Censorship In Today's Society

Censorship in Students’ Lives Today Over the period of seven years, three thousand seven hundred and thirty-six requests were recorded asking for certain books to be removed from library shelves across America. This was due to various parents’ beliefs that the topics discussed in these books were not suitable for children. This is all something called ‘censorship’. Censorship is defined as “the suppression of words, images, or ideas that are [considered] “offensive” [and] happens when some people succeed in imposing their personal, political, or moral values on others” (“What is Censorship?”). Censorship happens in various places, but most of the time it ends up being focused on public areas. Schools are especially popular places for censorship …show more content…
Not everything can and should be said plainly, and some topics do not need to be discussed at all. Knowing what to say and how to say it is a beneficial skill that many students develop while in school. This means that censorship is actually a skill that can help students prepare for their future. This skill, this self-censorship, actually becomes a set of morals, teaching students to monitor the words they say. There are words to use, and words not to use. For example, the words f*ck and d*mn are not socially acceptable and have earned their own category called “curse/cuss words.” Censorship teaches these students that those words are not to be used as they can offend people. This also leads to watching all of their words to make sure that even the normal words said daily take measures not to offend anyone. David Martinson pointed out in his journal, “School Censorship: It Comes in a Variety of Forms, Not All Overt”, that “In the 1950s…many persons did not recognize what in hindsight is almost universally acknowledged as an atmosphere of blatant and pervasive societally endorsed racial discrimination” (Martinson). Students today would not dare talk about anything that would definitely and purposefully offend someone in a public setting due to this new self-censorship. This has led to a more socially considerate society with higher standards than those of the …show more content…
In school, students are taught to watch what they say and to steer around topics carefully, making sure not to purposely offend anyone. James Fieser names this in his article “Censorship”: “self-censorship [is] people consciously restricting their own expression out of fear of possible punishment” (Fieser). While teaching students to watch what they say, it breeds fear that anything said could be taken the wrong way. This could even impede on a freedom of speech, as some topics are made to gone around entirely. Students could become afraid to ask questions on certain topics because of its possibility to be taken the wrong way. There is fear in t-shirts even. A student may love a band and have a t-shirt for it but would not dare wear it because one song from that album has the word ‘f*ck’ in it. For example, a few years ago, the rapper Young Jeezy released a shirt that had an angry snowman on it. In the article “Students Can Rightfully Have Their Speech Limited”, "Janesville Craig Principal Mike Kuehne…banned “snowman” shirts…when they learned the innocent-looking image represents cocaine” (“Students Can Rightfully”). For the students that perhaps did not know that, this was ridiculous, as a perfectly good shirt was no longer allowed to be worn. For the students that did, it made no sense as it was just a shirt for a rapper and likely did not mean cocaine to them. Shirts fall under the category of objects and topics that can be