Book bans block knowledge
By Alonzo Weston
The St. Joseph School district is reviewing some library books that community members believe aren’t appropriate for school-age children. Whether connected to nationwide book-banning efforts or not, it’s still part of a growing trend to censor readership.
This effort reminds me of the 1963 Ray Bradbury novel “Fahrenheit 451,” where in a future Dystopian society all books are banned and outlawed and firemen are to burn any found on sight.
The novel is told from the viewpoint of Guy Montag, a fireman who becomes disillusioned with his role in censoring literature and thereby destroying knowledge.
As you might guess, the book became censored in certain American schools as well as in apartheid South Africa.
Bradbury, when interviewed, said he wrote the book partly because he felt mass media reduced interest in reading literature.
This sounds all too familiar to me today when certain groups not only want to ban books but also erase parts of history, like slavery, which they feel are unsuitable for young minds.
These misguided efforts bring to mind the adage “If we don’t learn from the past we’re doomed to repeat it.”
It reminds me of the Red State slogan “Make America Great Again.” They seem to think America in the past was as portrayed on 1950s black-and-white sitcoms like “Leave It to Beaver” and “Father Knows Best.”
In reality that was an idealized version of America with no minorities or LGBTQ members of society to be found. Women wore pearls in the kitchen and their only role was to cook and have babies.
Book bans have increased nationwide. In 2023, two states, Illinois and California, sought to protect the freedom of libraries to “acquire materials without external limitations.”
I worked at the St. Joseph News-Press for more than 30 years and saw how the institution has changed from print journalism to sound-bite TV and social media reporting. People don’t want to read anymore, I believe, and would rather not burden themselves with it to get the full story.
In my career, I covered a book-banning effort in a small area community involving a Chris Crutcher novel called “Whale Talk.” Crutcher’s books deal with issues like racism, homophobia and drug use, which is the world our youth live in today.
Crutcher, a trained psychologist, wrote the books to help give youth dealing with issues a caring and insightful understanding of these things. It wasn’t like he was promoting drug use and the reading of Penthouse magazine. It was an effort to give our youth an intelligent and helpful understanding of the changing world we live in so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past. We can’t hide our children away from the world and let them walk out into it as adults uninformed and vulnerable.
Banning books is simply banning knowledge and growth.
