Amanda and Redneck Mother have some substantive posts that are both worth reading. My experience growing up was similar to theirs — my parents never censored what I read, as long as it was in book form (I wasn’t allowed to read teen magazines until I was actually a teenager, and Cosmo and Glamour were definitely off limits until I was in later high school). Part of their reasoning, I think, is that I was a voracious reader and would read just about any book I got my hands on, and so there wasn’t much of a point in trying to bar me from reading certain things — if I wasn’t allowed to read them in the living room, I’d just stay up until 2am reading them with a flashlight under my covers. So even when I was reading books like “Disclosure” in 7th grade, I think they figured that it would be one of many things I’d read, and that it was better for me to be reading something “mature” than to not be reading at all, or to be reading The Babysitter’s Club until I was 16. I was addicted to Steven King in late elementary school, and moved on to John Grisham and Michael Crichton by middle school. As long as I was also reading somthing substantive, my parents didn’t really have a problem with it.
And reading the banned list, I see a bunch of books that my parents purposely gave me, with Judie Blume being the most obvious example. Of the top 100 most challenged books, I spot many of my favorites (and many that were assigned to me in school): I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Bridge to Terabithia, The Catcher in the Rye, The Color Purple, The Bluest Eye, Beloved, To Kill a Mockingbird, etc. And as Amanda says, the primary connection between all these books is their ability to make adults really uncomfortable, be it through talking about sex, talking about the issues that adolescents face, or talking about oppressive social forces that we have yet to fully move away from.
I would further argue that it’s part of the general anti-intellectualism we see on the right. Now, people on the left have certainly sought to challenge books as well, but not nearly to the extent that we’ve seen from social conservatives in the United States — and the most frequent challenges reflect that. If we just don’t read about sex and racism and curse words, then they will somehow cease to be issues, apparently. If we simply say it’s inappropriate, then it ceases to be real.
Of course, this isn’t such a step away from how our current administration goes about its business. It doesn’t like a particular fact or issue? Simply put the President up there to say, “It’s not happening” or “We don’t think that’s true” and call it a day. These head-in-the-sand policies, which social conservatives have always relied on, have filtered up to the very top positions of power in this country. That’s a scary thing, and should serve as a reminder that the anti-intellectualism that encourages book-bannings and Intelligent Design theories taught on par with evolution and claims that global warming is a myth isn’t just a funny red-state religious-right thing that we can afford to giggle at and ignore. It’s an entire life philosophy that, at its heart, is anti-enlightenment and deeply frightening. It starts in school libraries, reaches out into the classrooms, and has somehow made its way up to the Presidency. Progressives have to be vigilant in fighting extremism in all its forms, including in our schools, our towns and our homes.
Celebrate Banned Book week — go and buy yourself a copy of one of the top 10, or check it out from the library.