Parents should try reading books instead of banning them

By Krista Benson

Inappropriate. Indecent. Racist.

These are some of the buzz words that set the American public on edge and lead them to manic bursts of mob mentality. If an idea or a piece of literature is found to have any of these characteristics, the public dooms it to death.

An example of this can be seen in a January edition of the Washington Post, which reported that two Maryland public school systems have removed Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and Toni Morrison’s “The Song of Solomon” from their English curriculum. This came as a result of protests from some parents who said that the books were “anti-white.”

Usually, when thinking of banned or censored books, an image of conservative, extreme right-wingers comes to mind, attempting to ban a classic such as “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” because it “puts white people in a bad light.” Yet, censorship isn’t limited to the extreme right. It has spread to all political persuasions and has gone all the way to the extreme left.

Liberals are just as guilty of promoting censorship as anyone else. Many classic books have been removed from public school systems all over the nation. Some of these books include:

• “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (Harriet Beecher Stowe) — a Civil War-era book on the situation of blacks in the south — on the grounds of “negative portrayal of blacks;”

• “Summer of My German Soldier” (Bette Green) — a book about a Jewish-American girl who helps a German prisoner — because it contained “seven bad words;”

• “The Color Purple” (Alice Walker) — the Pulitzer-Prize winning story of a black woman who is abused by her husband — on the grounds of “profanity.”

So, any book that doesn’t portray all groups of people as perfect, faultless symbols of virtue, is challenged as inappropriate and, in some cases, taken out of the curriculum. If a single four-letter word is used in a book, even for the accuracy of the story, the book is removed.

How can this be justified? At the urging of a few ignorant parents who have trouble distinguishing the ideas and stories of a fictional writer from reality, books with great historical and literary merit are being removed from classes.

When certain books are no longer available and certain ideas are deemed “wrong,” the education of students suffers. Ideas in this culturally, socially and intellectually diverse society must thrive, grow, change and be exchanged.

Censorship, however, is not just an action — it’s an attitude. Every person who stands by and watches this attitude proliferate is as guilty of censorship as if they had thrown books in a fire. We must change our attitudes toward censorship and actively fight any sign of censorship in our society.

Nobody wins in the Censorship War. And the people who lose the most are the ones with the least ability to do anything about it — the students. It’s their education that’s being hurt.

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