Libraries this week are celebrating Banned Books Week. It's always fun to take a look at the books that were put on various banned lists (like To Kill a Mockingbird or Harry Potter) and get a chuckle out of how narrow-minded certain people/groups of people can be. Seriously, a book about a wizard promotes witchcraft? And I suppose Where the Wild Things Are promotes, ummm, roaring terrible roars?
There are always, of course, a few party poopers who want to rain on a librarian's celebration of advancing knowledge. This time it comes in the form of a poorly headlined, but not too terribly written article in the Washington Post, asking "Do we really still need Banned Books Week?". Ron Charles, the author of the article, wonders why librarians are focusing on "a problem that's largely confined to our repressive past". But, in the U.S., are problems ever really confined to the past? The legacy of racism or poverty (to take two examples) tends to last and last and last. Why wouldn't a problem like the repression of knowledge be just as applicable today as it was all those long years ago?
The answer is because suppressing knowledge and/or preventing others from reading about a clashing worldwide is often bad for certain groups of powerful people. In 1759 the Catholic church and King Louis XV of France banned Diderot's Encyclopédie and it literally had to be smuggled into France after it was printed in Switzerland. Bans like these would also lead to self-censorship. For example, Kate Chopin held back her short story "The Storm" from publication in 1899 "because she recognized it as too explicit and advanced for the period. Her description of passionate lovemaking would have been bad enough, but her endorsement of the adultery would have scandalized her readers." Of course, by "her readers" the critic means stodgy, uptight folks. It wasn't until 1969 that "The Storm" was published, 65 years after Chopin's death.
There are, of course, modern examples such as Florida Governor Rick Scott banning the phrase "global warming", the U.S. Department of Agriculture under Trump ordered this done as well. Forget about a whole book, Rick Scott won't even let state agencies use a phrase! What's next telling towns they can't plan for the consequences of global warming like sea level rise? Oh, that already happened in North Carolina in 2012.
The larger point is that banning books is a symptom of one of those never-ending problems that the U.S. seems to have an abundance of, in this case it isn't racism or poverty, but close-mindedness. Books are still certainly being challenged. Texas seems to have a particular problem with ones on U.S. history or biology. Celebrating Banned Books weeks doesn't mean just laughing about the foolish decisions made by our grouchy ancestors but realizing that suppressing ideas can have real world consequences.
**All views in this post are the author's own and do NOT represent the views of Mercer County Community College**
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