Promotional material for Banned Together. By William Deaver
Banned Book Week took place across the country on October 5–11. Carmichael Library held a showing of “Banned Together,” a documentary on how a group of high school students fought against censorship in their community.
Amanda Melcher, a librarian at Carmichael Library, had strong and informed thoughts on the issue. “I feel like it’s kind of a slippery slope… when you are trying to limit what people can read, what they can look at, what they can access, I think that’s a scary slope to go down.”
Historically, books have been banned that upset the status quo. In Alabama, many of the top banned books deal with themes of police brutality and racism, or even just stories about growing up in a marginalized group. Many claim that if we keep allowing these important stories to be shut down and silenced, we will never move forward as a society.
Melcher also stated “There’s a dark side of it. So, what I’ve seen in Alabama is a desire to limit books that have any content that is LGBTQIA friendly or even just informational.” Our local community’s specifically banning books that are from marginalized perspective can be seen outright discrimination, and that nobody should be supporting it.
A broader topic that may become an issue is unclear laws that can be abused into censoring more media. Texas recently passed SB 20, a bill that sets out to criminalize “certain obscene visual material appearing to depict a child”. What people are concerned about is the unclear wording of the bill. The word “obscene” specifically is a subjective word. To many it seems that law makers are looking for ways to censor media and to get people behind that cause, in this case, using the protection of children as a trojan horse.
Melcher, in regard to what individuals can do to protest book bannings, stated, “Alabama, like I mentioned, at least currently, it’s mostly the public libraries that are being targeted. So, a big thing you can do is to support your public library, have a card, check out books…show up to your public libraries, read banned books, of course. support banned books. And then if something’s happening that upsets you, call your senators”
Free thinking and free speech are getting increasingly important to protect these days. Reading banned books is one of the easiest ways to educate yourself. It’s important to look at what is being banned and why. For more information, visit the American Library Association website at www.ala.org
