Radiah Jamil, Class II
Photo by Jane Mount
Content Warning: Mention of suicide
From parents to teachers, those who shape young minds have always encouraged youth to read. Learning to read is one of the first milestones of education, helping us to speak and write, leading inevitably to the exploration of deeper concepts such as identity, representation, and perspective. Any restriction of exposure to literature, therefore, also restricts freedom of speech, communication, and ultimately, knowledge that has the power of immensely shaping the truths, beliefs, and values that individuals hold.
Books are usually banned or challenged because they provoke feelings of discomfort or are based on a desire to protect others from exposure to themes considered difficult, offensive, or inappropriate. But contrary to this motive, the topics that are hardest to read, write, or talk about are usually the most important. The damage of silence can be presently seen more than ever through numerous social issues that range from common sexual harassment of women to racial injustice worldwide. How can society solve the problems it is not willing to confront?
Americans have been challenging and banning books for centuries. When English businessman Thomas Morton arrived in Massachusetts in 1624 and established the town of what is presently known as Quincy, his radical progressive beliefs, one of which included Native Americans and English settlers living equally and harmoniously, contrasted sharply with those of the Puritans residing in the area. In 1637, Morton published New English Canaan, which harshly criticized Puritan customs. The Puritans banned the book for theological and historical reasons, making it the first of tens of thousands of other books to come.
Some of these banned books include classics such as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird because of profanity and a focus on racism, which made some readers feel uncomfortable. Ironic choices for censorship include other well-known books such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, stories that depict the detrimental effects of society’s limited access to information themselves. More recent examples include Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher due to discussions of mental illness and teen suicide, and Drama by Raina Telgemeier, which centers on LGBTQ+ characters and themes.
Banning books locally–within a public school or library–in a discreet manner is much more common than most know and simply removing certain books is an effective alternative to officially banning them. Still, the removal of books from schools and libraries falls under the act of "banning" by a public agency and should be questioned under the scope of censorship because in all these cases, the government is deciding what people can and cannot publish. On the contrary, when a private company decides to discontinue production of its own works–under its own accord and not in response to government pressure–it is distinctly different from censorship. A popular example includes the literary works of Dr. Seuss, whose publishing company discontinued some of his books due to racist depictions. Some people in the media have incorrectly described this scenario as the government banning Dr. Seuss but it was just a matter of discontinuation in a private sector, so this isn’t an issue of censorship.
Interpretations of literary works, as well as the thoughts and feelings they provoke, tend to be subjective. Nonetheless, controversy lies in the answer to one question in every situation: whose narrative does it fit? Multiple truths should coexist and the act of banning books should be prohibited because the concealment of selected truths will inevitably manipulate society. If this act of restriction continues to exist, so will the restriction upon many of our abilities as individuals—the ability to hold the government accountable, exercise various human rights, and solve the problems we haven’t been brave enough to confront yet.
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