Target has pulled items that offended “anti-woke” activists. There has been at least one video of a man destroying a display in one of their stores, and Target has reported that employees have been threatened.
Schools and libraries have pulled books off of shelves and spent thousands of dollars in reviewing books that a small determined group of censors have complained about.
This is having impacts on the publishing industry as well. Maggie Tokuda-Hall was asked by her publisher to remove references to racism in her book Love in the Library. The children’s picture book is about how her grandparents met and fell in love at the library at an interment camp in Idaho during WW2. Racism is only mentioned in the author’s note that most children are not likely to read. The note, written at an adult reading level, provides background for parents and teachers.
I am not sure where this will end, but perhaps a Tennessee librarian who had a Mother’s Day program cancelled for being inclusive summed it up best.
This novel was also published in the 60s. I read the copy that was in the library in the Junior High School I attended. It has a sex sequence in it.
If the Nazis want to purge every reference to sex, they will need to do a word scan of every book, because sequences they aspire to ban, appear in unlikely places.
To be fair, it is not just the prudes banning books, or the homophobes. I find it appalling that students no longer read Huckleberry Finn, in large part because of the objections of groups like the NAACP. It remains probably the best description of what daily racism was like during much of U.S. history, using the vernacular of the times. One can’t learn history if all the upsetting parts are censored. What’s left is the Disney cartoon version.
For me, Huckleberry Finn is the greatest piece of American literature. Too bad Twain was too exhausted to finish wrestling with the almost great end chapter revealing Tom Sawyer as a manipulative child malformed by Aunt Sally, but those minor flaws stand redeemed by the last sentence:
But I reckon I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me and I can’t stand it.I been there before. ”
david fb (been lighting out for the Territory ahead of the rest most of my life)
I think some of the folks in power have it right. The less talk the less ignorant people can destroy our country. Besides ignorant folks not paying attention and then insisting on stupid outcomes is what ails us the most.
It is indeed a wonderful book, but since probably tens of millions of Americans (of every generation that followed Mark Twain) hadn’t read it anyway, the fact that it was “removed” from schools or libraries isn’t such a tragedy.
This seems a thin rationale for removing a book, much less a classic from libraries. I’d say it would /be hard to find a book, any book (including the Bible) where you couldn’t find “tens of millions” who haven’t read it.
There are many things which are “of their time” and ought not be judged by contemporary and changing standards. Then again there are lots of things which are properly put away, ignored, and perhaps occasionally brought out for a moment of study (probably as are many books in the library, hence the idea of “the library.”.)
You didn’t understand either the irony or the joke.
After the dark times of history in which the Nazis, Stalin or the communist parties tried to destroy everything they did not agree with (does"Fahrenheit 451" ring a bell?), to ban for ideological reasons “To Kill A Mocking Bird”, “The Catcher in the Rye” or “The Grapes of Wrath” would seem ridiculous and absurd.
Bur this is “The Brave New World”.
Nevertheless, smiling boosts your immune system, relieves stress and helps you stay positive. Reading too!
