Looking for Stupid Shit to Ban Because We're a Backward Nation

(Editor's Note:  This was written before President Obama came out on gay marriage, which, yay!... but after North Carolina joined 30 other states to write a ban on it into their constitution, which boo!, so that may color my coverage of this somewhat minor issue in comparison, but yeah I still can't believe we're having debates about book bannings and contraception and gay marriage and evolution let alone global warming in 2012 for crying out loud, but this is what we do, and we are either a nation of completely backwards idiots or our media only writes about issues that seem to show that to be the case.  Anyway, read on...)

So I've read a couple John Green books over the past few months and I'm in the middle of "Paper Towns" right now because I happened to read the brilliant (and critically lauded) "funny cancer story" The Fault in Our Stars in the depths of my trauma over the potentially incurable nerve damage to my foot and it was, oddly, one of the only things that cheered me up (odd because it's a story about teenagers with incurable cancer).  And also, it was a really great book.  Green writes young adult novels aimed at teenagers and while I am not a teenager, my soon-to-be-published-(if-I-can-find-an-agent-or-publisher) novel that I wrote over the past couple years would likely be classified as young adult since most of its characters are teenagers and as such, I've definitely read my share of young adult novels in recent years, some very good, some not as much, and some -- like "The Fault in Our Stars" -- really perfect and what I aspire to be able to write.  So one of Green's books that I've recently read was "Looking for Alaska", his first novel, the highly acclaimed story of a lonely teenaged boy who ships himself off to boarding school where he meets a force of nature named Alaska and falls quickly and madly in love.  I won't talk about the plot too much because it's tough to talk about the story without giving too much of the plot away, but I didn't enjoy it near as much as "The Fault in Our Stars" and I think may have been written on a slightly less advanced level -- ie. the issues it discusses are likely much more relatable to teens than grown men -- but it's a good book, it's a good story, and there are definitely a lot of issues that it raises that should be discussed by teens.  So I would definitely encourage any young readers of mine to pick up "Looking for Alaska" (and any older readers to pick up "The Fault in Our Stars") but this post isn't about the book so much as it's about the politics of book banning that I find abhorrent, not only as a writer but as an American and as a human being. 

Admittedly, it's kind of silly that any book is banned in America in 2012 -- from the perennial banning of Huck Finn due to the inclusion of racist language that was used when the book was written or the ridiculous banning of "To Kill a Mockingbird" (#10 in 2011) for offensive language and racism (which, you know, it's kind of against) -- but it's even sillier when it includes books aimed at teenagers and being read in classes for teenagers (such as "Looking for Alaska" or Sherman Alexie's brilliant "The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian" -- #2 on 2010's banned books list) when teenagers have pretty much unfettered and unlimited access to a little thing called the Internet, in 2012, not to mention television.  Or their peers.  Or, you know, life.  And given that school is a place for learning.  And youth is a time to experience things and read about things and learn about things that you might not otherwise be exposed to so that you can be a useful member of adult society instead of a backwards idiot who votes for backwards idiots in school board elections who ban books like To Kill a Fucking Mockingbird.  Oh, wait.  Yeah I guess that is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Because we need to be scared of anything different or challenging or you know, even remotely sexual, because it's not like all the states that don't require sex education are highest in teen pregnancies.  Oh wait.  They are.  Hmm... OK, anyway, all of this is a long way around to say that I can't believe we're still banning books in 2012 and I can't believe that "Looking for Alaska" -- which doesn't have anything remotely offensive in it at all, not for a teenager at least -- would make that list.  I mean, yeah Sherman Alexie's book includes some graphic language which I don't think should ever be banned by anyone anyway "but Looking for Alaska"??  Is there even any cursing??  Why the fuck is it banned? (by the way, any kid in any county anywhere in America can probably read my blog without any trouble -- fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck sex fuck.  ha!  Fuck you, conservative wacko fucktards).

So according to this article on the "Looking for Alaska" ban,

officials in Sumner County last week banned John Green's young adult novel "Looking for Alaska" from the school curriculum because it contains a two-page oral sex scene.

The book, which is about a romance between students at a boarding school in Alabama, is already banned in Knox County, according to The Tennessean. The paper quotes one Sumner parent as saying: "Kids at this age are impressionable. Sometimes it’s a monkey see, monkey do...I’m going to trust that my school board made the right choice. … If they feel like this book is a little too graphic, I’m all for it.”

Oh that's right.  There was a brief, completely untitillating and forgettable "sex scene" described in no detail between the narrator and Alaska (spoiler alert --- oh wait, too late). 

Continuing the article,

Indeed,"Looking for Alaska," which won the prestigious Michael L. Printz Award in 2006, does not appear to be pornographic in even in the mildest sense.

The most objectionable word in the realistically-rendered passage is "penis," and this is how the steamy scene concludes:

We didn’t have sex. We never got naked. I never touched her bare breast, and her hands never got lower than my hips. It didn’t matter. As she slept, I whispered, “I love you, Alaska Young.

It is hard to believe that anyone weaned on the "careers" of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber will be shocked by this.

Sumner County school spokesman Jeremy Johnson rolled out an old canard when justifying the ban, explaining that because the book is not a classic, the bar for banning it is lower: "You take somebody like Hemingway or a John Steinbeck and there can be some language or description that may make parents uncomfortable, but the value of a writer like that outweighs what controversy may be in the individual book.” He appears to have forgotten that, for example, Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" was sometimes banned for its apparently leftist sensibilities.

Moreover, Green is a respected young adult novelist whose most recent book, "The Fault In Our Stars," has received national acclaim. From what I can tell, he is interested in depicting the real lives of teenagers, not just pushing books on them.

Regardless, this is not the first time Green's books have come under fire. The Buffalo-area town of Depew, N.Y., found itself in the middle of a similar controversy in 2008, when two 11th-grade teachers decided to teach "Looking for Alaska." The ensuing row caused Green to make a video in which he says, "I am not a pornographer," at which point opponents relented.

Indeed, considering recent reports that children in their early teens are using smartphones and tablets to freely and widely access pornography, it would make far more sense for Tennessee to simply ban the use of technology by the underaged. It does not appear, however, that such a move is being considered.

 

Here's John Green's wonderful response to something so ridiculous he shouldn't have to respond to it, but he did -- and apparently he was successful in Depew, NY, because they reversed the ban decision.  Let's hope they do the same in Sumner County, Tennessee.  And let's hope this kind of stupidity ends with the current generation in charge of our governments because the next generation has access to so much more of the world through the Internet that they are not as filled with fear and hate that drives so much of American politics, policy, and adult decision making today.  But what about the childrennnnn??????!!!  They'll be fucking fine.  Worry about teaching them math and science and not whether or not the word penis is in a fucking book 11th graders might read.

 

B

Banned (or Challenged) books list in 2011:

Out of 326 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom

1. ttyl; ttfn; l8r, g8r (series), by Lauren Myracle 
   Reasons: offensive language; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
2. The Color of Earth (series), by Kim Dong Hwa
   Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
3. The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: anti-ethnic; anti-family; insensitivity; offensive language; occult/satanic; violence
4. My Mom's Having A Baby! A Kid's Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy, by Dori Hillestad Butler
   Reasons: nudity; sex education; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
5. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: offensive language; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit; unsuited to age group
6. Alice (series), by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
   Reasons: nudity; offensive language; religious viewpoint
7. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity; nudity; racism; religious viewpoint; sexually explicit
8. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: nudity; offensive language; sexually explicit
9. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily Von Ziegesar
   Reasons: drugs; offensive language; sexually explicit
10. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
    Reasons: offensive language; racism

2010:

Out of 348 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
   Reasons: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: offensive language, racism, sex education, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
3. Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
   Reasons: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, and sexually explicit
4. Crank, by Ellen Hopkins
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, and sexually explicit
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and violence
6. Lush, by Natasha Friend
   Reasons: drugs, offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
7. What My Mother Doesn't Know, by Sonya Sones
   Reasons: sexism, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group
8. Nickel and Dimed, by Barbara Ehrenreich
   Reasons: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, and religious viewpoint
9. Revolutionary Voices, edited by Amy Sonnie
   Reasons:  homosexuality and sexually explicit
10. Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
    Reasons: religious viewpoint and violence

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