Banning Books or Banning Identities?

“The books that the world calls immoral are the books that show the world its own shame,” a quote by Oscar Wilde depicts the present state of society now more than ever before. Society has since begun to place an unfair emphasis on book-banning since its inception in 1982. It has now been taken to new extremes due to the over-protective spirits of parents trying to protect their children from the humiliating history of America. Many classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 451, and Maus discuss the horrors of humanity and are now one of the most challenged books in the country due to them grappling topics ranging from shallow expletives to suicide. While many of these parents believe that the best way to protect these young minds from topics of such gravity is to ban the books mentioning them, it is important to realize that book-banning restricts an author’s freedom of expression, creates a new weakness within the country, and will sooner or later lead to a desensitized community.

Writing books is one of the ways authors can express their ideas and identity and it is a writer’s form of speech. By restricting and banning books, one is oppressing an American citizen’s First Amendment rights and this has, in the past, been stated by the Supreme Court in the case Island Trees District vs. Pico (1982). In this case, the plaintiff Steven Pico believed that censoring books was equivalent to censoring the speech of authors’, threatening the authors’ unalienable right, and therefore unconstitutional. After hearing this court case, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Steven Pico and the students of the Island Trees School District because they were in agreement that if book-banning continued, then the First Amendment would be overruled which would, in turn, lead to an overthrow of the laws. Additionally, statistically it has been shown that 52% of the banned books in the last 10 years featured “diverse” content such as ethnicity, LGBTQ, religion, disabilities, mental illness, and more (Ringel). Not only that, but many of the books that are being challenged have been written by authors of minority groups describing the problems they have faced by disregarding the traditional way of life and accepting their true identity (Alfonseca). It is these types of books that show the progress society has made in the past 100 years and banning books featuring such content is equal to erasing decades of hard work and equality movements. Recognizing this, many students like Jack Petocz, a 17-year-old highschooler in Palm Coast, Florida who organizes protests against book bans, believe that withholding books with such diverse content is discriminatory and harmful to minorities who are already struggling to accept their identity (Harris & Alter). Adults must learn to accept that the world their child is growing in is progressive and built on humiliating history. If these facts are ignored then the only thing humanity will reap is a desensitized community. As written by author Neil Gaiman, “Fiction builds empathy…You’re being someone else and when you return to your own world, you’re going to be slightly changed.”                             

Moreover, not only does book-banning restrict one’s identity, but it has created many rifts within society that politicians and conservative groups have begun exacerbating for their own selfish gains. In fact, according to Britten Follet, the Chief Executive of Content of one of America’s largest book providers for K-12, Follett School Solutions, book-banning is “driven by legislation, it’s being driven by politicians aligning with one side or the other. And in the end, the librarian, teacher, or educator is getting caught in the middle.” Book-banning has manifested into a huge problem on a national level and politically-affiliated and conservative groups like Moms For Liberty and No Left Turn in Education are taking advantage of this to force their ideals onto the nation as a whole. In fact, organizations that have tracked books for a long while state, “complaints by liberal groups are not comparable to the large wave of conservative book challenges being seen across the country” (Alfonseca). It is possible to tell from this itself that book-banning has come a long way from being for the good of the people to being for the good of an individual. Additionally, banning books was established in the 19th century when wealthy, white, Protestants controlled American literature and were able to force their orthodoxical view unto others (Ringel). These stigmas should not continue into the new century as it will inevitably unwind all the advancements humankind has made in the last 200 years since the Civil War. In fact, an example of this on a much smaller scale has already begun: “Conservative groups in particular, fueled by social media, are now pushing the challenges into statehouses, law enforcement and political races” (Harris & Alter). Many legislations are being passed nationwide similar to Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law which is aimed at censoring LGBTQ and diversity content being discussed in a classroom setting, and to reinforce the idea that this law benefits the state of Florida, Governor Robert DeSantis in March stated that Florida was protecting young minds from X-rated content (Mazzei et al.). Something that started out to protect feeble-minded children from the harsh realities of the world has been thoroughly abused and is now being used as a means for political parties to overthrow and rewrite the democracy under the rules of a severely “conventional” and theistic view.

Of course though some people may have ill-motives to banning books, others truly are trying to protect the younger generation from many works holding adult themes to allow them a chance to stay innocent and naive for just a little while longer. Sadly, the truth is that in this era, kids must be exposed to the real world and these kids wish to be exposed to the violence and heinous acts that have been and are still being committed today because only then can they create a positive impact on the world. Even according to George M. Johnson, the author of All Boys Aren’t Blue which is a novel that had a criminal case against it due to its explicit sexual scenes, the memoir contained valuable life lessons for teens about consent and the difficulties they would face in their lives and therefore it shouldn’t have been banned. Today, many kids and unsuspecting teens are being taken off the street and sold into human trafficking; over 22.9% of Americans as young as twelve have illicitly used drugs in the last year, and 20.4% of these Americans who are 12 and older have an alcohol use disorder as according to the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics. Many of the books that parents want to ban highlight these issues to children to help them live safer lives, especially biographies and autobiographies like the Diary of Anne Frank and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Books as famous as Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird which discusses racial prejudice, rape, sexism, expletives, and fat-shaming and Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 which discusses drug abuse, attempted suicide, expletives, and abortion, are both highest on the most challenged books in the country because they give deep insights on the horrible occurrences of the past and the doom of the future if society continues treading the same path, respectively. Even Maus written by Art Spiegelman through his collection of first-hand accounts on torture during the Holocaust from his father is highly challenged because the Holocaust isn’t being shown in the light, fluffy way that parents want their children to be exposed to; this is not because Spiegelman won’t do it like that, it’s because he can’t. The Holocaust, racial prejudice, and a person’s ability to ink their emotions into some of the most outstanding pieces of literature in history, are all key developments to American progress. Banning books addressing these past (and future) events will lead to younger, more fragile generations with the inability to face the hard reality that they are living in.

Though a few problems that have arisen due to book-banning have been highlighted above, it is important to understand that book-banning has contributed to many controversial issues within communities that surpass what has so far been stated. When considering the broad impact of book-banning on a national level, one has no choice but to accept that the impacts of book-banning have more cons than pros. Taking this into consideration, parents, teachers, government officials, and others must recognize that while it is understandable why one wishes to ban books, exploiting this system will only magnify the fissures within this society that have already been exacerbated by the discriminatory laws embedded within the legal system of this country. Therefore, it is important for challenged books such as Fahrenheit 451, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Maus to be taught in a safe, classroom setting. In fact, before banning books, it is vital for one to wonder whether banning a book is worth banning the identity of another soul.

Works Cited

Alfonseca, Kiara. “How Conservative and Liberal Book Bans Differ Amid Rise in Literary Restrictions.” ABC News, 2023, abcnews.go.com/US/conservative-liberal-book-bans-differ-amid-rise-literary/story?id=96267846.

Harris, Elizabeth, and Alexandra Alter. “Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S.” The New York Times, 30 Jan. 2022, www.nytimes.com/2022/01/30/books/book-ban-us-schools.html.

Mazzei, Patricia, et al. “Florida at Center of Debate as School Book Bans Surge Nationally.” The New York Times, 22 Apr. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/04/22/books/book-ban-florida.html.

Ringel, Paul. “How Banning Books Marginalizes Children.” The Atlantic, Oct. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/10/how-banned-books-marginalize-children/502424