Download Censorship and Banned Books

Censorship and Banned
Books
In “Terms” of Importance
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Censorship - an official who examines
books, plays, news reports, motion
pictures, radio and television programs,
letters, cablegrams, etc., for the purpose
of suppressing parts deemed
objectionable on moral, political, military,
or other grounds.
Terms continued…
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To ban (as in book-banning)
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A challenge
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A ban
Facts Concerning Censorship
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Places where censorship can occur: the
classroom, the library, school, home…
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Literary censorship can include any text.
Why Censor?
Who Censors?
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Legislators (local, state, federal)
Members of review boards of any kind (school
boards)
Clergy (priests, ministers, etc.)
School administrators
Teachers
Librarians
Parents
Theaters
Book stores
Television Studios
Censorship on the Rise
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Between the years of 1979 and 1984 (5 years),
the number of reported challenges went from
300 to 1,000.
Such works as:
Romeo and Juliet
 Hamlet
 Judy Blume books: Then Again; Maybe I Won’t;
Deenie and Blubber
 The Diary of Anne Frank
 Of Mice and Men
 The Catcher in the Rye
 Huckleberry Finn
 An issue of Sports Illustrated
*Some copies of these particular books showed up in
libraries torn to shreds.
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Censorship on the Rise
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Between the years of 1990-2000, 6,364
texts were challenged.
1,607 – sexually explicit material
 1,427 – inappropriate language
 842 – occult theme; promoting occult or
Satanism
 737 – Violent material
 515 – homosexual reference
 419 – religious themes
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The First Amendment
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…the basic right to freedom of expression.
Congress Shall Make No Law…
“Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free
exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people
peaceably to assembly, and to petition the
Government for a redress of grievances.”
Upon formation of the Bill of Rights
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Thomas Jefferson states,
“The basis of our governments being the opinion
of the people, the very first object should be to
keep that right; and were it left to me to decide
whether we should have a government without
newspapers or newspapers without government,
I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the
latter. But I should mean that every man
should receive those papers and be capable
of reading them.”
Interpreting the First Amendment
Supreme Court holds responsibility of
interpreting the First Amendment.
 1791 – Court heard cases of freedom of
speech, freedom of press, and issues of
libel and slander, national security, and
obscenity.
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Censorship in History – Ancient
Greece
5th Century BC
 Philosophers, poets, other writers (orators)
 Banned for straying from political and
religious culture.
 Socrates – Think for yourself!
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Censorship in History – Middle
Ages
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400 AD – 1400s
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The Church controlled books that were
preserved.
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Objectionable authors and books burned
at stake.
Censorship in History – The
American Colonies
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17th – 18th Century
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Adopted restrictions from England
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Puritan, Methodist, Baptist, Quaker of
Massachusetts – Blasphemy!
The Freedom to Read
Different than the freedom to write.
 Intellectual freedom.
 “Banned Books Week” – 1985
 American Library Association, American
Booksellers Association, Association of
American Publishers.
 Board of Education v. Pico 1982.
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Why not to Censor…
If all books were banned, or even destroyed
for their content, what information or
culture would be lost for future
generations?
Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451.
 “It was a pleasure to burn” (3).
 Bradbury: “You don’t have to burn books
to destroy a culture. Just get them to stop
reading.”
 Knowledge is power.
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“Through the Looking Glass”
-A chapter from BookBanning in America, by William Noble
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“What’s confusing to some, of course,
doesn’t have to be confusing to others”
(209).
Banned: “Huckleberry Finn”
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The novel has often been criticized for
its language and characterizations and
it is reported to be the fourth most
banned book in US schools.
Controversy
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For Twain's critics, the novel is racist
on the face of it, and for the most
obvious reason: many characters use
the “N” word throughout. But since the
action of the book takes place in the
south twenty years before the Civil War,
it would be amazing if they didn't use
that word.
The NAACP charged that HUCK FINN
contained "racial slurs" and "belittling
racial designations.“
 Twain used the N-word 219 times.
 Huck Finn logged in at #5 in the Top
100 Most Frequently challenged books
from 1990 to 1999 and #14 in 2000 to
2009.
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African Americans and others, led by
the NAACP, begin to challenge the book
in the 1950s, appalled by the novel's
portrayal of the slave Jim and its
repeated use of the “N” word.
 But anyone who imagines that Mark
Twain meant this literally is missing the
point.
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