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censorship

Heroes

What you should know about Banned Books Week, according to librarians

"Acts of censorship of any kind weaken our democracy."

Banned Books Weeks runs from Sept 22-28

It’s not every day that we think of librarians as heroes for democracy. But as they continue to show up on the frontlines against books bans—often at the risk of their own professional livelihood—the label is well earned.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise how passionately librarians are fighting to protect the free flow of information. They are, after all, natural “helpers in society,” says Cindy Hohl, president of the American Library Association (ALA), and a librarian herself for the past decade.


Hohl has seen firsthand how librarians have been essential advocates for literacy, access to accurate information and (especially now) anti-censorship. But those who have spoken up against book bans often get falsely accused of wrongdoing, which Hohl says is “harmful” for all Americans.

Photo courtesy of Cindy Hohl

“Americans have fought for and enjoy many freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment is for everyone, from children to adults,” she told Upworthy. “It is not appropriate for anyone to tell anyone else what they should read, watch, listen to, or even believe. We can trust our neighbors to make informed decisions for themselves and acts of censorship of any kind weaken our democracy. We are empowered to seek out accurate information and make decisions for ourselves and our families, but not for anyone else.”

Besides censorship violating a fundamental American right, Hohl notes that it only serves as a “dehumanizing distraction.”

“The U.S. Government already has a lot to regulate…We don’t need distractions when everyone has a right to hear the truth. Censorship is causing a division among us and that behavior needs to stop. No voices should be silenced in America.”

And it’s with this emboldened sentiment that the librarians of the ALA are looking to celebrate Banned Books Week, running from Sept 22-28.

Banned Books Week was originally launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools. The annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community — librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types — in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.

However, with this year’s staggeringly high number of banned books—a large amount being LGBTQ titles—there is less cause for celebration, and more for urgent action. That’s why the ALA is spreading the word on what folks can do to keep books on the shelves.

First and foremost, they are urging people to join in on Freedom to Read Day on Oct 19th, when libraries, bookstores, readers, and other partners nationwide will be hosting rallies and community events to unite against book bans and demonstrate shared commitment to this fundamental freedom. Get information about a nearby event , or to host your own, here.

Second, you can share “book résumés,” which detail each title’s significance and educational value with administrators, book review committees, elected officials, and board members. Those can be found here.

And last, but certainly not least, Hohl urges everyone to support your local library and staff. Quite simply because “we need recognition of our good work.” Now, more than ever, that statement seems to ring true.

Prize-winning graphic novel "Maus" is being banned in some states.

The topic of censorship has been a heated one recently. Making the most headlines is the proposed book ban in Texas, with nearly 100 school districts calling to remove library books that deal with race, racism, sex, gender and sexuality.

NBC listed 50 titles that parents have tried to ban in Texas, and the list includes highly acclaimed works such as “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini, “The Perks of Being A Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky and “The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison.

But it’s not just Texas. Book bans are spreading across the country so fast, you’d think we’re living out Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” Which, ironically, doesn't seem to be prohibited yet (this time, at least).

One comic shop owner decided to take a stand by sending free copies of a graphic novel deemed “too graphic” for eighth grade curriculums. And because of his actions, others are following suit.


When Ryan Higgins, owner of Sunnyvale’s Comics Conspiracy (cool shop name), heard the news that Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize winning “Maus” was pulled from the curriculum by the McMinn County Board of Education in Tennessee, he was baffled.

"You can't teach the Holocaust without showing the most graphic imagery that humanity has ever seen,” Higgins told SFGATE. “["Maus"] is nothing compared to the actual thing. It's just mind-boggling that they'd remove it. It's one of the most acclaimed graphic novels of all time, it's just a seminal work. It's been taught in schools and libraries and colleges for decades at this point."

Maus” depicts the story of Spiegelman’s parents experiencing the Holocaust and their imprisonment at Auschwitz. In the comic, Jews are represented by mice, Germans by cats, Poles by pigs, Americans by dogs and Swedish by deer. Like "Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns," “Maus” played a pivotal role in bringing mature comics to the mainstream.

So why was it banned? Over complaints of profanity and nudity. In particular, a dead nude female mouse, in a scene that reflected the suicide of Spiegelman’s mother.

In USA TODAY, Spiegelman himself called the decision a “culture war that’s gotten totally out of control.”

In anti-Orwellian fashion, Higgins offered to donate up to 100 copies of “Maus” to any interested family in the McMinn County area.

Though Higgins has made similar offers in the past, this time around, the pledge went viral. And now it’s a full-blown movement. By Sunday, the complete edition of "Maus" had nabbed the No. 1 spot on the Amazon books best sellers list.

Nirvana Comics in Knoxville has created a fundraiser to help provide more copies to students. Its goal was to raise $20,000. So far, it has raised more than $100,000.

On the fundraiser website, Nirvana Comics hailed Spiegelman’s work as a “masterpiece,” and “one of the most important, impactful and influential graphic novels of all time.”

“We believe it is a must read for everyone,” the store stated.

For Higgins, standing up for impactful works of art is more than fighting the status quo. It’s about being a force for good.

The shop owner told the The Washington Post: ”When thought-provoking comic books and graphic novels are banned, this hits my world. Sending out free copies of ‘Maus’ is something I can do. If even one kid reads it and it changes their world, that’s a wonderful thing.”

United Artists/Annapurna Pictures

When does censorship go too far? How about when it tries to censor parts of the female experience that are not even obscene or violent? The coming-of-age comedy "Booksmart" is opening a discussion about the double standard that women face after a film journalist posted on Twitter that Delta had censored the R-rated movie.

Another Twitter user pointed out that the airline's version of the movie censored the word "lesbian," which isn't even a cuss word.

"Booksmart" director Olivia Wilde was pissed. Wilde criticized the censorship while speaking to the audience after a screening of the film at the SCAD Savannah Film Festival. "What we discovered is that on certain planes, this film has been edited in a very slanted manner. That there are certain words and certain scenes that are cut out, that aren't the swear words. It's 'fuck, fuck, fuck' all day, but they removed the word 'masturbation,' they removed the word 'vagina.' So I'm just curious what a woman is supposed to take from that. That it's an obscenity. That it's inappropriate. You can say 'fuck, fuck, fuck' … But you can't show the Barbie sequence when they take off their Barbie clothes and have Barbie boobs, which by design, have no genitals, which is the entire fucking point of the scene," Wilde said.

RELATED: A gay content creator's viral thread exposed YouTube's casual acceptance of homophobia

Wilde highlighted how the censorship almost feels as if it's trying to censor women. "The other word they took out was 'UTI,' which, I was like … I feel like we should tell people about UTIs! It's important," Wilde said.

Wilde encouraged the audience to not give a flying expletive about censorship. "But yeah, I think it's like, make movies that are, you know, authentic, and talk about real things, and then protect those movies and don't let anybody censor you."


Wilde also spoke about the double standard in an interview with Variety at the Governors Awards. "If it's not X rated, surely it's acceptable on an airplane. There's insane violence of bodies being ripped in half and yet a love scene between two women is censored from the film. It's such an integral part of the character's journey. My heart just broke. I don't understand it. It's confusing," Wilde told Variety.


RELATED: An all-female Delta crew took a plane full of girls to NASA to 'close the gender gap in aviation'

But Delta says that they weren't the ones who censored the film. Delta has certain guidelines for in-flight movies. According to a Delta statement, "Delta's content parameters do not in any way ask for the removal of homosexual content from the film. We value diversity and inclusion as core to our culture and our mission and will review our processes to ensure edited video content doesn't conflict with these values." Delta used a third-party editing company which provides them with the original version and a "safer" version. If the original movie violates their guidelines, they'll show the cut version even if the cut version removed portions of the film Delta is okay with.

In 2015, Reddit decided to run some of the haters out of town.

Image by Rebecca Eisenberg/Upworthy.

The "homepage of the Internet," known for its wholesale embrace of free debate, banned several of its most notorious forums, including r/coontown, a hub for white supremacist jokes and propaganda, and r/fatpeoplehate, a board on which users heaped abuse on photos of fat people.


Critics accused the site of axing the subreddits for the "wrong" reasons — demonizing unpalatable speech rather than incitement to violence. Others worried the ban would be ineffective. Wouldn't the trolls just spew their hate elsewhere on the site?

Thanks to a group of Georgia Tech researchers, we now have evidence that the ban worked.

Their paper, "You Can’t Stay Here: The Efficacy of Reddit’s 2015 Ban Examined Through Hate Speech," found that not only did banning the forums prompt a large portion of its most dedicated users to leave the site entirely, the redditors who did stay "drastically [decreased] their hate speech usage."

The researchers analyzed over 650 million submissions and comments posted to the site between January and December 2015. After arriving at a definition for "hate speech," which they determined by pulling memes and phrases common to the two shuttered forums, they observed an 80% drop in racist and fat-phobic speech from the users who migrated to other subreddits after the ban. 20-40% of accounts that frequently posted to either r/coontown or r/fatpeoplehate became inactive or were deleted in that same period.

"Through the banning of subreddits which engaged in racism and fat-shaming, Reddit was able to reduce the prevalence of such behavior on the site," the paper's authors concluded.

The researchers have a few theories about why the ban may have worked.

Those who migrated to other subreddits, they speculate, became beholden to existing community norms that restricted their ability to speak hate freely.

Reddit co-founder and executive chairman Alexis Ohanian. Photo by Jerod Harris/Getty Images.

They also cite Reddit's effective removal of copycat forums (r/fatpeoplehate2, r/wedislikefatpeople, etc.) before they could reach critical mass.

Creating secure online spaces is a difficult problem. This new research provides at least one possible solution.

Any attempt to moderate an open web forum, the researchers argue, will inevitably have to balance protecting free expression with the right of people to exist on the internet without fear of abuse. A June Pew research poll found that 1 in 4 black Americans reported having been harassed online because of their race, compared with 3% of white Americans.

"The empirical work in this paper suggests that when narrowly applied to small, specific groups, banning deviant hate groups can work to reduce and contain the behavior," the authors wrote.

For vulnerable people who, like most, are living increasingly online lives, it's a small measure of relief.

Correction 9/13/17: This story was updated to identify Alexis Ohanian as Reddit's co-founder and executive chairman, not CEO.