I do not see that I have gone over the edge by using perfectly legitimate analogies. In each of those cases, the restriction of what women might read or what slaves might have read, would have been met with astonishment and declarations of going over the edge in the context in which such practices were and are conducted and those declarations would have been made by those who would have defended the injustice. That which goes over the edge are injust parental practices and laws and customs that allow and encourage them. I have never been a biological parent myself, but I was rather closely involved in the raising of a little girl. She was never prohibited from reading anything she wanted and her speech was not restricted either. That is not to say that her freedom was completely unrestricted either. I clearly remember, when she was six years old, playing a tug of war with her when she did not want to get out of the street and I was trying to pull her out. She wanted to stay where she was, but I think she changed her mind and saw my point when she heard the brakes screeching. That was a case of restricting freedom to protect her from a real danger and I think it is a shame to waste protective resources protecting children from things that will not hurt them anyway when there are some real dangers out there. Certainly reading a book is not a danger. On the point of her speech, there was one time that the freedom she had was strained a bit. At a certain point she came up with some derogatory terms for homosexuals. I was taken aback and even a bit angered. Nevertheless, she was still never prohibited from using such words. I suspect that if she had been it would have caused some resentment and defiance, even if it was defiance behind my back. Instead, I explained to her that the words she was using were very hateful words and pointed out that she personally knew people who she liked a lot to whom those words could apply. She seemed to get the point, but at another time one of the words did reappear. I then calmly asked her if she would use such a word to describe Billy, a gay acquaintance of ours for whom she had considerable affection, and she did agree that that would be a bad thing to do. Even later, she came home once with a story that another child had used those kinds of derogatory words and she had explained why they were bad. That led to the words being used against her and understandably she was upset. I was sorry that she was harassed in that way, but I was extremely glad to hear that she had paid more attention to me than to her friends. I emphasize, though, that she was never prohibited from using nor hearing such words. No action was ever taken to shield her from any kind of speech and no effort was ever taken to choose her friends for her or to prohibit her from having the friends she wanted. She just decided that she did not want certain friends who used derogatory words against gay people and especially who used them against her. I would have considered it bad parenting to have restricted her in those ways. I will also go on to say that many parents, or people like me who are in a parenting role, practice bad parenting. I suppose you would probably consider a parent who imposes sex on a child to be a bad parent. There are more than one way to impose sex though. At least there are a number of ways to impose sexual attitudes. If, for example, I had reinforced the derogatory attitude toward gay people then I would have been practicing bad parenting. Also, as I said, if people have sexual hang-ups that is their business as long as they don't impose those hangups on other people. The same goes for children. If you have sexual hang-ups I have no idea what might have led to them. I have some suspicions like that you might have had parents who imposed their own hang-ups on you or that you might be heavily influenced by a church, but I really don't know and it is not really my business. However, if you purposely set out to train a child to grow up with the same hang-ups then I can't help but to conclude that you are engaging in bad parenting practices. And how does one purposely impose sexual hang-ups on children? One does it by acting like sex is some strongly taboo subject. One does it by hopelessly trying to prohibit children from learning about the existence of sex. I say hopelessly because no matter how hard you try you can't do it anyway. You do it by banning books from the child that might contain descriptions of sex or sexual words. You do it by prohibiting them from talking about sex or using words that might refer to it. The result is that you end up raising a hung-up child and even worse, you raise a child who turns into an adult who proceeds to impose his or her hang-ups on everyone else. That is, you set up a vicious cycle. Now, you do make a good point that these values, whether they are properly called values or hang-ups, vary for each of us. That, in itself, illustrates the negativity of such practices as prohibiting people with a certain status from reading certain books. The simple fact is that their values are likely to be different and when a prohibition is imposed on them it is a matter of forcing one person's or group of person's values on others. That is really an arrogant my-way-or-no-way attitude.
_ _ _ "As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the world" Virginia Woolf The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html----- Original Message ----- From: "Denise Thompson" <deniset@xxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, March 29, 2010 5:34 PMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments about "strong language" or "violence".
I swore I wasn't going to enter into this discussion since we don't set policy for bookshare anyway, but Roger you pushed me over the edge. Actually I agree with you in principle, but I would have to say that in my opinion in trying to make a point you've sort of gone over board here. The folks who are restricted from reading books marked adult are those under age. Parents provide guidance and/or make decisions regarding their children in many arenas in life. What sites they visit on the Internet, what TV shows they watch, what kids they hang out with... all in an effort to help them develop the values they deem most important. That varies for each of us. When a child becomes an adult- in most states- 18 years of age, they can read what they want, visit whatever sites they want on the Internet, etc. I hardly think calling bookshare's policy of restricting books with adult content the same thing as banning books from adult African Americans or adult women, etc. It seems to me that with that argument you've slipped into apples and oranges. Now of issue of what constitutes adult content is different and frankly won't be answered here. The US supreme court and most other levels have given opinions and folks just don't agree on the definitions. A little healthy discussion is good. I think we've done that and now it's getting into the nonconstructive stage. I'd suggest we move on and let Bookshare decide. If we don't like it we can quit as volunteers or suck it up and proceed with our jobs anyway. Denise At 11:03 AM 3/28/2010, you wrote:You are engaging in semantic pedanticism. You are against banning, but if you call it restriction then it is okay. The simple fact is that those so-called restricted books are still banned for a certain group of people who fall into a certain status. Even if they are permitted to read them with parental permission it is not the person who is doing the reading who decides what to read. Think about other groups of people who might be restricted because of their status. Can you imagine being prevented from reading a book because you are a woman? Would you think it was perfectly alright if you could have access if you got permission from your husband or, if you were unmarried, from your parents, uh, father? That exact situation has been reality in the past and is still reality in some parts of the world. How about this? Imagine being prevented from reading or even learning how to read because you are Black. That has been reality in this country too. Would it be justified if it was allowed on the condition that your owner gave permission? Okay, the Bookshare system works, but what does it work to do? It works to restrict the rights of people simply because of what they are. The fact that it works is reprehensible itself. _ _ _ "As a woman I have no country. As a woman my country is the world" Virginia Woolf The Militant: http://www.themilitant.com Pathfinder Press: http://www.pathfinderpress.com Granma International: http://www.granma.cu/ingles/index.html ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ann Parsons" <akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Sunday, March 28, 2010 8:33 AMSubject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: Comments about "strong language" or "violence".Hi all, Actually, Roger, you're confusing the issue somewhat. The method used by Bookshare makes sense. What it does is restrict books rather than to ban them. If you are under eighteen your access to adult content is blocked. the block can be resinded if the child's parent or guardian agrees. For adults what this rating does ismerely place adult content behind a gate, if you will. It is tabu, not banned.I agree that those who want to ban books are wrong. Banning books makes them unavailable to anyone. Deliberately destroying or removing books from libraries is anathema to me. Restricting them is a different story. What bothers me most are those who decide that certain books are evil or bad and they have not read them. This, I feel, is prejudice and the beginning of totalitarianism. When a church or a government tells its members or citizens they can't read X or Y, that's restricting knowledge and therefore restricting the power of the People. The whole Harry Potter hoodoo is a great example of ignorant idiotic people making a judgment about a series of books without reading them. Nowhere have I found a clearer statement of morals and ethics and what is right than I have in the books by J.K. Rowling. <smiling> I dunnow how other books can be accepted without question as Young Adult. Frankly, I think the whole rating system stands on its head sometimes. However, the Bookshare method seems to be working, even though we proofers sometimes have to fiddle with the rating because the computer isn't smart enough to make decisions of this kind. BTW, I don't think we need to resort to name-calling in order to make a point. It retracts from the argument, frankly. ]Ann P. -- Ann K. Parsons Portal Tutoring EMAIL: akp@xxxxxxxxxxxx web site: http://www.portaltutoring.info Skype: Putertutor "All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost." Email services provided by the System Access Mobile Network. Visit www.serotek.com to learn more about accessibility anywhere. 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