Imagine you are in front of a class, teaching To Kill a Mockingbird to a group of high-schoolers. Over the course of the unit, your students praise the book, saying that it educated them about racial tensions in the South and the meaning of bravery among other important life lessons. However, you still receive numerous strongly-worded phone calls and emails from angry parents demanding the literary classic be removed from the curriculum for containing the word “nigger” and rape. You don’t understand – how can a novel of such significance and acclaim be condemned just for including a couple of pages with adult themes? The answer is censorship. For as long as there has been media and people to consume that media, censorship has prevailed over …show more content…
Mass entertainment, such as book, films, and TV, capture glimpses of the harsh realities many face, from the racial abuse endured by Tom Robinson in To Kill a Mockingbird to the inner workings of a deranged dictator in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf. When censorship comes in to erase these themes, it’s essentially brainwashing readers, and to an extent, the public, into believing that the world is this pure, saintly place of wholesome perfection when that is far from the truth. For instance, the society depicted by Ray Bradbury in his science-fiction magnum opus, Fahrenheit 451, is a vapid one devoid of emotions and imagination who are driven by government propaganda to think, act, and believe a certain way. Captain Beatty, the fire chief, summed it up perfectly when he stated, …show more content…
In defense of censorship, parents cry out “Think of the children!” and religious organizations clamor “That’s not what the Bible said!” There are so many instances of this occurrence that it’s almost like clockwork in its unchanging regularity, as made evident throughout “Light Out, Huck.” In Kakutani’s piece, she lists several examples of this, but high school teacher, John Foley, and his comments from 2009 stand out in particular: “The time has arrived to update the literature we use in high school classrooms...novels that use the ‘N-word’ repeatedly need to go.” An author’s employment of mature elements to construct a realistic backdrop in order to make the narrative more realistic and identifiable to the reader is misconstrued by Foley and many other naysayers of anti-censorship as the author encouraging vulgar behavior. It’s absurd to think a story set in the deep South in the 19th century won’t have a couple racial slurs sprinkled here and there, similar to believing a story set in the modern world won’t have incessant references to the Internet or social media. If anything, one should think of an author’s story as a jigsaw puzzle – bits like curse words and sex scenes aren’t the big picture the puzzle is meant
but the book has also sparked wild discussions about its content and if it should be taught in schools across the country. Although The Catcher In The Rye presents strong sexual themes and vulgar language, these aspects showcase the characters ' deepest emotions while staying true to the human experience and the power of language. The very same issues that cause the catcher in the rye to climb the banned book list, sexual themes and vulgar language, are exactly the things that make this piece worth teaching in high school curriculums, as they show readers the truest
Censorship in America is often debated. Erin Manning, texas-based writer explains that the American Library Association chooses to censor certain books because of “inappropriate content” and “second rate writing”(Manning 1). Parents attempt to protect their children from the outside world, by limiting their exposure to age appropriate language. When parents do this, their children’s knowledge of the outside world may be limited to what parents let their child view. Although some parents may feel that their child needs filtered information and entertainment, others believe that children and teens need to be shown uncensored content.
Don’t censor To Kill a Mockingbird Rosa Parks once said, “Racism is still with us. But it is up to us to prepare our children for what they have to meet, and, hopefully, we shall overcome.” In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird the author Harper Lee uses the n-word 48 times and negro 54 times. This alone could cause readers to feel uncomfortable, along with the vulgar language and references to sexual activities. Some people may think that the best solution to these problems are to take out these words and censor the whole book.
Censorship is dangerous, and too much of it can lead to an inevitable destruction of our
Many books have been placed on the banned book list, they have been placed on the list because concerned people fear that certain books have and leave an effect on the reader. America’s classic novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, has been placed on the banned book list ever since it was first published. To Kill A Mockingbird should absolutely remain on the banned book list because it shows racism throughout the entire book and teaches the reader that being prejudice is alright. As you read the novel To Kill A Mockingbird you notice that it is very racist. Throughout the novel you notice that it repeatedly uses the “n” word.
“Using profanity was against school policy and having the book in the library made newly elected school board member, Larry McDonald, feel uncomfortable.”
Humanity needs to change before all information is censored. In “College at Risk,” Andrew Delbanco discusses liberal learning and the “whole person” that may not be developed in college due to a lack of income. Liberal learning develops the “whole person” by teaching the basic ethics and morals a person should have. Anne Applebaum presents examples of censorship in her essay, “The Decline of American Press Freedom.” She uses China and Yale to make the point that differing forms of censorship are doing more harm than good.
Censorship in America can vary between the silencing of young voices and the prevention of exposing others of inappropriate material. Many people are afraid of losing their freedom of speech, as first amendment rights should be mandatory for American citizens. Polar to this argument insists the importance of censorship, as it can shield the public from information that can lead to fear or chaos. Leaving students ignorant to world problems, however, is argued by Sonja West that it removes their first amendment rights and creates a future working-class of Americans who are clouded from the truth. West is a law professor at the University of Georgia who is distinguished for her expertise in the first amendment law and minor in journalism.
This book should be taught to High School students across the country, and it should not be a banned book. To Kill a Mockingbird teaches students morals, and ethics. The book is still partially accurate to what some people go through even in today’s world, and what the books reads is still a part of history that should not be covered up and tucked away. To Kill a Mockingbird should still be taught in school systems, and should not be a banned book because the novel focuses on a part of history that should not be ignored.
Depending on which way one may view a certain circumstance, everyone is a victims of censorship. Unwillingly volunteering our free thinking by a superior influence. Do people feel that we need to endure censorship? Over the course of the novel Fahrenheit 451, we see how censorship adapts one 's behavior. The public are banned from owning or reading books, there are many reasons for why people are so averse towards books and submit to the government.
In 1998, McClintock High School in Tempe, Arizona assigned students to read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. The book has long been regarded as a controversial novel, and each generation that comes upon it has found something that rubs against the current societal norms. The mother of a student at McClintock took serious offense to the use of the word, “nigger” throughout the book and protested that it be banned due to the racial discrimination (Source I). Huck Finn is just one of the many pieces of literature that have been labelled “challenging,” and many feel that they do not deserve a place in schools’ curriculum. However, the study of challenging literature introduces students to new ideas and lessons that they can apply
Censorship is an extremely debated topic in America, with people saying it contradicts with what the Bill of Rights has allowed the American people and how it may deny people use the Freedom of Speech. Yet, the censorship of books in American public schools is one of the most controversial topics today because of the use of racial slurs in classic literature, this is the case with To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Opinions on this topic vary, with some of them being: schools should have the right to censor books because they have racial slurs in them, schools should have teachers open up a conversation about race and the use of racial slurs with these books, or schools should not have the right to censor any book. I firmly believe that schools
The world gets crueler everyday. There are new crimes being committed daily, and sometimes it can be because of what people are subjected to. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, this topic is discussed. In order to create a more positive environment, the world needs censorship. Without it, kids would be surrounded by bad influences, people would always find topics to argue about, and lives can even be ruined without it.
In Derek Bok’s, Protecting Freedom of Expression On The Campus, he brings light to the issue of censorship in universities. He states that students at Harvard University got offended after a few students displayed the confederate flag. There have been many cases in which people have tried to censor offensive material however; the Supreme Court preferred to conserve the freedom of expression. He believes that if censorship starts to take place, it will be difficult to know when to cross the line. In addition, it will not fix the initial problem since the offenders will continue to abuse others using different means.
Banned Books?? This passage is why books shouldn’t be banned and why it's important for parents and/or the school board to not ban books. Prohibited books are unlawful and not helpful schools. Books are an entryway to various beneficial encounters and perusing supports sympathy and social-passionate advancement.