PoisonPenPresents

Hey folks. Loving the premium membership for a day. Hence the beautiful zombie skin

So I recently read the book Of Mice and Men. Alongside Catcher in the Rye, its one of the most challenged books in America. I think it's awful but kinda funny when people try and get books banned. It's awful for the obvious reasons: a small number of people are so outraged (justafiably or not) with a book that they think it's okay to say that nobody else can read it. It's funny though because whenever a book gets banned somewhere, it's sales and popularity skyrockets. These people are trying to keep others from reading a book but get so upset on such a public scale that curiosity builds and the people they are 'protecting' want to see just why the book is being banned.
I think it's even funnier when these people haven't even read the book they are trying to ban, defending this lack by saying "I could never bring myself to read such filth!"

...But...

Okay then.

Then there's the argument that they are protecting children from the world and sheltering them. Well to an extent, that can be true. But if you are freaking out that highschoolers are reading The Pig Man because it has too many examples of "delinquent and antisocial behavior" in it or that a book mentions that suicide is a thing, it's getting excessive. Yes, letting 4 year olds read some of the books that are getting banned might not be the greatest idea but that's a lot different.

Over sheltering children won't make the world go away. It won't make racism disappear. It won't make people all stop committing suicide. What it will do however, it hit these children hard when they first experience these things. Its like over sanitizing everything your baby comes in contact with and keeping them away from all other humans until they are 6 then releasing them into the world where all the germs you blocked out and killed still lurk. They will catch every virus and fall prey to every bacteria they come in contact with.

Letting children read books that have racist characters or characters that swear or characters that act in a way that is not desired by these people won't make them be just like those characters. There's a huge difference between a book that condones racism and one that takes place in the old south. It is argued that Of Mice and Men does the former but in my opinion, it shows the pain that racism causes when Crooks' loneliness and isolation is described and the change that comes over him when Curley's wife preys upon him.

That's just my humble opinion.

But c'mon people. Burning Harry Potter for being satanic?

Anyways. That's my rant of the day. What do you all think about the subject of censorship?