On censorship and the love of banned books

Banned Books Week is September 22-28.

I have always felt like Banned Books Week was custom made for folks like me: writers, poets, free spirits, and people who just like getting into stuff they’re not supposed to. (Of course it wasn’t, but I still enjoy feeling that way about it.) In reality, it started in the 1980s when the American Booksellers Association (ABA), the American Library Association (ALA), and the National Association of College Stores joined forces to create an event that would call the public’s attention to the act of book banning. The ABA got the idea after a book expo exhibit they did in 1982 showcasing banned books locked up in cages (Banned Books Week, 2012). Since that time, Banned Books Week has become an institution in the library world, promoted widely by library staff to highlight the impact and the dangers of censorship.

As I note in my Capstone project, “Resisting Censorship” is one of the three key pillars of my librarianship practice. A year ago, my principle was put to the test in a class called Information Access and Policy. Our main reading assignment was the highly controversial graphic novel Neonomicon by award-winning author Alan Moore. In a case that captured international attention, the book was banned from a South Carolina public library in December 2012. Against this backdrop – and while drawing on legal statutes, library policy, and our own reasoning – we had to come up with four arguments: two for keeping the book on the shelf and two for banning it. One of the “banning” arguments had to be from a parent, the other from a library director. The professor warned against ranting – all of our arguments, including the “banning” ones, had to be based on logic and law.

The “keeping” arguments were the easiest. We had the ALA Core Values on our side, as well as the First Amendment and established case law. The “banning” arguments tested our mettle. In our discussion board posts, we reflected on the moral tensions that we were experiencing, how difficult it was to argue against a principle that many of us took for granted. In my own “banning” arguments, I drew on feminist theory and a lesser-known constitutional amendment to support the book’s removal. Although I spent years arguing against myself as an undergraduate political science major in the 1990s, writing those censorship arguments last summer in violation of my own moral, ethical, and professional principles was one of the toughest things I ever had to do for a class.

If you have read Neonomicon you will have no trouble understanding why some people wanted to see it banned. Our professor chose the book with intention. She wanted us to think hard about what it means to oppose all censorship. (As she put it during one class, “It’s easy to defend To Kill a Mockingbird.”) Moreover, she wanted us to question the simplistic “we-the free speechers” vs. “they-the censors” dichotomy that can so easily become a proxy for “good” vs. “evil.”

Despite the conflicted feelings I had about Neonomicon, my own personal conviction was that the book should not be banned. I have always believed that the threat to everyone’s freedom of speech far outweighs any supposed benefits that could result from banning a book. I am also concerned that minorities would bear the brunt of that threat. Take a look at the American Library Association’s list of the “Top Eleven” challenged books of 2018, and you will see that over half contain “LGBTQIA+ content” of some kind – an obvious noncoincidence that points directly to the pervasiveness of discrimination against LGBTQIA+ communities and the uneasiness many people feel around anyone who identifies as anything other than “straight.”

As a poet, the last thing I want my writing to do is to make everyone feel comfortable. And as a reader, I appreciate books that shake me up, make me mad, and force me to think uncomfortable thoughts. At the very least, they motivate me to speak my own truth more forcefully. At best, they cause me to examine what I think I know and look at the world differently.

I read a number of banned and challenged books during my formative years. Those books shaped my consciousness and helped make me who I am today. I came across some of my favorites in the Banned & Challenged classics list on ALA’s website:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee: For a long time, whenever anyone would ask me the question “What’s your favorite book?” I would inevitably name this one. These days, I’d be too indecisive to pick any one title, but this book definitely has a permanent place in my soul.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker: This is my favorite epistolary novel, ever. Walker’s treatment of the characters, their language, and their sexuality is an unforgettable tribute to Black womanhood.

Beloved and Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison: Morrison was one of the first authors whose books evoked a Could-something-this amazing-have-come-from-a-human-head? response in me. I read these books back when I was attempting to read all of her novels, and I consider both of them to be works of genius.

1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell: If he were alive today, what would he say? The timelessness of these two novels is awe inspiring and frightening.

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston: Can you believe she wrote it in just under two months?  The book and the woman blow my mind. (P.S. If you love her and you know it, please, please, please read Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters compiled by Carla Kaplan. It is a remarkable life portrait.)

Many more banned and challenged titles are listed on ALA’s website: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks

References

“Banned Books Week (September 22-28, 2019)”, American Library Association, December 11, 2012.

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/banned (Accessed September 23, 2019)

Document ID: be933510-a8c2-4f72-9b65-9a8eb7b89f69