An Excerpt: From Assessing the Rooted Censorship of Book Banning
An Excerpt: From Assessing the Rooted Censorship of Book Banning
A very brief look into thoughts on the books targeted.
Last semester I wrote an essay about book banning. While researching I noticed the books about sexuality, race, and sex were the ones targeted. This discrepancy has been the main point of contention over the many books that have faced banning over the years. With this, I also learned about how fear moves within these identities alongside banning. Often parents are the ones to say that these books shouldn’t be taught compared to school boards or teachers. I mainly looked at Texas as the main focal point of this censorship, especially during this time of major reduction and oppression. Below is an excerpt from the 17-page essay which I have slowly been revisiting with the hopes of making a zine for sale, so stay tuned!
The continuing upsurge in book banning and censorship within Texas libraries reflects political and social turmoil. It perpetuates a narrow historical narrative rooted in political ideology, the high value of whiteness, and fears of potential parenthood. This contradiction of freedom of rights is rooted in existing knowledge of disparities within urban communities. Despite being censored, books, music, and media maintain high popularity within urban areas and outside of them. The denial of book access, beginning in the seventeenth century, is currently focusing on books surrounding racism, sexuality, and sexual education.
This lack of access to books and potentially more vast media, disadvantages students, stifles marginalized voices, and continues to alienate and devalue human experience and identity. Based on evidence, the prevalence of book banning and high censorship stresses a continuation of propelling whiteness as a norm. This further enforces the importance of expanding book access and library usage. I aim to illuminate avenues for enhancing the unfettered access to books about race and queer existence to be housed in more communities.
Specifically, I will focus on the consequences of censoring literature to adhere to whiteness as the most valuable regard. Most readers often turn to books to challenge preconceptions and immerse themselves in sameness, boundless education, and autonomy within self-discovery. This can be defined as a matter of placemaking. My hypothesis posits that acknowledging the rooted whiteness within book censorship and biases can contribute to alleviating the triumphant tension and dismay associated with the current peak within book banning.
The censorship of books has been occurring since the 17th century. Before the formation of the United States. This suppression has contributed to the foundation of the power structures America was built on. Or rather the fear America has been built on. A fear of newness, questions, and critically important dialogue. Efforts that support book erasure and suppression are not by any means new and this censorship exists as a way to exist and get around The First Amendment. To help it exist within boundaries. Freedom of speech has limitations pertaining not only to the people they are intended for. But the people who get to make them.
We see this in World War II, under the Nazi regime, book burning served as the destruction of books by fire. On May 10, 1933, 20,000 books were burned by the German Student Union and their professors as a nationwide action “against the un-German spirit”. These books were viewed as being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism. The books that were chosen to be burnt were of authors such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Bertha von Suttner. All authors were seen as furthering propaganda. In these events, we see the power of fear as a tool.
Censorship can be defined as the act of supervising one’s conduct to maintain a status quo. It is rooted in belief. These beliefs have made way for a framework for benefitting groups as they pertain to “whiteness”. Whiteness as a definition serves as a binary for understanding rightness or correctness. It compares to what the books being banned exist in contrast to. We see this correctness continue to manifest as we look at the books that are never allowed to be censored. This is seen by never censoring generally accepted authors — such as Mark Twain, J. K. Rowling, R. L. Stine, Judy Blume, or Robert Cormier. These authors are physically associated with whiteness, which innately aligns them with an engrained freedom outside of limitations.
This rightness of whiteness is something that is also reflected in the modern-day prison system. State prison systems censor more books than all schools and libraries combined. We can assume that book censorship is used as a means of punishment for misunderstandings. Prison officials commonly justify censorship. They define it as necessary for rehabilitation and the maintenance of safety and security. They operate through what we can acknowledge as “sweeping bans”. Prisons are in the process of limiting incarcerated people’s abilities to order books directly, arguing that such book deliveries represent a security threat. I argue that overarchingly general book censorship adheres to the same rules. That offers a rhetorical “good” and “bad” approach.
Whiteness has served as the primary powerhouse to take what was “wasted” to what was “discovered”. This can be seen in the possession of land from Native Americans. It perpetuates betterment. It also further establishes the status quo for societal expectations. When it comes to literature this “whiteness” shows itself by highlighting and condemning otherness. From topics relating to racism, sexuality, and sexual education, there is a limit to these freedoms.
These banned books highlight and show an inescapable truth. An immediate identifier. The characters, writers, and plots of these books offer an insightful look into an authentic way of being. “Passing” is an important relation to white racial domination. It is important to identify as a means of establishing whiteness as the societal norm. This disruption is seen as opposing societal expectations and norms.
They are not “passing” nor trying to for something they are not. From their titles to their book covers. These books and media offer an insight into the authenticity of their intentions. Censoring exists as a suppression of freedom. It exists as a means to alleviate fears of rising against the status quo.(CIA,p.3)
This movement and people are a way to try to continue propelling whiteness as the “right” way to exist as a societal norm. By perpetuating this “rightness” they offer an illusion that there is only one way to live. A way to silence the other voices, not aligned with the same ideals. This sort of one-size-fits-all approach causes harm to societal understanding.
Banning represents a new social construction or rather a new language but a familiar structure at which we can label and identify “otherness”. Otherness in this country has offered a continuous displacement and erasure(pg 16, Whiteness as Property). This continuation in the current political climate highlights an ongoing issue of whiteness as it pertains to extermination and possession.
I am still working on a post about wedding planning and other bits but wanted to share some of this in the meantime. Please share, tell your friends, and let me know if you have any feedback or would like to read the full piece. I will see you soon with a new piece. <3
Thanks as always for reading,
XOXO Ya Little Mama