Banned Books:

1/2020

By banning just one book in the 1600s, we unwittingly created a spark, barely a flame, that has now crept up from the floor and ignited bookshelves all over the world. Books are often banned due to racial issues, sexual situations, violence, and political bias within the text. The number of banned and challenged books has entered the tens of thousands territory, with the associations and organizations handling these cases claiming that the illicit and perturbing content within has negative impacts on the poor, young readers.

Perhaps, while reading the infamously banned The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, impressionable adolescents will make pilgrimage to Manhattan and partake in a massive, self-destructive bender; full of prostitutes, alcohol, and phonies. Or maybe students will begin slinging around treacherous profanities such as “damn” and “whorelady” in their vernacular after finishing To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. I shudder at the mere thought of it.

Worse yet, while skimming a copy of The Color Purple by Alice Walker, youngins may discover the themes of sexual violence and racism, as those concepts only exist within the pages of such horrid, sinful books. A book like Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, with it’s blasphemous undertones, must be hidden from the sight of such vulnerable folk, lest they get any ideas. God forbid. Sorry, heaven forbid. Oh, for Chrissakes.

At this late hour of humanity, we are impotent against our fate. The only power left is to tell the story of our decline. Oh, and to ban The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, as it’s crude depiction of the logging industry is just so distasteful, albeit realistic. Luckily, a foresting industry-friendly school in California snatched that monstrosity out of the hands of elementary students, before they could develop any ideas about underlying themes and whatnot.

Thankfully, all of these books have been banned, and therefore so have the issues within. Our American streets and suburbias are finally cleansed of racism, sexism, rape, and blashphemy.

These books were not written to be negative. They were written to prove a point, to tell a narrative. The writer who sings the story of only of a heroes victory eludes the lesson in his failure. The point of To Kill a Mockingbird is not to teach children racist ideals or curse words, but to point out the injustices caused by such inequality. J.D. Salinger didn’t aspire to train naive kiddies into an absurdly excessive usage of the endearing term “sonuvabitch”, but rather to make a coming-of-age novel that refuses to shy away from the concept of trading innocence for adulthood.

You are not banning books because you are worried they are offensive. You are banning books because you do not want to face the harsh realities that live within. You long for the dull ignorance that lulls you to sleep, and refuse to face the intricacy of actuality. You do not want to face the potential of recognizing yourself within these pages.