We have to protect the children!

It’s National Banned Book Week! Doctor RJ of Daily Kos tells us about this year’s report from the American Library Association. A lot of books are banned under the guise of “protecting children.” That has a political edge because who would want to be caught not protecting children? Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart dissented by writing that censorship reflects “a society’s lack of confidence in itself,” and is the “hallmark of an authoritarian regime.”

So here are the top ten most challenged books of 2017.

1. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher, because it discusses suicide.
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie, for profanity and scenes thought to be sexually explicit.
3. Drama, by Raina Telgemeier, for LGBT characters.
4. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, for sexual violence, also it might lead to terrorism and promote Islam.
5. George by Alex Gino, for a transgender character.
6. Sex is a Funny Word, by Cory Silverberg and Fiona Smyth, for making children curious about sex.
7. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, for violence and use of the n-word.
8. The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, for being pervasively vulgar.
9. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell, Justin Richardson, and Henry Cole, for featuring a same-sex relationship. It’s back in the top ten after a brief break.
10. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel, Jazz Jennings, and Shelagh McNichols, for addressing gender identity.

Four of the ten are challenged because of LGBT characters. No, we’re still not treated equally.

The ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom saw an increase in “blanket bans,” such as challenging all LGBT books, all books by a certain author, or all R-rated DVDs. The OIF also notes an increase of administrators removing books against policy to try to avoid controversy.

Doctor RJ reviews some of the challenges over the years. One of those was a challenge to Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. Beatrice Clark, who is African American, objected to the book being assigned to her granddaughter’s 11th grade language arts class. The complaint: the n-word appears 215 times. Said Clark:

It's not just a word. It carries with it the blood of our ancestors. They were called this word while they were lynched; they were called this word while they were hung from the big magnolia tree. That word, in the history of America, has always been a degrading word toward African Americans. When they were brought to America, they were never thought of as human beings in the first place, and this word was something to call a thing that wasn't human. So that's what they bring into the classroom to talk about. I just think it's utterly unconscionable that a school would think it's acceptable.

She has a point, but it completely misses the story. The word gets used a lot and Finn might use it (been a while since I’ve read it), but that is quite different from the way Finn treats Jim.

Scroll down Doctor RJ’s post to read a letter by Kurt Vonnegut to Charles McCarthty, the chair of the Drake, ND school board.

Commenters to the post noted the irony of wanting to censor Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.