Censorship. We've all heard about it, and we've all heard the controversy over it. Well, I think censorship is a lot more damaging than most people let on.
I was honestly shocked to learn that The Great Gatsby and Of Mice & Men have been banned in many grade school libraries. I love those stories, and despite their incorporation of racial slangs, it didn’t offend me. Many would argue I didn't take offense to those things because I'm a white woman, but I have black friends who weren’t offended by them either because they knew that it is in the context of the times, although, that doesn't mean history devalues those things from being horrible. The biggest mention of race in The Great Gatsby is when Tom Buchanan is talking of a book he has read about how the whites need to “stay on top” and referring to African-Americans in a derogatory way. Fitzgerald does this purposely to characterize Tom. No one likes Tom in that novel and that’s just one reason why. The only mention of race in Of Mice & Men is Crooks, a black man with a crooked spine, hence the name.
A reader must put things into perspective and context. Being aware of the time period and its general "morals" and cultural beliefs is how to avoid personal offense, but that does not negate the fact that those terms are terrible and degrading.
I find it so ironic that one woman told adolescent writer Judy Blume that she is a communist. Establishing a book banning committee that demands everyone to conform to censorship and abide by its strict rules sounds a hell of a lot more like communism than mention a few wet dreams or menstrual cycles here and there. Desensitizing children to these very real things as opposed to over-sheltering them would create a lot less problems than people’s hypocritical whining about pieces of paper bound together.
The author of a literary work should not be punished for someone else’s morals, for it is their work and they have freedom of speech. Anyone who believes otherwise is the true communist. If you don’t want your child to read something, tell them why or educate them about the things in that book that you don’t want them to do or say. Adolescents are going to be exposed to “bad” things one way or another in their life, so sheltering them from even knowing what it is does not prepare them for the real world.
Censorship is such a stupid thing in every medium, whether it be literature, film, or art. The maturity of the audience and parent’s unwillingness to want to teach their children about the real world is the real problem here.
If there’s a freedom of speech, then there should definitely be a freedom to read.
