Read Banned Books

It's the tail-end of Banned Books Week, and it almost went completely over my head, but I realized that I had some thoughts about it all that I didn't want to leave unsaid, so here I am saying them.  And yes, that's some of my library of frequently banned books on my carpet.  Don't need no fancy background to get the point across.

Anyway.

I've been watching Moral Orel for the first time the past couple days.  The adult claymation show aired on Adult Swim from 2005 to 2008, and it's about a boy who loves church, loves God, and takes the things he learns from his pastor and his father far too literally.  He lives in the town of Moralton, which is full of hyper-conservative, bigoted WASPs with a superiority complex.  The show tracks Orel's loss of innocence and the transformation of his faith while criticizing Evangelical Christianity and its fearful, paranoid, close-minded worldview.

The reason I bring up Moral Orel in a post about banned books is because one of the characters - Ms. Censordoll, the local librarian - has taken it upon herself to decide which works are righteous and which are not, and she has a pile of unacceptable, oft-banned books that she later burns.  Ms. Censordoll actually has a lot to say about what she finds offensive, often picketing outside of movies and stores to protest against even the most innocuous of things.

You can see a couple of recognizable titles - Animal Farm, Fahrenheit 451 - in her stack of books to burn, and those are two titles that are commonly banned here in the United States.  Censordoll's problems with certain titles and subjects, such as books on evolution, aren't really that far off from the issues conservatives have with the books they request be banned.  In fact, it's very on-the-nose.  When conservatives and modern-day fascists talk about free speech and personal liberty, it's funny to think that they can't handle Judy Blume books and stories about magic.  

Banning books, burning them...these are forms of control.  It's censorship (hence the name Censordoll.)  It's suppression of free speech and personal liberty.  Fascists do not like art, they do not like criticism, and they do not like consequences.  They don't like that they can't be bigoted without being called out for it, so what do they do?  They take our literature and say it's unfit to be read because it addresses controversial topics.  Like...puberty.  Confronting racism and homophobia.  Sex.  Criticisms of religion.  Basically, if they've made a culture war out of it, they will track down any book that discusses the topic in a way they don't agree with and do anything they can to make sure people can't get their hands on it.

And this behavior is on the rise.

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to read The Diary of Anne Frank.  I was one of those kids who did all the Accelerated Reading (AR) tests on the big school library computers to get points, got Book-It coupons for personal pan pizzas at Pizza Hut - you know the type.  And to this day my TBR list is incredibly long and I'm a total bibliophile who can't help but buy more and more books.  What I'm saying is, I like to read.  That's always been the case, and I'm sincere about it.  When I went to my elementary school library to find the book, it wasn't there, and my parents and I learned that a parent had requested it be removed, and whenever such a request was made, the book had to be removed for a year.  Or something similarly ridiculous.

I eventually just brought a copy we had at home to school to read, but the fact of the matter is that the book shouldn't be banned in the first place.  It's the story of a girl going through an unimaginable situation, under the thumb of bigotry and fascism, in her own words.  It's real.  It really happened.  It's not fiction.  But that line doesn't seem to matter to these people.  If puberty is even mentioned, if we don't "both sides" issues that don't really deserve to have both sides' viewpoints validated, then they throw it out.

What we're left with is pretty much just their Bible, which - funny enough - is full of violence, gore, incest, rape, and plenty of other things they use as reasons to ban Harper Lee and Toni Morrison and John Green.  Because they don't want anybody to read other viewpoints, other stories, other ideas because that's a gateway to independent thinking and skepticism and critical thought, and those are the things that kill fascism and Christian nationalism.

So, this week and every week, be sure to read some banned books.  And books that haven't been banned.  It'll piss off all the right people, and more importantly, you might enjoy them and find yourself considering things you hadn't thought to before.  And if you need a place to start, this wiki page has you covered.