Good reasons and bad reasons to ban books

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Good reasons and bad reasons to ban books
PHOTO COURTESY ADOBE STOCK

Editor, The Beacon:

There are two separate issues regarding the issue of book banning.

First, in my opinion, banning sexually explicit books and books which describe graphic violence from minors, is appropriate. This is no different from the rating system used in the movie industry, which I also deem to be appropriate. We classify movies as G (general audiences), PG (parental guidance suggested), R (restricted, no children under 17 allowed without parent or adult guardian), and X (no one under 17 admitted). We should apply this same rating system to books, and computer games as well.

Second, there are those who promote the insidiously sinister effort to ban books that tell the scandalous, but necessary, truth about the atrocities committed against humans in our history. These include atrocities committed, especially by Europeans, against the Indigenous people they encountered after they arrived in the Americas; the slave market, which treated Africans and others as inhuman livestock and personal property; the confinement of Japanese and other Asian citizens during the Second World War; and the cruelty against African descendants, which occurred after the Civil War and up to the present time.

These books should never be banned, and they must be a part of the history curriculum in our schools. It grieves me that there are bigots who want to ban such books because such books reveal their shameful attitudes and unspeakable deeds.

I conclude with my poem:

Somebody has insidiously banned another book,

Another book that you should most certainly read,

Just because they don’t want you to take a look.

So, I ask. Why is this something they undertook?

Must be something they don’t want you to know; indeed,

Somebody has insidiously banned another book.

Something to be ashamed of; maybe they’re a crook.

So, let us discover their dastardly deed,

Just because they don’t want you to take a look.

Some bought African slaves to labor, clean and cook,

And they only freed them when forced to concede.

So, somebody has insidiously banned another book.

There’s the scandal of Indigenous lands they took,

And the treaties they broke, but to which they agreed.

For that, they don’t want you to take a look.

They pretended to follow God’s law, which they broke.

Even some churches justified their deeds with their unholy creed.

Somebody has insidiously banned another book,

Just because they don’t want you to take a look.

Michael Wright

Deltona

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