LABEL THIS
A lot of you expressed what I was feeling about this whole Bartlesville naughty shelf/big bad book labeling issue. Of course, I got in touch with FREE MONKEY to tell him what was going on. He gave his usual balanced advice—he told me to reply to a lot of the great comments and e-mails that have come in.
(You can always find out what he’s up to by looking at his LiveJournal page. You can see some of the places he’s been at the bottom of this post.)
So, let’s get to your thoughts.
First, this turned up in my inbox, and I was extremely interested in it. Yes, it’s a different state, but it deals with pretty much the exact same setup. In this case the victim was Harry Potter.
Counts v. Cedarville School District, 295 F.Supp.2d 996 (W.D. Ark. 2003)
The school board of the Cedarville, Arkansas school district voted to restrict students’ access to the Harry Potter books, on the grounds that the books promoted disobediance and disrespect for authority and dealt with witchcraft and the occult. As a result of the vote, students in the Cedarville school district were required to obtain a signed permission slip from their parents or guardians before they would be allowed to borrow any of the Harry Potter books from school libraries. The District Court overturned the Board’s decision and ordered the books returned to unrestricted circulation, on the grounds that the restrictions violated students’ First Amendment right to read and receive information. In so doing, the Court noted that while the Board necessarily performed highly discretionary functions related to the operation of the schools, it was still bound by the Bill of Rights and could not abridge students’ First Amendment right to read a book on the basis of an undifferentiated fear of disturbance or because the Board disagreed with the ideas contained in the book.
So . . . any Oklahoma lawyers out there? Anyone want to take this to the limit? (To prepare yourself to go to the limit, you can go here.)
tobias said…
I think you should perform a selected scene from “Oklahoma” outside their office windows!!!!
I’m starting to get more and more tempted. I don’t feel like these people should be simply let off the hook. And my dancing is a powerful thing.
sarai said…
I think I’ll add librocidal maniacs to my personal “things to be afraid of” list… Please allow me a gratuitous Buffy quote.
”Where do we go from here…
The battle’s done, and we kinda won;
So we sound our victory cheer.”
In my community, I’m thinking of getting involved in the public library to make sure such books are available outside of schools. This should be a wake up for all of us. We probably can’t change Bartlesville, but we can get try to keep this from happening our home towns.
I like the quote, your idea to volunteer, and the word “librocidal.”
laini taylor said…
Oh man, this just sucks. Thought I’d share this great [that is, AWFUL] quote I came up with when researching book banning for a library talk I did at the wonderful Topeka KS library a few months ago. A Texas mother who had attended a “book mulching rally” in front of a library (the mulcher was in the bed of a pickup truck), was quoted as saying that children should not learn about puberty until they are married. ACK! The blazing minds of book banners!
Fantastic! The minds of book banners at work! I think this was the book mulching she attended. Book mulching. How obscene is that? These people are disgusting.
jellybean said…
Terrible. Just terrible.
A special shelf? Give me strength. If they are going to do that, they should have to put a label on the book stating exactly why the book requires special permission. Come on Bartlesville: I want to see a sticker that reads, “We heard there might be homosexual content in this book. No one under the age of 18 may read about homosexuals without parental permission. But we aren’t sure because we haven’t read this book.”
Seriously, these people should have to take the embarrassing step of explaning why the book is semi-banned. Perhaps the shame of it will make them reconsider.
They essentially have labeled it. Since Bermudez contains no sex and nothing else of note that banners like to ban . . . this is entirely because of the homosexual characters. And I’d love to have them explain, but they won’t talk to me. I’ve tried to reach Janet Vernon for weeks. I keep trying to tell her how much fun I am to talk to on the phone, but she just doesn’t believe me.
dawn said…
I listened to David’s speech. I know there are kids out there who would benefit from reading his books, Bermudez and so on. Kids in all sorts of situations often turn to books to help them through, and though he spoke a lot about the tolerance of books that contain homosexuality, I know he was saying in general that it doesn’t matter what the book is about. It matters that we get the books out there for whoever needs them. And I completely agree.
David’s speech is great, and he’s right.
liz said…
After reading all the “Bermudez will get more attention on the shelf” comments, I have a major question: Where is this ‘reserve shelf’?
The reserved section at my middle school’s library was a closet with a watched door partially hidden behind the magazine racks. The only people allowed to walk around in it were the head librarians. I was a volunteer in the library, if Bermudez was in there–I wouldn’t have known it because I wasn’t allowed to poke around in there and rescue the quality literature (it was a well-filled room). I have a feeling that Bartlesville’s shelf isn’t out in the open or even viewable.
If anyone could find the where the shelf is, it would give us a better idea of how dirty that committee is playing now. (And if a volunteer could ‘accidentally’ move it to the YA section.)
Good point. Where’s the shelf? I’d ask, but again, they won’t talk to me.
This was part of an e-mail I got, and I love it:
This is not really a victory in my eyes. It is being given a carrot stick at
a restaurant when you asked for a slice of cake. Sure, carrot sticks are
okay, and its better than getting no food at all, but it’s nowhere near as
good as a slice of cake, and this restaurant guarentees cake to every
customer.
And the only reason why you aren’t getting your cake is because your date to
the restaurant happens to be the same gender as you
and someone got offended that their child had to see you two and complained
to your waiter and really, the only reason you got even the carrot stick is because you complained to the manager.
Precisely, my friend! I think we should send this carrot stick back and get our *#^$&*#^*& cake, don’t you?
Please keep your comments coming. And know this . . . I’m not done with this. In many ways, this may just be the beginning. Maybe BanCon isn’t such a bad idea.
Now, some FREE MONKEY photos:
Posted: Sunday, June 24th, 2007 @ 5:42 am
Categories: FREE MONKEY, book banning, dancing, danger.
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