Two people in Spotsylvania, Virginia (go ahead, find it on a map; I’ll wait) and now the world’s on fire and it’s the sacking of Alexandria all over again.Analysis | “I think we should throw those books in a fire”: Movement builds on right to target books https://t.co/H2uQ2wh0uz
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 10, 2021
The best part is putting Greg Abbott’s picture on this. Not that many Abbott voters read WaPo, but he can’t buy publicity like this. Nor does he deserve the attention, except that Abbott has made more empty threats than the two clowns in rural Virginia.
The American Library Association held its annual Banned Books Week the last week of September. Did anyone even notice? But two people in a town in Virginia make stupid statements and a Governor desperately defends himself against his further-to-the right opponents, and suddenly civilization itself is threatened?
According to the ALA, the number of books actually being challenged has run between over 500 to over 300 since the beginning of the century. It 448 reported challenges in 2000 (including Of Mice And Men, Harry Potter, and The Catcher In The Rye), 547 in 2004 (a high water mark until 2019). The numbers don't fall below 400 challenges until 2010. It jumped up again in 2012 to 464, and up to 566 in 2019. Only 273 books were challenged in 2020, probably mostly due to schools being closed and parents worrying about other things. The most challenged books are almost perennials, including Of Mice and Men and To Kill A Mockingbird, as well as Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Why hasn't there been a "movement" building throughout this century to ban books? Or maybe the right question is: when hasn't there been one?
I don't think any of those titles made Matt Krause's "suspicious" list. Then again, his list only went back as far as 1969. And it's hard to say whether he actually "challenged" those books or whether he just issued a list for the sake of publicizing his political career. Because so far he hasn't made any demands on any school district to comply with his request, and his committee hasn't met to discuss the matter, that I know of. Pretty sure if it had the Democrats on the committee would have used the occassion for public statements of their own.
So while it bothers me that people challenge books (although the most challenged texts, with the exception of Harry Potter, may not belong in an elementary school library. There is such a thing as "age appropriate".), it doesn't shock and amaze me and indicate yet another assault on the democratic republic.
And frankly, a lot of the brouhaha recently is about graphic novels, which are wildly popular. Something about pictures really sets us off, seeing (!) as we're a sight-oriented species. I can pull "romance novels" off the bookshelve of any bookstore that include numerous sex scenes nobody bats an eye at (it's the main reason people buy those disposable novels). Put the very same scene on a TV screen and people would scream about the pornography. Now do the same thing with a graphic novel, even one about adolescent issues and characters (no, I'm not saying such stuff verges on child porn). You see (!!) the problem.
What we see upsets us far more than what we read. And the rise of graphic novels is stirring concerns because they are visual, and because they are new. The stuff in those "romance novels" (and no, I don't mean the "bodice rippers" alone) I mentioned were the realm of pulp fiction and soft-core porn once upon a time. Now nobody notices, except when it's absent. The same may be true of graphic novels one day.
After all, John Ashcroft draped the naked statue of justice (a nude female figure) so he wouldn't have to stand with a naked lady over his shoulder for press conferences. And in the Renaissance nude women were allowed in art because they were "goddesses." Then again, Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe shocked everyone because the ladies were naked. Would probably bother us again today, wouldn't it?
Everything old is new again.
I'll repeat again, it isn't the library kids who are the ones screwing around, it's the jocks, the cheerleaders and the hoods. I would bet that if they could do a real statistical analysis that high reading rate was probably negatively proportional to screwing around. I would bet you they're more likely to use contraception if they do, too.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed the only argument over Catcher In The Rye wasn't over it having been a stupidly praised piece of junk, 1960s era transgression that was reactionary even then.