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Banned Books Awareness: “Persepolis”

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The United States’ third-largest school district, Chicago Public Schools, denies that it banned the book, saying that it “only removed copies from classrooms.” They can euphemize it any way they like, but it’s still censorship.

Labeling the graphic novel as “inappropriate,” CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett also ordered mandatory training for any high school teacher who wishes to continue using the illustrated story of Marjane Satrapi growing up in revolutionary Iran “due to the powerful images of torture in the book,” she stated in an email sent on March 13th to all CPS principals.

The CPS Office of Communications has refused to explain to the public or the press how this incident took place, why Persepolis has suddenly become controversial after being read by thousands of teachers and students since its publication, and has even refused to confirm that the censorship order had gone out at all. Luckily, for you, my dear readers, you can view a screenshot of the email here.

This just so happens- perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not- to also come on the eve of a massive closing of many of the district’s schools.

Satrapi, who is in Germany, criticized the district for pulling a book that has been approved for use in their schools for nearly a decade and for requiring “special training” for teachers. “For me, the worst in all of that is it’s absolutely the biggest insult to the intelligence of the teachers,” she said last week to the Chicago Sun Times.

She has visited Chicago several times, including a 2004 trip when she signed copies of Persepolis at some CPS schools; so Satrapi couldn’t believe problems arose in the district saying, “Even in Texas I didn’t have trouble with [it].”

The book is Satrapi’s illustrated recollection as a child and teenager during the Iranian Revolution; the 2007 animated film version won awards and critical acclaim.

On its own website, CPS even lists Persepolis as a good resource in the 2012-2013 Literacy Content Framework for seventh graders, along with Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street; also listed is Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre for 11th graders.

So what changed?

The book was removed after agreeing with a complaint from a teacher and principal in the Austin-North Lawndale network.

Lane Technical High school students waved signs along Western Avenue after school on March 15th, chanting, “No more banned books!” and “Let us read!” as they stood amid freezing rain. Several said they had already read Persepolis as seventh graders.

No parents have complained about the book either, according to Valerie Mason, who has taught Persepolis at Lane Tech for the last five years to 11th and 12th graders. In fact, many parents have asked to borrow copies after talking with their children about the graphic novel.

Student Katie McDermott didn’t see the language or images as problematic because the class had a guide for discussions.

“If we don’t create opinions, we won’t have individualism,” McDermott said. “If (students) can’t voice themselves, then we won’t have a country that’s individualistic,” said the 18-year-old, who helped organize the student protest.

Junior Matthew Wettig even contacted Satrapi for the school paper, The Lane Warrior.

“I didn’t know how she could possibly know about it,” he said. “So I just thought not only it’s my duty as a human being but as a journalist to shed light to her on the situation.”

Members of the American Library Association and the Freedom to Read Foundation joined the protest.

The Chicago-based ALA, in a letter to Byrd-Bennett, Chicago Board of Education President David Vitale, and Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, expressed its ethical and legal concerns regarding the situation and asked for an explanation for the policy change.

The Chicago Teachers Union also expressed its surprise over the ban.

“The only place we’ve heard of this book being banned is in Iran,” CTU financial secretary Kristine Mayle wrote in a statement. “We understand why the district would be afraid of a book like this, because it’s about questioning authority, class structures, racism, and gender issues.”

According to additional comments to the CTU’s press release, the district is now claiming that Persepolis is banned “only from seventh grade classrooms but will be available in school libraries,” but the hidden catch is that 160 of its schools don’t have libraries- “and they know that,” said CTU spokeswoman Stephanie Gadlin.

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/

Sources: Chicago Sun Times, Daily KOS
© 2013 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: Sex manual banned for 200 years goes under the hammer

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Aristotle’s Compleat Master-Piece had been banned in the United Kingdom for 200 years and it’s about to go under the hammer yet again- the auction hammer, that is.

An edition printed circa 1766 is expected to draw more than $645 at the Edinburgh auction house Lyon and Turnbull on January 16th.

The material- considered quite tame by today’s standards- was deemed rather rebellious for its time and was extremely popular, resulting in many printings and editions after first appearing in print sometime around 1680. It was believed to have served as a reference guide for amateur midwives and young married couples and presented some rather interesting ideas on sexual relationships and how to conceive, while also providing an intriguing dialogue about the changing social perspectives on sex- as when it encouraged both parties to enjoy the sex to improve the chances of conception.

The book contained little by way of saucy tales or erotic images, but it did contain some strange advice- such as instructing midwives to burn marigolds and blow the smoke inside a mother’s vagina to help extract the afterbirth. It also included some off the wall cautions about extramarital sex like a warning that if a child is conceived out of wedlock the baby could be born “all hairy” or that conjoined twins could result. The illustrations in the book are thought to be one of the main reasons for its forbidden status. One image depicts a baby in a womb and the woman’s torso has been cut open to show the fetus. Other images of hairy children or children with their mouths where their navels should be are found scattered throughout the text.

Despite the censorship of the work, there were, in fact, more editions of this work published in the 18th century than any other medical text. The book continued to thrive in a vibrant black market, remaining banned until 1961 at a time when British law officials were working to clear the law books of “old and useless laws” that no longer pertained to the modern era.

Contrary to the title being credited to the famous philosopher Aristotle, there is little resemblance to any of his work in the text and no proof that he had anything to do with its content whatsoever. That being said, no factual documentation exists of the actual author(s), either. One possibility is that by attributing it to Aristotle they were trying to make it sound more worthy than it might have been- the medieval equivalent of a commercial spin, if you will. Some pieces seem to resemble the work of 17th-century physician Nicholas Culpeper and 13th-century saint and thinker Albertus Magnus.

Whatever its origin, the impression that Aristotle’s Compleat Master-Piece has made on literary and sociological history is unmistakable.

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://www.deepforestproductions.com/BBARK.html

Sources: The Guardian (UK), Huffington Post
© 2013 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: “The Glass Castle”

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The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, is an autobiographical memoir of Walls’ and her siblings’ unconventional and poverty-stricken upbringing at the hands of deeply dysfunctional parents.

The book, published in 2005, pulls on the heartstrings of readers with its resonating and poignant topics; but the parents of a student at Traverse City West Senior High School, in Michigan, are the latest to ask school officials to have a book banned from 9th-, 10th- and 11th-grade courses.

Heather and Jeff Campbell complained about the book and the Traverse City Area Public Schools Board of Education is to weigh in on the matter Monday, December 10th.

It was assigned to the Campbells’ daughter over the summer as part of a freshman honors English course, but her parents objected to the memoir because it includes explicit language and references to child molestation, adolescent sexual exploits, and violence as it recounts the author’s experiences growing up with an alcoholic father and a mother who suffered from mental illness.

On November 20th, the school board’s Curriculum Committee endorsed a recommendation to remove the book from student study. That recommendation originated from a separate committee that was formed to address the Campbells’ complaint, a step required by district policy.

The committee was composed of Jayne Mohr, TCAPS assistant superintendent; Stephanie Long, an assistant principal at West; Genevieve Minor, West’s media specialist; teachers Maya Kassab and Sherry Stoltz; and parents Billie Jo Clark and Jennifer Bonifacio.

Clark read the book before it had been assigned to students and said it offers more than just an engaging story and plans to have her 9th-grade son to read it.
“It’s a book about overcoming the most incredible obstacles in your life,” she said. “It is a book about forgiveness.”

But the Campbell’s don’t think the recommendation to remove the book from 9th-grade reading lists went far enough. Jeff Campbell called it a “minimalist action” in an email to Mohr.

“I never thought I would be somewhere where I would have to say- it’s almost like a book-burning- ‘please take this off the reading list,’” said Heather Campbell. “I just think we need to use some common sense when it comes to our kids. It’s just really inappropriate for 13- and 14-year-olds.”

“I don’t think we’re purists by any means,” added Jeff.

The problem is that they are.

To be honest, it’s perfectly acceptable that the Campbells have objections to the book; but that same right to their own opinion does not give them the authority to force that opinion, and its ramifications, upon everyone else involved.

This isn’t the first time the book has faced the torch-squad, either.

The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom sited a challenge that occurred in fall 2009 in Santa Clarita, California, where a parent challenged the school district over “The Glass Castle” and “The Bean Trees” being assigned in an honors English class.

In 2010 it was challenged at the William S. Hart Union High School District in Saugus, California, as required summer reading for their honors English program. The complaints included use of profanity, criticisms of Christianity, and accounts of sexual abuse and prostitution. Students had the option of alternative assignments that still meet objectives and teaching goals of the course.

Also in 2010, a high school English teacher in Brookline, New Hampshire, defended her summer reading list choice after an e-mail with a passage from the book depicting sexual abuse was sent to school officials.

Debbie and Steve Pucci, parents of an 11th-grader, wrote an e-mail which included nothing but a two-paragraph excerpt from “The Glass Castle”.

The Pucci’s did not include an explanation with the e-mail and sent the passage out of context to principal Cindy Matte, Superintendant of Schools Susan Hodgdon, and Janice Tremblay, chairwoman of the Hollis/Brookline Cooperative School Board.

During a meeting with school officials that followed a series of e-mail exchanges, Debbie Pucci said, “The language in the book was very offensive.”

“Why this book, with all the great literature out there?” she and her husband wanted to know.

Their answer arrived in a letter dated August 10th that was sent to parents of every student in the AP English class assigned the summer reading.

“I chose the text because it is commonly taught in AP Language and Composition classes as part of a memoir unit,” English teacher Samantha McElroy wrote. “Teachers and critics have praised the memoir for Walls’ honest account of positive life experiences as well as difficult incidents, citing her resilience and success in spite of such challenges as inspirational. Unfortunately, it contains mature content and language that may have taken your child by surprise and made him or her uncomfortable.”

A day later, the Pucci’s reply came: “We can appreciate how all of you must have reacted when you received our e-mail. It was exactly as we had anticipated. However, we can assure you that we were even more shocked to discover this and dozens of similarly offensive excerpts from (our daughter’s) required reading assignment. We too are disturbed and puzzled as to how this required book for AP English could ever be deemed appropriate by any member of our high school administration and/or professional staff.”

Earlier this year it was challenged as part of the tenth-grade English curriculum in the Sade-Central City High School classrooms in Cairnbrook, Pennsylvania because of objections to Walls’ descriptions of abuse such as sexual assault, drunkenness, seeing the family cat thrown from a moving car, having to drink ditch water, and the use of “casual profanity.”

After voting to retain the title in class curriculums, even staunch critics of the graphic accounts praised its theme- overcoming adversity.

It’s been seen time after time when someone objects to these topics wrapped inside literature and fiction and wants to prevent it from being read, but this is historical fact. It did happen. It does happen. It will happen again- no matter how blind the Campbells or the Puccis of the world choose to be when faced with the truth of the world in which they live.

If a student is mature enough to handle the added responsibility of an honors course, then they are deemed mature and capable enough to handle the resulting content in the educated opinion of school officials and teachers, even if you can’t wake up and see that she’s not that pig-tailed, naive little girl sitting on your knee anymore.

Just because the Campbells and the Puccis choose to view the world through the rose-colored lenses of ignorance does not mean that those of sufficient maturity and critical thinking skills can’t absorb and discuss the real world issues brought forth between the pages of “The Glass Castle.”

If one considers their son or daughter still too immature by the time they’re taking high-school level honors courses, that does not mean that every other student is of equally-stunted emotional growth or intelligence.

If that’s the case, then your child really shouldn’t be approved to be in an honors-level course to begin with. The whole point of honors classes in high school is for students who have reached a level in their education where they are ready to engage in college-level analysis and discourse.

When a book comes along that can make a reader who faces a similar situation or past not feel so alone, or provide an eye-opening awareness to those who are in a position to break the chain, then everyone- everywhere and of all ages- should read it.

The memoir has spent 261 weeks on the New York Times Bestseller list and is now under development as a film by Paramount. By 2007, The Glass Castle had sold over 2.5 million copies, had been translated into 22 languages, and received the Christopher Award, the American Library Association’s Alex Award (2006) and the Books for Better Living Award.

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://www.deepforestproductions.com/BBARK.html

Sources: Wikipedia, Marshall University, Detroit Free Press, Traverse City Record-Eagle, The Telegraph,
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: “The Grapes of Wrath”

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The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, was first published in 1939 and would achieve both the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize that same year. When Steinbeck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1962 the novel was referenced frequently.

Set during the Great Depression, the story centers on the Joad family, poor tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by drought, the Dust Bowl, and economic hardships resulting from the changes in the financial and agricultural industries. The Joads set out for California, along with thousands of other “Okies,” to find jobs, land, dignity, and a future. This fictional tale is based very much on actual events that are a part of history, as many headed to the West Coast after the Dust Bowl.

According to The New York Times it was the best-selling book of 1939 with more than 430,000 copies printed by February 1940. Noted Steinbeck scholar John Timmerman, in summation of the novel’s impact, said, “The Grapes of Wrath may well be the most thoroughly discussed novel- in criticism, reviews, and college classrooms- of 20th century American literature.”

TIME magazine lists it as one of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005. In 2009 The Daily Telegraph included it as one of the 100 novels everyone should read and in 1998 the Modern Library ranked The Grapes of Wrath tenth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.

Despite its critical and popular acclaim, upon its release there were very heated outcries against the novel and its author spanning the entire social and political spectrum of the United States. At times the novel literally fuelled the fires of public debate as local communities burned copies in protest.

When Steinbeck was preparing to write the novel, he famously wrote, “I want to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this [the Great Depression and its effects]. I’ve done my damnedest to rip a reader’s nerves to rags.”

Not surprising, Grapes of Wrath gathered a huge following among the working class due to Steinbeck’s sympathy to the workers’ movement and his open prose style.

But many Americans were disgusted by how Steinbeck described the poor and accused him of exaggerating the conditions to make a political point; however he argued that this was actually a diluted narrative reflecting the harsh truth of what was actually being witnessed by families in these communities at the time. In fact he had done the opposite, purposely underplaying the conditions that he knew were far worse than the novel describes because he felt that exact descriptions would have gotten in the way of his story.

Many of Steinbeck’s critics attacked his social and political views; but, again, part of its continuing impact stems from its passionate depiction of the plight of the poor and the working class. Bryan Cordyack wrote, “Steinbeck was attacked as a propagandist and a socialist from both the left and the right of the political spectrum. The most fervent of these attacks came from the Associated Farmers of California; they were displeased with the book’s depiction of California farmers’ attitudes and conduct toward the migrants. They denounced the book as a ‘pack of lies’ and labeled it ‘communist propaganda’.”

In this photo (left) from the Kern County (California) Museum, Clell Pruett burns a copy of The Grapes of Wrath as Bill Camp and another leader of the Associated Farmers stand by. At the time this photograph was taken, Pruett had not read the novel. Years later, after he read the book at the behest of Rick Wartzman, the author of Obscene in the Extreme, Pruett declared that he had no regrets about burning it.

One member of the county board of supervisors condemned the book as a “libel and lie.” In August 1939, by a vote of 4 to 1, the board approved a resolution banning The Grapes of Wrath from county libraries and schools.

Wartzman says that what happened in Kern County illustrated the profound divide between the left and right in California in the 1930s.

Bill Camp, head of the local Associated Farmers, a group of big landowners who were avid opponents of organized labor, pushed for the ban. He and his colleagues knew how to get a bill passed in the state Legislature- and they also knew how to be physical.

“They knew how to work with tire irons, pick handles, and bricks,” says Wartzman. “Things could get really ugly and violent.”

Camp wanted to publicize the county’s opposition to The Grapes of Wrath and he was convinced that many migrants were also offended by their depiction in the novel, so he recruited one of his workers, Clell Pruett, to burn the book. At the time the only information Pruett had on the novel and what it contained came from what he had heard on a radio program about it. What he heard made him angry and he readily agreed to take part in what Wartzman describes as a “photo op.”

Meanwhile, local librarian Gretchen Knief was working quietly to get the ban overturned. At the risk of losing her job, she stood up to the county supervisors and wrote a letter asking them to reverse their decision.

In the letter she said, “It’s such a vicious and dangerous thing to begin. Besides, banning books is so utterly hopeless and futile. Ideas don’t die because a book is forbidden reading.”

The supervisors upheld the ban, and it remained in effect for a year and a half.

The censorship of The Grapes of Wrath would actually be a key factor in the creation of the Library Bill of Rights, the statement that is described by librarians as ensuring that American citizens have the right to access whatever information they wish without question, and the right to utilize that information.

Still, to this day The Grapes of Wrath continues to be burned, banned, and challenged for the reasons stated above, and on claims of containing “vulgar language” and “sexual references.”

In August 1939, 20 public libraries were ordered by the Kansas City Board of Education to remove the book because of “indecency, obscenity, abhorrence of the portrayal of women and for ‘portraying life in such a bestial way.’”

In East St. Louis, Illinois, 5 of 9 library board members voted to have the book burned on the courtyard steps in November of 1939. The vote was later rescinded because of the “national commotion it had aroused” and the books were placed on the “Adults Only” shelf. In the week of this incident the book sold its most copies to date; and a librarian said that the book had the longest waiting list in recent years.

It was actually burned by the East St. Louis, IL Public Library (1939) and barred from the Buffalo, NY Public Library (1939) on the grounds that “vulgar words” were used.

Internationally, it was banned in Ireland in 1953; and was one of the books cited in the 1973 case in which eleven Turkish book publishers went on trial before an  Istanbul martial law tribunal on charges of publishing, possessing, and selling books in  violation of an order of the Istanbul martial law command.

It would be removed, but later reinstated on a restrictive basis, from two Anniston, Alabama high school libraries in 1982.

It was banned in Kanawha, Iowa in 1980 and in Morris, Manitoba in 1982; and challenged by Vernon-Verona-Sherill, New York, School District in 1980.

It was challenged  at the Cummings High School in Burlington, North Carolina in 1986 on religious grounds because a parent alleged that the “book is full of filth. My son is being raised in a Christian home and this book takes the Lord’s name in vain and has all kinds of profanity in it.” Although the parent spoke adamantly to the press, a formal complaint with the school board was never filed. What was the parent’s issue? It contained the phase “God damn.”

It would also be challenged in the Greenville, South Carolina schools in 1991 on the same grounds.

It has also been challenged as required reading for Richford, Vermont High School English students in 1991 due to the book’s language and for the portrayal of a former minister who recounts how he took advantage of a young woman; and in Union City, Tennessee High School classes in 1993.

It has been a staple of American high school and college literature classes across the country due to its historical context and its enduring legacy as one of the truly greatest American novels of all time. A celebrated film version starring Henry Fonda and directed by John Ford was made in 1940.

Knief was quite right in her letter to Kern County officials. Ideas cannot die simply because they are not on a printed page. You can destroy all the pages you like, but you cannot break the determined spirit of freedom. It is a sad testimony that almost 100 years later the truth of her statement goes unrealized by so many.

 

Sources: Wikipedia, American Library Association, NPR,
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: Gore Vidal (A Tribute)

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The literary world lost another icon this week when Gore Vidal, author, playwright, politician, and commentator, died at the age of 86 last Tuesday from complications due to pneumonia. His over-the-top wit and unconventional wisdom shined in his literature and public opinions.

He had a sullen regard for lost worlds, for the importance of the written word, and for “the American sense that whatever is wrong with human society can be put right by human action.”

He was often uncomfortable with the literary and political establishment, and the feeling was more than mutual. Beyond an honorary National Book Award in 2009, he won few major writing prizes, lost both times he ran for office, and initially declined membership into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, joking that he already belonged to the Diners Club; he was eventually admitted in 1999. Through it all, though, he was a staple on the talk show circuit and like other giants such as Norman Mailer and Truman Capote he was a writer with a mega celebrity status because even if you didn’t actually read any of his works you knew who he was.

Admired as one of the great thinkers in American history in the tradition of Mark Twain on subjects ranging from literature, culture, politics, and, as he liked to call it, “the birds and the bees,” he picked apart politicians, living and dead with acerbic one liners like “Politics is just show business for ugly people;” he mocked religion and prudery; opposed wars from Vietnam to Iraq; and insulted his peers like no other. He often said that the happiest words in the English language were: “I told you so.”

His insider-outsider social status in many high-level circles didn’t come without some side effects.

He has been called anti-Semitic, despite being buried alongside Howard Austen in Washington, D.C. Austen, a Jewish advertising copywriter, was Vidal’s lifelong companion and the two lived together from 1950 until Austen’s death in 2003.

His masterpiece novel, The City and the Pillar, published in 1948, was the first mainstream novel in the United States to explicitly approach the subject of homosexuality. In fact it was dedicated to “JT,” Jimmy Trimble, who had been his lover at St Albans school; he died in the Battle of Iwo Jima.

Twenty years later Vidal would change the ending to what he originally had in mind and released The City and the Pillar Revised, no longer willing or obligated to cater to the wishes of his publisher.

The novel’s main themes dealt with Vidal’s appeal for a lifting of the laws that banned homosexually-related sex acts in the US at the time and a feeling of alienation from what he thought of as homosexual stereotypes about feminine and “unmanly” behavior held by many heterosexuals.

The plot centers on Jim Willard in Virginia in the late 1930s. When his best friend, Bob Ford, is about to leave high school the two make a camping trip into the woods. After some ranting from Bob about how difficult it is to get the local girls to have sex with him, the two have sex several times, even though Bob thinks this is not a normal thing for two men to do.

Jim, to whom it has already occurred that girls do not appeal to him, hopes Bob will stay but is saddened when Bob insists on joining the merchant marines. The next seven years of Jim’s life result in a physical and soulful pilgrimage.

The novel also contains many allegorical, albeit fictional, incidents of Hollywood stars who in their private lives are homosexual, yet forced by studio executives to marry to cater to public opinion. These incidents were sadly a very real element to Hollywood’s early days.

Initial critical analysis of The City and the Pillar attacked its appropriateness and its artistic awkwardness; and several otherwise sympathetic readers, who welcomed it based on its subject matter alone, objected to its violent conclusion, which to them implied that homosexual relationships must always end unhappily. Jim and Bob meet up at the end after many years in New York City but when Jim attempts to renew their sexual relationship Bob rejects him. In the 1948 version Jim ends up killing him in the altercation. In both of the revised versions (1965, 1995) they fight but it doesn’t end in a death. In addition, the revised versions contain substantial stylistic revisions.

Scandal quickly erupted in American popular culture upon its release. It was quickly banned in many communities as pornography and was panned by critics as being “too immoral to be worth reading.” A New York Times literary critic was so enraged by the subject matter that he banned reviews of Vidal’s next five novels. Vidal claimed that he was blacklisted from that point on by the NYT and as a result other major newspapers would refuse to review his novels for decades, this is an accusation that the paper to this date doesn’t completely deny. Up until his death he spoke harshly of the NYT whenever he could find an excuse to work it into conversation.

His black comedy, Myra Breckinridge (1968), about a transsexual movie star was also banned due to its sexuality themes.

His fight with right-wing politics infamously came to a head during the 1968 U.S. presidential campaign, when Vidal and William F. Buckley Jr. fought on national television during an iconic appearance on ABC News. Vidal called Buckley a “proto-crypto-Nazi” and the furious National Review founder responded by exclaiming, “You queer.” The two men continued to attack each other in the pages of Harold Hayes’ Esquire, eventually resulting in them suing each other for libel.

Gore would join the magazine, The Nation, in 1981 as a contributing editor, publishing forty-one articles. His work in the publication would reverberate through the political and literary worlds with a razor-sharp wit and sardonic effect. Some of his most memorable quotes appeared in The Nation. In 2004 he would write, “We are the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing.” The article would go on to describe the United States as a place where “the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns.”

Gore was a great talker as well as a great writer. He was a citizen of life, with an outspoken and brazen voice courageously questioning the establishment. Perhaps the best way to sum up Gore Vidal’s influence on literature and culture is in another of his famous quips: “You hear all this whining going on, ‘Where are our great writers?’ The thing I might feel doleful about is: ‘Where are the readers?’”

(1925-2012)

Sources: Wikipedia, American Library Association, National Post, Aljazeera, The Boulder Weekly
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: To Kill a Mockingbird

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Harper Lee’s immortal classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, was first published in 1960 to instant acclaim- despite her editors’ warnings that it probably wouldn’t sell all that well.

In its first year of release it would garner rave reviews by The New Yorker and Time magazines, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961. To date it has sold more than 30 million copies and been translated into over 40 languages. It has never been out of print and has become part of the standard literature curriculum in schools nationwide. A 2008 survey of books read by high school students designates the novel as the most widely read book in classes. In 2006, even British librarians placed the book atop The Bible as one that “every adult should read before they die.” In the years that followed, numerous film and stage adaptions would add to its literary legacy.

The timeless tale, long celebrated for its warmth and humor despite dealing with serious issues such as rape and racial inequality in the American South, would be the focus of controversy since first entering the classroom in 1963.

In 1968 the National Education Association placed the novel second on a list of titles receiving the most complaints from private organizations. The top spot belonged to Little Black Sambo.

Racial slurs, profanity, and blunt dialogue about rape have led people to challenge its appropriateness in libraries and classrooms so often that, today, the American Library Association reports that To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most challenged classics of all time and still ranks at number 21 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of 2000–2009. Even as recently as 2011 and amid 326 other book challenges for that year, it ranks in the top ten more than 50 years after seeing print.

Perhaps the first major incident surrounding the book was in Hanover, Virginia, in 1966 when a parent protested that the use of rape as a plot device was immoral. Several examples of letters to local newspapers- which ranged from amusement to fury- expressed mostly outrage over the depictions of rape. Upon learning that school administrators were holding hearings regarding the book’s appropriateness for the classroom, Harper Lee sent $10 to The Richmond News Leader suggesting it to be used toward the enrollment of “the Hanover County School Board in any first grade of its choice.”

With the shift of attitudes about race in the 1970’s, To Kill a Mockingbird faced challenges over concerns that the treatment of racism was not condemned harshly enough which led to contrasting perceptions between blacks and whites. While the novel had a generally positive impact on white readers, a more uncertain reception was given by black readers.

It was challenged in the Vernon Verona School District in Sherill, New York and temporarily banned in Eden Valley, Minnesota in 1977 due to the words “damn” and “whore lady” being used in the novel.

Shhhh…don’t let them see the classic movie adaptation of Gone with the Wind.

A common reason to challenges brought forth in the 1980’s labeled it a “filthy, trashy novel.” The Warren, Indiana schools dealt with a challenge to it in 1981 because the book does “psychological damage to the positive integration process and represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature.” After unsuccessfully trying to ban Lee’s novel, three black parents resigned from the township’s human relations advisory council.

A challenge in the Waukegan, Illinois School District in 1984 was over the use of the word “nigger.” Echoing challenges in Kansas City and Park Hill, Missouri junior high schools were because the novel contains profanity and racial slurs.

It was retained on an extra-credit eighth grade reading list in the Casa Grande, Arizona School District despite the protests by black parents and the NAACP who charged the book was unfit for junior high use.

In one high-profile case outside the United States, school districts in the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia attempted to have the book removed from standard teaching curricula in the 1990’s, stating:

“The terminology in this novel subjects students to humiliating experiences that rob them of their self-respect and the respect of their peers. The word ‘nigger’ is used 48 times [in] the novel… We believe that the English Language Arts curriculum in Nova Scotia must enable all students to feel comfortable with ideas, feelings and experiences presented without fear of humiliation… To Kill a Mockingbird is clearly a book that no longer meets these goals and therefore must no longer be used for classroom instruction.”

In 1995 it was challenged in the Santa Cruz, California Schools over its racial themes and banned from the Southwood High School Library in Caddo Parish, Louisiana because the book’s language and content were objectionable. A challenged in the Moss Point, Mississippi School District in 1996 over a single racial epithet contained in the novel. It was next banned from the Lindale, Texas advanced placement English reading list because the book “conflicted with the values of the community.”

Moving on into the not-so-enlightened 21st century, an unsuccessful 2001 challenge by a Glynn County Georgia School Board member was because of profanity.

It was returned to the freshman reading list at Muskogee, Oklahoma High School in 2001 despite complaints from black students and parents about racial slurs in the text. Next it was challenged in the Normal, Illinois Community High School’s sophomore literature class in 2003 as “being degrading to African Americans” and at the Stanford Middle School in Durham, North Carolina in 2004 because of the word “nigger.”

Challenges at the Brentwood, Tennessee Middle School in 2006 were due to the book containing profanity and “adult themes such as sexual intercourse, rape, and incest.”  The complainants also contend that the book’s use of racial slurs promotes “racial hatred, racial division, racial separation, and promotes white supremacy.”

It was retained in the English curriculum by the Cherry Hill, New Jersey Board of Education in 2007 after a resident objected to the novel’s depiction of how blacks are treated by members of a racist white community in an Alabama town during the Depression and feared the book would upset black children reading it.

Hmmm…did this parent ever read a history book?

In another incident from Canada, it was removed from the St. Edmund Campion Secondary School classrooms in Brampton, Ontario in 2009 when a parent objected to language used in the novel, including the word “nigger.”

We have here a novel set in a time of tremendous social unrest that was The Great Depression. The effects of the Civil War were still rippling through the American South and unless you’ve never read even a basic history book, you’re well aware that the social status and public treatment of most blacks was dismal at best.

This is literature using fiction at its best and mixing it with autobiographical elements to reflect a complex time in American history. Here we are almost 100 years after the events in To Kill a Mockingbird and we are once again facing a bleak and uncertain financial future; rapes still occur on a daily basis; and racial strife continues to permeate many aspects of social interaction. I think what upsets people the most about the themes in this book aren’t that they are in the book but that they did, and still do exist, outside of the pages of fiction in our supposedly modern and very real society. The truth is that these elements hit too close to home for many people and the easiest way to deal with that discomfort is to shove it back into the shadows of fear and ignorance rather than open a book, learn from history, and use that knowledge to create meaningful dialogues in order to examine and better our united futures.

 

Sources: Wikipedia, American Library Association
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: Censored Book Prompts Author’s Arrest

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The banning of books has become the new “Oprah Effect.”

As governments and other organizations try to crack down on the spread of material they find offensive, the popularity of those works rises when they are labeled “deviant.”

The Vatican didn’t learn from the protests of the theatrical release of The DaVinci Code, which caused movie ticket and book sales to rise amid the controversy because people wanted to see what all the fuss was about.

Now the Vatican recently condemned Sister Margaret A. Farley’s 2006 book Just Love, A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics.

As a result, the book rose from 142,982 to 16 in Amazon’s overall rankings; it was also the #1 best-selling religious studies book as of last Tuesday.

Censorship at the state level is hardly a new trend, though. The leaders of the so-called “civilized” world have a long history of prosecuting and imprisoning members of society who dare to speak their minds and go against the grain.

Socrates was exiled from his beloved Athens for “corrupting the young” (he committed suicide rather than leave his home); Martin Luther was branded a heretic by the Catholic Church for his 95 Theses calling for reform; and Thomas Paine had an arrest warrant issued by England because of his groundbreaking series The Age of Reason, preventing him from ever setting foot on British land again.

Today, books continue to be challenged or banned in the United States and around the world. You would think we would have learned from history, but the scary reality is that sometimes the authors themselves are still being prosecuted and imprisoned by world governments for their publications and free thoughts.

Remember the death threats and subsequent manhunt for Salman Rushdie, the author of The Satanic Verses, which captivated the world after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwā against him in 1989?

This practice of state-sponsored censorship is alive and well in the year 2012.

A Maldivian blogger, known for his liberal views on religion, was in intensive care on Tuesday after being stabbed by an attacker outside his home in the capital of Male.

On Sunday, Pakistan officially denied its citizens access to Twitter in response to “blasphemous” material posted on the popular website.

A senior government official said, “They [the ministry] have been discussing with them [Twitter] for some time now, requesting them to remove some particular content.”

Pakistan previously blocked access to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and some 1,000 other sites for two weeks in May 2010 over “blasphemous” content.

A 26-year-old Kuwaiti man was convicted of “endangering state security,” and given a ten-year prison sentence last Monday for “insulting Mohammad” on Twitter.

In May, state officials in Bangladesh banned a novel by Humayun Ahmed, a popular writer, for allegedly “distorting history” regarding how the nation’s first president and his family were murdered in 1975.

Now a Bangladeshi court has issued an arrest warrant for Salam Azad, the writer of Bhanga Math (Broken Temple). The 2003 novel was banned for blasphemy by the Bangladeshi government in 2004 because it allegedly contains remarks against the prophet Muhammad.

A judge in Dhaka accepted the petition and issued the order in response to a complaint from a Muslim activist who accuses the author of insulting Muhammad and “hurting religious sentiment” in the novel.

According to a report by the Associated Foreign Press, the Dhaka police confirmed the warrant.

Azad told the AFP that the case was part of a smear campaign against him launched by a senior official from the ruling Awami League party.

“I became his target after I protested his grabbing of Hindu property. He has already filed a case against me,” he said.

Azad’s other novels include The Grave, The Role Of India In The War Of Liberation Of Bangladesh, and Atrocities on the Minorities in Bangladesh.

It should be clear to anyone with common sense and reason that banning a book doesn’t work to suppress the spread of it. Maybe what governments should do is make it required reading- that certainly stopped many a book from being read in high school.

Come to think of it, that is rather fitting since censorship in any form is childish.

 

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://www.deepforestproductions.com/BBARK.html

Sources: Gulf Times, Wikipedia, MSNBC, AFP
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions

Banned Books Awareness: Bookstore Manager Facing Prison for Selling Banned Book

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There’s more reasons to miss Borders in the United States- their willingness to stand up for their employees and their dedication to the freedom to read.

The manager of a Borders bookstore in Malaysia has been charged with distributing a book by controversial writer Irshad Manji.

A statement by the owners, published on the Borders Malaysia official Facebook page on Wednesday, in support of the manager has gone viral.

Nik Raina Nik Abdul Aziz, 36, from the Borders store at The Gardens Mall, in Mid Valley City, was charged on June 19 in the Shariah High Court with distributing “Allah, Liberty and Love,” which was published in June 2011.

The charge, under Section 13(1) of Shariah Criminal Offences Act (Federal Territories) 1997, carries a fine of up to $1,200 or up to two years in prison, or both, upon conviction.

Following the charge against Aziz, Borders Malaysia Chief Operating Officer, Yau Su Peng, expressed the company’s disappointment over the accusation by the Federal Territory Islamic Affairs Department (Jawi).

Peng said Aziz had “done no more than perform her duties as a store manager and that she did not have influence or control over the selection of books at Borders.”

Peng also contended that the raid on the bookstore was made at a time when the book had not been banned, and that there was no prior notification or warning to Borders prior to the raid that any book was in question.

The statement can be read, in its entirety, on the Borders corporate website.

The agency had banned the book on the grounds that it contains elements which “misleads the public,” is “detrimental to public order,” and is against Shariah law as prescribed in the Qur’an and Hadith.

The owners have instructed employees, both Muslim and non-Muslim, to assist JAWI with its investigations, despite the company not being subject to the jurisdiction of JAWI, as it is a non-Muslim entity.

No plea was recorded Tuesday against Aziz. She has been granted bail and the next court date is set for September 19.

Her lawyer, Rosli Dahlan, said the shop has filed a lawsuit to declare the raid illegal because Islamic officials raided the store before the book ban was officially announced. Rosli reinforced that Aziz had no authority over deciding which books the store sells and is being singled out because those in charge of merchandising were Chinese non-Muslims. Non-Muslims cannot be charged in Islamic courts, which run parallel to the country’s civil courts and administer civil matters for Muslims.

Manji released the book, together with a Malay-language translation, at an event in Kuala Lumpur on May 19 amid criticism by Muslims.

Her previous internationally-acclaimed book, “The Trouble with Islam Today,” is already banned in Malaysia, where books are frequently banned, especially those deemed obscene or against Islamic teachings.

New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on the government to reverse the book ban, saying it was “old-fashioned state repression” and “cowardly.”

Irshad Manji, who was born in Uganda and moved to Canada at the age of 4, is a supporter of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) movement.

Manji describes her book, Allah, Liberty and Love, as being about “how to reconcile faith and freedom in a world seething with repressive dogmas.”

She says that the ban “is an insult to a new generation of Malaysians. Censorship treats citizens like children. Censorship denies human beings their free will to think for themselves.”

“The irony is that this book makes the case for faith. It empowers readers to reconcile Allah and freedom, showing that Muslims can be independent thinkers and profound believers in a loving God,” she added.

Allah, Liberty and Love “paves a path for Muslims and non-Muslims to transcend the fears that stop so many of us from living with honest-to- God integrity: the fear of offending others in a multicultural world as well as the fear of questioning our own communities.”

One of the most vocal Muslim reformers today, Manji draws on her experience in the trenches to share stories that are often touching, frequently funny, and always revealing. The book discusses such topics as what scares non-Muslims, liberal voices within Islam, honor killings, and how people forgo dogma while still keeping faith. Above all, it shows how each of us can embark on a personal journey toward moral courage and have the willingness to speak up even when everybody else wants to shut you up.

 

For more information on the Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge project and the complete list of titles covered, please visit the official website at http://www.deepforestproductions.com/BBARK.html

Sources: AsiaOne News, Borders, Irshad Manji, Amazon, Associated Foreign Press, CBC
© 2012 R. Wolf Baldassarro/Deep Forest Productions