A cage with duct tape around it that says, “Caution” – as if it’s a crime scene…
And on top of the cage is the sign that says: “Banned Books Week”.
Where are we? What year?
Gainesville, Florida, United States of America and the date is September 28, 2011.
And the books in the cage: (the infamous) Harry Potter, The Upstairs Room (a Newberry Honor Book), In the Night Kitchen (a Caldecott Honor Book), and more…
I was so baffled that I sought a librarian and asked what was going on.
She said, “These are the books that have been banned elsewhere in the U.S… – not in Gainesville.”
How much longer before they are also banned here?
How did they get banned? The librarian says, “Well, some person reads the book and finds something in there that s/he finds offensive and finds a court that will listen and then the book is banned.”
Is it that easy? What happened to freedom of speech? In the land of the free?
I get offended in this land all the time. I don’t go around complaining to a court of law about how I got offended by what someone else said – or wrote.
Or should I? [I need a court to listen to me! I got offended! My FEELINGS got hurt…] Uh oh…
Hello! We are not a bunch of 5-year-olds running around tattletaling!!!
I have a problem with people who think they can use their own ‘rights to be offended’ to limit other people’s rights. What happened to the melting pot of different cultures and religions that made this country such a great place to live in?
Who is right and who is wrong? What gives a person the ‘RIGHT’ to judge another for what they ‘WRITE’? And what kind of a court of law gets involved in such PETTY quibbles???
And what happens to MY right to read a book that I might find very interesting and inspiring???
Harry Potter has become my all time favorite. And I hate to see it bashed as a book that promotes witchcraft and wizardry. It is a story of courage, inspiration, and friendship. EVERYONE is entitled to his or her own opinion. If you don’t like it, fine, but please don’t try to stop me from reading it, thinking you are ‘saving’ me or thinking you know ‘better’. [If anything, I think all the negative hype should be geared towards the paraphernalia that has cluttered the toy stores, the bookstores and the minds of our kids -- it is all those gadgets that do a great injustice to J. K. Rowling and give a bad name to her life's brilliant work...]
And please don’t go around criticizing other populations on the planet who go and burn books. Because banning them is not much different.
How can we ever dream of a world of peace if we cannot even tolerate what some of us choose to write?
How can we ever think of reconciling the deep chasm between Palestinians and the Israelis if we can’t stand our own differences?
The blame game of why what THEY did hurt MY feelings will never stop, unless we stop playing the game. Stop blaming somebody else for your own feelings.
Talk it out. Deal with it.
Or just zip it!
Coexist.