You read CHALLENEGED books? Oh, okay. You read books that have been removed from school libraries or put in the adult section? Fine. You read books that may have been removed from a certain public library altogether? Indeed, you may.
But THOSE ARE NOT BANNED BOOKS.
Granted, you have read a banned book if you have read The Gulag Archipelago, or Fanny Hill, or The Tropic of Cancer. If you have read All Quiet on the Western Front or The Satanic Verses, or We, then yes, you have read a book that was banned in certain places at certain times.
If you have read a Harry Potter book, you HAVE NOT READ A BANNED BOOK.
I’m talking to you, ALA. You dilute your message and cheat people of a real understanding of the issues at hand. Book challenges are a real issue, and one I feel strongly about. But a book challenge is NOT a book banning, and if we weren’t so damned lucky to live in free places and times we’d damned well know the difference.
This is like when people say we evolved from monkeys. Or, as it happened to me in real life, a Creationist asked me all incredible-like, “How can you believe we came from monkeys!”
And I told her that I did not believe such arrant nonsense and neither did Darwin.
ETA - I must confess, All Quiet on the Western Front is the only book on my brief list up there that I have read. But unlike most of the mewling posers, I have at least read a banned book. I didn’t know until a thread on the subject quite recently that Remarque’s sister quite literally died because of his work. The Nazis chopped her head off. That is a banned book.
That’s the point. If they were really banned, you couldn’t read them because you wouldn’t have access to them at all unless somebody risked their freedom or their life or at least a big fat fine to get it to you. Guns or no guns.
In 1989, when the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa against Salman Rushdie, Thailand banned The Satanic Verses. The country is always trying to tow the line no matter the religion; they almost banned the film version of The Da Vinci Code. My father was still alive then, and I had him mail me a copy from the US. That was a really special feeling, knowing the post office here had delivered it into my hot little hands. I took extra pleasure from sitting on the porch of my house up North reading it.
See, you can wear the "I Read Banned Books* bracelet, because you have read a banned book in a time and place where it was actually banned. There was quite literally somebody trying to keep you from reading that book.
Marge in Peoria - no, your copy of “Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret” is not the same thing.
Is it okay that I wear a shirt that says “Read Banned Books”? Note the lack of an I. Because when **Guadere **did graphic work for the ALA campaign a few years ago, I was there to buy the shirt. And I suggest that people do read banned books if they have an opportunity.
And actually, if someone bans a book, even if it isn’t “the government,” I consider that to be stupid and short-sighted. So when I had the “challenged” book list up, I suggested people look at it and tell me if they thought those books should be kept out of a library for no other reason than someone didn’t like the message.
Sometimes you have to use a short statement with impact to get people’s attention and “read banned books” is a lot pithier than “Read Books That Have Been Challenged By Some Small-Minded Person Somewhere You’ve Never Heard Of Or Will Ever Go To.”
As an aside, I kinda shoot myself in the foot wearing the shirt since I have long hair that frequently covers the READ and the BOOKS part of the shirt. That leads people to wonder why I’ve been BANNED.
I’m not clear on your criteria, Zsofia. In order for my Banned Book Cred to be real, do I have to have read a book which is currently banned in the US? Or was at one time banned in the US? I’d hate to be a poseur by saying I read banned books when I didn’t. Does Lady Chatterly’s Lover count? Grapes of Wrath? The Anarchist’s Cookbook? Naked Lunch? Ulysses? All of these were banned in the US at one time. How do I find out which books are currently banned?
I’m just trying to draw the distinction between a book that has been banned (here or elsewhere, now or elsewhen) and a book that has been challenged - not even necessarily taken off a shelf, just challenged! Of course I’m against taking things off shelves because of narrowminded idiots, but it’s trivializing real and serious issues to say that that’s the same thing as banning The Satanic Verses and putting out a hit on the author.
I see your point about the difference between ban and challenge, but I don’t think that’s the only/ main point of “I Read Banned Books” publicity. I take that point to be that today we read and accept as valuable books that have been banned in other times and places. Also, while a challenge is not a ban, most/many people who challenge a book would probably like to ban it, they just lack the political power to do so. I’m OK with nipping that slippery slope in the bud with a little overstatement.
And if a book is taken off the shelf because of a challenge, how in the world does that not count as “banned”? Something doesn’t have to be banned for the entire country or by the government before the word “banned” is valid.
There are “banned” substances in sports, “banned” clothing at school, “banned” smoking in my house. “Banned books” are books that people are trying or succeeding in taking away, not books that have never been seen.
If that makes me a dumb shit for wanting a bracelet, so be it. I’m pretty comfortable with that.
I believe Zsofia’s point is about books that have been challenged but have not been taken off the shelf. Although I agree that she’s straining at gnats, here. A challenge isn’t as bad as a ban, but it’s still not a good thing, and something that should be fought. “I read banned books,” is a slogan, not a treatise. The important thing is it communicates a political/philosophical stance in a quick and eye-catching way, not that it accurately covers every nuance between “banned” and “challenged.”
I must beg to differ. I have an “I read banned books” button, and I by golly do read banned books. In fact, I recently finished a book that was removed from a local school library.
What actually is your definition of “banned”? I count any book that has been removed from libraries, classrooms, or stores by action of a Federal, state, territorial, provincial, or local government entity (which includes school boards). By that definition, I’ve read quite a few banned books.
