This is Banned Book Week and the entire situation is very top of mind.
I am a reader.
Always have been.
Most days I definitely would rather read for pleasure than do, well, anything.
Book banning goes in and out of style.
It is intrinsically linked to the authoritarian rule that some people want us to be under.
Right now there is a LOT of book banning going around.
So much so that some libraries are declaring themselves to be Book Sanctuaries.
This started in Chicago.
Kids are going to find the books that are banned for the simple reason that these books have been forbidden.
The Fifty Shades of Grey series was devoured by many mothers when it came out. These same mothers want to ban their precious Timmy from maybe seeing something that they are not mature enough for and asking questions.
Instead of getting in front of it, reading the books the kids are reading themselves, having book discussions about content, they would rather whole sale ban whatever makes them uncomfortable.
But those Fifty Shades of Grey books go down real nice, don’t they, Karen?
You don’t want little Timmy to feel uncomfortable reading about slavery and how white people permitted it and done horrible things to those they deemed lesser than themselves?
Truth hurts.
Oscar Wilds wrote in the Picture of Dorian Gray that “the books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame.”
There isn’t shame in books. There is shame in how people perceive them and cry out that the “children” must be saved.
This is censorship and a violation of the 1st Amendment.
You don’t want your child to read X book, don’t buy it for them, don’t let them download it. Follow them around the library and the bookshop and ensure that they only pick out books that are your approved list?
Don’t be surprised when they find a way to read it anyway. Because you told them not to read it and make such a big stink about it.
Funny that.
The only “points” this is getting you is the echo chamber approval of people who think like you.
Thank goodness not everyone in the world does.
There are terribly written books out there. I count the Help by Kathryn Stockett and the Fifty Shades of Grey series mostly because I think they are terrible books. Frankly, there is better erotica out there that you can probably find for free. That doesn’t mean that I don’t think you should read them. If you want to read terrible books, be my guest. But don’t tell me or my hypothetical children that they can’t read to Kill a Mockingbird, or about genders in Gender Queer because there might be questions that you don’t want to answer.
That is a YOU problem; don’t make it a societal problem.
Dispatches from the Evening Shift 