Removing book a bad idea (3/31/04)

My son is home this week (March 15-19) from Indiana University. He read Anita Homan’s letter in support of the school board’s decision to censor “Kaffir Boy” and after thinking about it for a while, said, “It seems as adults get older you forget what it was like to be a teenager. Teens aren’t nearly as impressionable as you think they are, and they are more tuned-in and aware than you give them credit for. Do people really think perverted things are going to go away if we pretend they don’t exist?” He suggested perhaps confronting issues was a more positive approach to helping teens cope with the real world than avoiding them.

I tried to suggest the same ideas in my original letter to the editor printed Feb. 27. I tried to demonstrate the important role parents play in building strong children who would not be corrupted by any sexual content. I’m sure Mrs. Homan is a good parent. She should find comfort in the following.

Sydney J. Harris, in an essay entitled “Anti-Smut Weapon: A Happy Home,” commented some years ago that “children reared in an atmosphere of love and trust and decent values are not ‘corrupted’ by dirty books ...” or by a graphic scene in a book that is meant to realistically depict a horiffic time in someone's life that he had to overcome. Harris suggests (and it seems to be borne out by my children) that these children, after an initial curiosity, simply get bored by the graphic dirtiness. If dirty books which are designed to appeal to prurient interests can be effectively neutralized by good parenting, then there seems to be nothing to fear from two or three pages out of a whole book that was designed to be something positive.

Mr. Harris goes on: “If sex is portrayed (by parents) as something dirty, or cruel, or contemptible, or unnatural, or shamefully furtive, then the children will respond to such attitudes by taking a pathological interest in the subject, pornography or no.” The scene in “Kaffir Boy” that seems to rankle members of the school board so, would only be appealing to a pedophile.

The students who have read this passage when my children read it were disgusted by it. By coming from good homes, though, they and their friends could take the scene in the context of the whole book and deal with it positively. They, like other teens who had read the book, could be inspired to “never give up in the face of adversity, not take freedom — or food — for granted (my daughter, at age 24, didn’t even remember the scene that got the book censored, but she still vividly remembers the scene where the mother went out picking through garbage heaps for food for her family), to regard education as a powerful weapon of hope, and always strive to do the right thing.”

Again, I ask the board of school trustees of Jay County to reinstate the book “Kaffir Boy.” The worst thing about censorship is that the very resources that may be most valuable in dealing honestly and effectively with complex topics often become the ones which are banned. Instead of protecting our students we run the risk of impoverishing their education.

Sincerely,

John M. Gilbert

Portland

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