Censorship of Black like Me
Roman, Y, Shemakov
McClintock High School
Abstract
This report goes on to examine if the banning of the book "Black Like Me" was based on a reasonable grounds, and how censorship should be approached in the modern day and age. The paper concludes that the banning of the book was merely arbitrary, and the idea of censorship is an unnecessary evil that should be avoided at all costs, no matter how pejorative or invidious the language is, it has the right to exist and be seen.
Censorship of Black like Me
Throughout the centuries literary works have been subjected to strong criticism and censorship over their contents. Black like me has been one of America’s favorite books to ban, and the most important things that …show more content…
The case dragged on for 2 years, while the charge was leveled, the book was still removed from the library (Karolides, 2001)
The most popular challenge came from Missouri in 1982, where the material was placed on a closed shelf because a parent challenged the book on the grounds that it was obscene, vulgar and "because of black people being in the book." (Karolides, 2001)
Controversial and inappropriateness. Black like me has been one of the 30 most frequently attacked books since its first appearance in 1960 in the magazine Sepia. The motif of every challenge since 1967 has been obscenity. Parents and community members claim time and time again that words like "Nigger", "Bitch", "Hell", and “Shit" are inappropriate for their children. While many of these challenges seem innocent and understandable on the outside the interior motive might not be as simple. An examination of the 20 most frequently attacked titles reported that one third depict individuals belonging to a minority group, while this is might just be a correlation it should still carry weight when evaluating true reasoning for the charge. The Missouri challenge is the best example of this, with the challenger claiming that the novel was inappropriate "because of black people in the book". While it's almost undeniable that the person was somewhat misquoted, the underlying pretense of the quote still prevails. America …show more content…
Reid and Nuefeld once said "It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes only one complaint to raze a curriculum". The idea of placing a book on a closed shelf is in its most basic form, censorship, the one thing US constitution was supposed to protect from. But even without using a hedgemonical argument that US is always right, one can simply look to recent examples of censorship and how its presence harms the core value of human capital:knowledge. In reality regulating language destroys the hope of true emancipation, we must be able to resignify derogatory terms to defuse their injurious abilities. Judith Butler's charges that in advocating speech codes, censorship, and other regulatory approaches to linguistics, hate speech theorists destroy "something fundamental about language and, more specifically, about the subject's constitution in language". Butler proposes to counter injurious speech with "subversive resignification". She proposes when we censor derogatory terms and harmful language, we give them more destructive power because we treat this language as an insidious, taboo subject (Disch, 1999). Only when we can discuss destructive language objectively and educate on the harms do we defuse the power of derogatory language. Additionally, through censorship, we prevent this language from being reconstructed. On top to being an ineffective tool of stopping obscene language, censorship, in any manner, also hampers free speech. A Law Professor
Roman, Y, Shemakov
McClintock High School
Abstract
This report goes on to examine if the banning of the book "Black Like Me" was based on a reasonable grounds, and how censorship should be approached in the modern day and age. The paper concludes that the banning of the book was merely arbitrary, and the idea of censorship is an unnecessary evil that should be avoided at all costs, no matter how pejorative or invidious the language is, it has the right to exist and be seen.
Censorship of Black like Me
Throughout the centuries literary works have been subjected to strong criticism and censorship over their contents. Black like me has been one of America’s favorite books to ban, and the most important things that …show more content…
The case dragged on for 2 years, while the charge was leveled, the book was still removed from the library (Karolides, 2001)
The most popular challenge came from Missouri in 1982, where the material was placed on a closed shelf because a parent challenged the book on the grounds that it was obscene, vulgar and "because of black people being in the book." (Karolides, 2001)
Controversial and inappropriateness. Black like me has been one of the 30 most frequently attacked books since its first appearance in 1960 in the magazine Sepia. The motif of every challenge since 1967 has been obscenity. Parents and community members claim time and time again that words like "Nigger", "Bitch", "Hell", and “Shit" are inappropriate for their children. While many of these challenges seem innocent and understandable on the outside the interior motive might not be as simple. An examination of the 20 most frequently attacked titles reported that one third depict individuals belonging to a minority group, while this is might just be a correlation it should still carry weight when evaluating true reasoning for the charge. The Missouri challenge is the best example of this, with the challenger claiming that the novel was inappropriate "because of black people in the book". While it's almost undeniable that the person was somewhat misquoted, the underlying pretense of the quote still prevails. America …show more content…
Reid and Nuefeld once said "It takes a village to raise a child, but it takes only one complaint to raze a curriculum". The idea of placing a book on a closed shelf is in its most basic form, censorship, the one thing US constitution was supposed to protect from. But even without using a hedgemonical argument that US is always right, one can simply look to recent examples of censorship and how its presence harms the core value of human capital:knowledge. In reality regulating language destroys the hope of true emancipation, we must be able to resignify derogatory terms to defuse their injurious abilities. Judith Butler's charges that in advocating speech codes, censorship, and other regulatory approaches to linguistics, hate speech theorists destroy "something fundamental about language and, more specifically, about the subject's constitution in language". Butler proposes to counter injurious speech with "subversive resignification". She proposes when we censor derogatory terms and harmful language, we give them more destructive power because we treat this language as an insidious, taboo subject (Disch, 1999). Only when we can discuss destructive language objectively and educate on the harms do we defuse the power of derogatory language. Additionally, through censorship, we prevent this language from being reconstructed. On top to being an ineffective tool of stopping obscene language, censorship, in any manner, also hampers free speech. A Law Professor