This year, Banned Books Week matters more than ever

09.28.12 - 1:04 pm | Caitlin Donohue |

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STILL among the top-censored titles in the US.

Have you ever listened to KPFA's “Flashpoints”? A friend described it to me, as we listened to an episode featuring San Francisco's newest poet laureate – our first Latino laureate – Alejandro Murgía, as a “very pointed” radio show. The host, poet Dennis Bernstein, asked a very pointed question about Obama and Romney's reactions to the anti-Muslim video that's causing uproar in the Middle East.

But Murgía changed the subject. What about the racism of the Tucson Unified School District, he asked? Why doesn't its removal of the Mexican American studies program, and with it books like The Tempest and Pedagogy of the Oppressed, and other books that “emphasize students’ ethnicity rather than their individuality” get talked about more? The more he talked, the more I became convinced that yes, this was a very big deal.

Luckily, the country has an opportunity to talk about the issue of free speech repression via next week's 30th annual national celebration of Banned Books Week, Sun/30-Oct. 6.

Ethnic studies isn't the only literature with targets on its back. The national Banned Books Week site has a handy list of the top 10 titles banned in 2011. People get riled up about Hunger Games? Whoa, we're still incensed by To Kill A Mockingbird and Brave New World?

Free speech suppression is real! Here's where you can go to break the ban next week. You'll also want to keep your eyes on the City Lights blog, where you'll see talks by famous authors on their fave banned books – we're waiting eagerly for them to post the John Waters' reading of Lady Chatterly. On a national level, check the Banned Books Week website for information on joining the country-wide "virtual read-out" that the group is organizing.

“Cracking the News with Project Censored”

Every year, the Guardian publishes Project Censored's list of the top most suppressed stories in the news. (Because sometimes banning starts before publishing does.) On Monday, get a sneak peek with Mickey Huff from PC, who will break down the big events of the year that you didn't get to hear about.

Mon/1, 7:30pm, free

The Booksmith

1644 Haight, SF

www.booksmith.com

“Let's Talk 50 Shades of Grey”

Perhaps, given the issues we've already discussed, the fact that the soccer mom version of a BDSM novel getting restricted in libraries across the country doesn't seem quite so dire. But sexuality, of course, is still very much a part of us. The library's conscripted Emily Morse, star of Bravo's Miss Advised reality show and local self-styled sexpert, to lead a discussion of this bestselling, racy tale of a CEO and his virginal submissive.

Tue/2, 6pm, free

San Francisco Main Library

100 Larkin, SF

www.sfpl.org

“Out of Print” art reception

The students at City College respond to free speech issues with their art at this Banned Books Week group show.

Tue/2-Wed/5, opening reception Tue/2, 5-8pm, free

Cesar Chavez Student Center gallery, City College of San Francisco

1650 Holloway, SF

www.ccsf.edu

“Read Banned Books Naked”: Naked Girls Reading

Ophelia Coeur de Noir, Carol Queen, and members of the Twilight Vixen Revue strip down and start turning pages for you from their favorite piece of restricted literature at the SF edition of this national network of nudie-bookworm readings.

Tue/2, 8pm, $20-25/$35 for two

Stagewerx Theater

446 Valencia, SF

www.nakedgirlsreading.com

Comments

Poet Laureate's name misspelled

Should be corrected: Alejandro Murguía

Posted by Guest on Oct. 03, 2012 @ 8:13 pm

You have a strange definition of "banned"

It seems like Matlock's world, it's not a true "ban" if someone can obtain a copy of the book somehow, somewhere. By that logic, I don't think a single book has ever been banned in the history of mankind.

No, Matlock, this is in fact a ban. They banned it from the venue they control. If they could ban these books in the whole United States, maybe they'd do that. But unfortunately for you (and them), these little dictators only control a local school board. So they took it out of the schools. It's a ban with limited effectiveness, but a ban nonetheless.

Posted by Greg on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 10:37 pm

Alejandro Murguía

small but important correction

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 7:51 pm

Emulate, don't eliminate Tuscon's MAS program

That's the message of the Annenberg Institute for School Reform. As the research points out, the program is working:

"The data tell us that this approach appears to be working. Students in the MAS program far outperformed their peers on Arizona’s state standardized tests in reading (by 45 percentage points), writing (by 59 percentage points), and math (by 33 percentage points), and they enroll in post-secondary institutions at a rate of 67 percent, well above the national average (Ginwright & Cammarota 2011). Also, pedagogies used in Tucson’s MAS classes encourage and support students to be actively involved in their communities, a strategy that has been shown to correlate with increased classroom engagement (Cammarota & Romero 2009)."

http://annenberginstitute.org/commentary/2012/03/emulate-dont-eliminate-...

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 3:52 pm

Indoctrination? The history I was taught

You know when I was growing up (I'm 54 yrs old), African Americans and Latinos were non-existent in the history books. For that matter, there were virtually no women in those texts. I just remember a passing mention of Eleanor Roosevelt and Marie Curie, but that was it. Native Americans were generally depicted as a menace to the white settlers. This was the context in which I learned about the Indian Wars (no mention of genocide or massacres committed by whites). To read those books, you'd have thought that there was no such thing as other races or other histories in this country. You want to talk about indoctrination? This was history through a white lens -- white and predominently male. What is wrong with providing kids with a more inclusive perspective of American history? One that embraces the history of every American, not just those who are white and male? I mean really (I agree with Ana here), why is this so scary to people like Matlock?

Posted by Jill Knadler on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 3:33 pm

Jon Stewart takes on the Mexican American Studies ban

The Daily Show travels to Arizona, where the powerful evidence of hearsay convinced the Tucson school board to ban Mexican-American studies programs.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-april-2-2012/tucson-s-mexican-amer...

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 2:31 pm

Ha! That's Tuscon school board member Michael Hicks

Here's how the L.A. Times reported on that segment:

"After that stint on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” the Tucson Unified school board is probably wishing it had hired a media consultant before trying to explain its position on the district’s controversial Mexican American Studies program.

"Normally, when people are featured on a television show, they call family and friends and let them know the time and channel. That might not be the case for board member Michael Hicks, who appeared in a segment about the ethnic studies controversy.

"The Tucson school board voted to end the program after Arizona's education chief had ruled the district in violation of a controversial state law banning classes designed for a particular ethnic group or that "promote the overthrow of the U.S. government."

"Defenders of the Mexican American Studies program have said it does no such thing. Some board members said they voted to discontinue the program under duress because the legislation allowed the state to withhold funding from the district unless it complied with the law.

"The law and the board's vote -- and protests by Latino students -- have prompted fiery discussions in Tucson and across the state. Into that atmosphere stepped Hicks when he explained his vote on "The Daily Show."

"My concern was a lot of the radical ideas that they were teaching in these classes," Hicks is quoted as saying.

"Telling these kids that this is their land, the whites took it over and the only way to get out from beneath the gringo — which is the white man — is by bloodshed."

"The segment quotes him as saying he has never gone to any of the classrooms and based his opinions on "hearsay."

"He apparently digs himself in deeper when he discussed why African American studies and Asian Pacific American studies won’t be affected by the ban.

"The African American Studies program is "not teaching the resentment of a race or class of people," he said.

"Though, when Hicks was asked to envision Madrigal as a black student -- how would Hicks teach him about slavery without creating resentment toward white people? "Slavery was a ... slavery was a ..." Hicks stammers.

"The white man did bring over the Africans... " he trailed off, allowing Madrigal to deliver another jab: "What kind of jobs did we do?"

"The jobs you guys did were slavery jobs,” Hicks answered uncomfortably.

“You know, Rosa Clark did not take a gun and go onto a bus and hold up everybody,” Hicks later added, referring to civil rights activist Rosa Parks."

http://articles.latimes.com/2012/apr/04/nation/la-na-nn-tucson-school-bo...

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 3:12 pm

Matlocky. Pure matlocky.

I sometimes feel myself having an ambition to break down your spirit to the point where you simply refrain from polluting this forum with your nonsense matlock.

Specifically, I hope to convince you of the fact that you lack the intellectual capacity necessary to allow you to offer anything of value or interest here, and you'll resign yourself to mutely reading the writings of your betters.

Then again, I remember your valid point with regard to Catholic Church abuses, and come to suspect I'm perhaps being too severe in my ambition, so I guess I'm still vacillating; hoping someday to read something else you write which has merit. Sadly, there's nothing of the sort appearing in your above comment.

When the U.S. government undertook to stamp out Native American culture by coercing children into religiously-run boarding schools, where they were forbidden to speak their own language or practice their own culture in any way, that was racist. (By the way, the children were also given diseases and sometimes raped by pedophiles.)

Can't you see how the concerted effort to erradicate curriculum developed for the purpose of enlightening ethic minorities about their own heritage is part-and-parcel with the same motivation which led to the Indian boarding schools?

As for "tortured logic" -- the most obvious cases stem from logic which is based on false information prior to being larded with non-sequitur and other acts of irrationality.

The nation's founders were largely *against* having a standing army and *no* explicit provision for it appears *anywhere* in the Constitution; the only references to it are tangential and only serve to limiting its presence and establishing unequivocally that when there was a need for such it would be completely under civilian control.

You can read about it here matlock:

www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution.html

Hope that keeps you busy for a while.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 8:08 am

yawn

Conflating all sorts of things doesn't make your case. If these kids are interested there is this thing that most schools have, it is called a library, In most cities there are things called book store's. I assume you have been to a book store?

Removing ridiculous classes isn't banning books. Conflating what happened to Indians in America (which is an atrocity) to removing ethnic studies classes is ridiculous. Right wingers make the same crazy argument around the USSR and American secularism.

We've moved religion from the public square, the next thing you know we will be sending priests to work camps. We've removed ethic studies classes, next step, Indian schools circa 1890.

The fringe right and the fringe left meet again in the land of professional victim hood.

Posted by matlock on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 12:13 pm

Ha! Plus ca change...

So Matlock, for you it's the meeting of the fringe right and the fringe left, is it? Just one little flaw with this analysis. The outrage and condemnation over violations of intellectual freedom and censorship has come from virtually every major literary, library, publishing, academic and educational organization in the U.S. And there are only a handfull of these books available in TUSD school libraries for more than 50,000 students. Obviously, disadvantaged children can't afford to buy books from a bookstore.

But I'm glad you mentioned something about Native American history. Native American authors who have been banned include Leslie Marmon Silko, N. Scott Momaday, Michael Dorris, Buffy Sainte Marie, Winona LaDuke and Rigoberta Menchu. Silko is the recipient of a Native Writers' Circle of the Americas Lifetime Achievement Award and a MacArthur Foundation genius grant. Her novel Ceremony in the Rethinking Columbus anthology has been lauded as "one of the great American literary treasures." Since you acknowledge that what happened to Native Americans in this country was an atrocity, why would you want to compound the persecution by suppressing their perspective on history? Perhaps it is right-wingers like you, Matlock (pretending be "moderate") who do more to perpetuate the atrocities of the past by trying to suppress our knowledge of them. Ever thought of that? True moderates have no truck with censorship or suppression of knowledge and free speech.

Posted by Ana on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 3:05 pm

"Since you acknowledge that

"Since you acknowledge that what happened to Native Americans in this country was an atrocity, why would you want to compound the persecution by suppressing their perspective on history? "

Because when it comes to you crazy leftists it's not "their perspective."

It's the perspective of you losers.

Posted by matlock on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 8:10 pm

This year, Banned Books Week matters more than ever

Today, while I was at work, my cousin stole my iphone and
tested to see if it can survive a thirty foot drop, just
so she can be a youtube sensation. My iPad is now broken and she has 83 views.
I know this is completely off topic but I had to share it
with someone!

Posted by Ali on Apr. 30, 2013 @ 6:58 am

Ana, I see you've correctly identified the troll's character,

and also must fully realize there little that can be done about it besides facilitating it's deservedly ridiculous dual reputation for duplicity and stupidity.

Mission accomplished.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 8:38 pm

Still waiting

on how these books are banned.

Do you understand the word banned?

Posted by matlock on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 10:44 pm

They didn't just ban the books, they banned an entire curriculum

They didn't simply ban books, they banned an entire curriculum: the Mexican American Studies program. The European studies has not been banned, nor any other area studies discipline, except Mexican American Studies. And yes, the Tuscon school district came up with an actual list of banned books. Then, following a firestorm of criticism, they tried to backpedal and say that the books weren't really "banned", just "confiscated" (does it get any more Orwelian?). Whatever. Tuscon's educational mugging has been reported as "banned books" by every publication from The Guardian (of London) to the New York Times. All across the country, librarians are putting up displays of the books that were banned in Tuscon for "Banned Books Week". Writers, educators, librarians and concerned citizens are smuggling the banned books back into Arizona. And YOU (reactionaries) are losing the information war because most reasonable people (& the mainstream press) are outraged by what is happening in Arizona.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/education/racial-lens-used-to-cull-cur...

Posted by Guest on Oct. 01, 2012 @ 12:29 pm

So when I

was in my teens and I fell in love with laughing at born again Christian TV and the crazy ranting involved, the born againers were correct that removing their crazy agenda from the school was banning the bible from schools? While at the same time the library had a shelf of dozens of bibles?

Was there a European studies program in this area? I just did some searches, doesn't seem to be the case.

No sane person is wasting their time smuggling leftist indoctrination or bibles into any area of the country. You "progressives" get more crazy by the day.

Ridiculous anti-sense, progressives are just complaining that an entitlement to indoctrinate kids is being fucked with, just like when the atheists in Baltimore got school prayer banned.

In twenty years there will be the leftist cannards over the lack of studies classes, there is a lack of hugging, there is a lack of racialist awareness, there is a lack of student bitterness over class...

Still wondering how a lack of indoctrination is banning?

Posted by matlock on Oct. 01, 2012 @ 5:41 pm

Read Jill Knadler's comment

It's your argument that is convoluted and "crazy".

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 3:47 pm

Banned author Richard Rodriguez

Banned author Richard Rodriguez on the real reason they banned the MAS program:

"When students asked why European studies has not been banned, nor any other area studies discipline, the administrators had no response. And regarding the issue of this being America, apparently this administrator believes that Mexican Americans don't belong in America (as she presumably meant the United States).

"In a development typical of Arizona, the students who walked out on Thursday, protesting the elimination of the district's Mexican American studies program, have – without a hearing – been directed to perform janitorial duties this Saturday: an amazing message, right out of Newt Gingrich's playbook (he has been campaigning in the GOP presidential nomination race, proposing the idea that students should be hired as janitors to teach them a work ethic). Apparently, TUSD administrators are paying attention.

"The further message of this punishment, then, appears to be that the state and the district do not want students to study Mexican American studies, but they do want them to clean toilets. Perhaps, Gingrich should consider relocating to Arizona, where his message is being fully embraced."

https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/19-5

Posted by Guest on Oct. 02, 2012 @ 3:43 pm

sure

The district has European American studies classes?

Pass the bong.

Posted by matlock on Oct. 08, 2012 @ 2:25 am

How is removing

ethnic studies from a school banning books? How is removing ethnic specific classes racist?

If removing these classes from schools is banning books, isn't removing school prayer the same as banning the bible? (I know all about separation here ranters, try a little harder please)

If the students can get these same books freely from the library, then how are they banned? Not being able to indoctrinate a student is racist?

If a district decided to stop offering JROTC classes, would the people who advocated for that be anti-American? Is banning JROTC classes the same as banning the constitution since the US military is provided for in the constitution.

Progressive "logic" here is tortured to no end. Unless you figure that progressive logic is "me me me me me me me me me me."

Posted by matlock on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 4:22 am

Interesting you should say that

An Arizona lawmaker wants to create a high school course for public and charter school students that would teach the Bible and its role in Western culture. I guess you won't ever have to worry about school prayer being banned in Arizona, Matlock.

Look, here's what they did. They took the books out of the classes in front of the kids and boxed them up. Now, 60% of TUSD students are of Mexican heritage. So what is that saying to these kids? Your history -- heck, our U.S. history (Mexican American War, etc.) -- is not important. YOU are not important.

They sent these books to the Textbook Depository for storage. So those books are out of reach, locked away. The kids can't get at them. There are 50,000 kids, most of Mexican heritage, in the TUSD and a mere handfull of the books in the school libraries. Do you think they have adequate access? And why this terror of mere books?

Matlock, you like to present yourself as a "moderate". Yet, here you are defending the suppression of knowledge, of free speech and of U.S. history. Is this your idea of logic, matlock? Did you know that Shakespeare’s play “The Tempest," was also banned? Apparently, TUSD Administrators are terrified of any text that even hints at “race, ethnicity and oppression" as central themes. Is that what's got your undies in a bunch, little matlock? Are you frightened, too? Scared that students might actually learn something about our history and the unsavory past...that is, a history that isn't completely whitewashed?

Posted by Ana on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 3:47 pm

I stopped reading after the first

paragraph, I was laughing too much.

I don't believe in a god, sure the right winger's in AZ are ridiculous sometimes, no different than the crazy left wing really.

Those kids can go to the library and get a book if they are so interested. They don't need you or your fellow right winger like true believers to tell them what to do or think. You two sides of the same coin are so weird, so worried that the other side will beat you to indoctrination. You need your indoctrination classes to counter the other sides.

You're worked up that right wingers want a Jesus class because it might lead to the kids being right wing Jesus types... oh the irony. You're classes are empowering and based on critical thinking and the ones they have are indoctrination?

The thing about the Paranoid Style of American Politics By Richard Hofstadter, the people who see conspiracy, want to conspire, they think everyone thinks like they do,

Posted by matlock on Sep. 30, 2012 @ 4:39 pm