741...'Operation Dark Heart' Turned To Pulp: Military Officials Watched Publisher Destroy 9,500 Books[/url]
Tue, 2010-09-28 13:37
#7
No books should be banned or burned. This crazy practice has to stop. I've been reading that down south they have been getting mighty riled up by books with sexuality in it, especially anything even remotely same sex. Book burnin' and banning appear to be the new favourite past times of the religious wrong.
I suppose they wouldn't allow the Max Braithwaite books that we read in school. Reading anything with titles such as Why Shoot the Teacher and "Masturbation is the Thief of Time" would send them there southerners straight to hell.
Tue, 2010-09-28 14:14
#8
I imagine there are a few little red schoolhouse types still reeling over the Catcher in the Rye fiasco. They'll never get over that one.
Tue, 2010-09-28 14:36
#9
Good thing most of them don't actually read those bibles.
(edit)
Of course there are cases of censorship and banning that aren't quite so clear-cut, and open to scorn and ridicule - the controversy over "To Kill a Mockingbird", for example. There are arguments on both sides which, even if one does not agree, have some valid points.
Tue, 2012-01-17 11:52
#10
Catchfire
Every week is banned book week in Arizona!
Shakespeare work axed in Arizona schools as law bans 'ethnic studies'
William Shakespeare's The Tempest is among a list of banned books in the state of Arizona by a resolution aimed at curbing resentment, government overthrow and ethnic distinction and separation in any district or charter school's curriculum.
The Tuscon Unifed School District has announced they will end their 13-year Mexican American Studies Program after found in violation of the June resolution that bans the books during a court appeal this past December.
If the ruling was not followed by the district they faced a multimillion-dollar penalty in state funds.
Tue, 2012-01-17 13:17
#11
Oh for fuck sakes.
They ban a masterpiece of fiction because of an imaginary character who has been used as a metaphor, but who has nothing at all to do with real race relations like the fact that people who don't look white are forced to carry ID and can be stopped for no reason.
No resentment, no ethnic distinction and separation, no government overthrow. Are they going to apply the same measure to their history books? One wonders what will be left on the shelves?
Tue, 2012-01-17 13:26
#12
Catchfire
I don't disagree with the force of your resentment, Winston; but I disagree with this:
who has nothing at all to do with real race relations
Caliban is a deeply problematic allegory for British colonialism contemporaneous with the play, with definite far-reaching resonances for "real race relations." Or maybe you know this and meant something else?
This thing of darkness I acknowledge mine.
At any rate, what a choice for them to ban! They must have some deep-thinking lit critics on their staff to choose which books might cause trouble.
Tue, 2012-01-17 13:41
#13
I meant he is a metaphor, and in taken in the right context he can be a very good one. One would think the whole purpose of reading a book in school would be to include that kind of criticism.
But he is an imaginary character; he is not meant to be a portrayal of any real race, or any real situation.
And never mind that it is historical revisionism of the highest order.
And what I find outrageous is the focus on imaginary creatures rather than real people, real culture, and real discrimination. Are they going to ban the Rankin Bass Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer show because of its portrayal of unwanted toy apartheid?
WHy is Calaban even the issue, when there is no mention in that piece of what happened to poor old Shylock, or Othello, or Aaron from Titus Andronicus.
So from my perspective anyway, I believe I am making an argument that is complementary to your point.