Interview

I chose to do this blog post about my interview with Dr. Rudolph Almasy, which is why this post doesn't have a quote as the title. I'm going to be honest, I was very apprehensive about doing this interview or profile for this class. I've never actually done an interview, apart from my senior project in high school. My biggest fear for this project, was trying to find someone who actually does something about my topic. Censorship and book banning are not topics that you hear about all of the time, so I was concerned about not getting the right person, or getting a person who was... against my topic.

I had heard about the organization Sigma Tau Delta and then I heard about the sponsor, Dr. Almasy. I knew already that Sigma Tau Delta took part in Banned Books Week, so I figured that Dr. Almasy would at least have an opinion on censorship and book banning. I was right. I'm not going to include anything from the interview, because I'm sure the profile essay itself will be plastered on here at some point, but I had a reall enjoyable time interviewing Dr. Almasy. He was very humble and modest and also quite hilarious. He had the same concerns I have about censorship and book banning, but as it will say in the essay, he doesn't have the harsh "I'm for book banning" or "Down with book banning" attitude. He's understanding of the certain situation.

I'm not going to go into the details, but he really opened my eyes to many different websites and ideas about censorship and book banning. He also gave me this book to borrow that has an essay on censorship
included in it. I haven't read it yet, but he explained it to me and I really think that it will help out my project. He gave me a lot of information that can use for this project and I was excited about this. Dr. Almasy is a very interesting person and I think that everyone should meet him and have a chance to sit down and talk with him. I had a really great experience doing this interview and I really hope that it pays off and helps in the growing problem of censorship and book banning.

“Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. It is the hallmark of an authoritarian regime…” -- Justice Potter Stewart

I finally got to talk to a few friends that I haven't seen in a very long time and we decided to just recap our lives from the past few months. I told them about my new ventures into the blogosphere. I have to do two blogs this semester and I have never really had the need or want to blog. They asked me what my blog was about. I told them censorship but focusing on book banning and the censorship of books.That then sparked a discussion that I wouldn't really consider a debate, but some might have seen it as one if they just looked in on us having a very livid discussion about books. As you can imagine when a bunch of girls get together, there is loud shouting over everyone else and no one really hears the point you're trying to make because they're all screaming. This is exactly what happened with my friends as they were all trying to share an interesting story they had about censorship and banned books. I thought a few of them were hilarious and also related to my topic, so, I thought I would do a blog post about my friends' reactions to my blog and adding their own stories to the mix.

When I first told my friend Kaitlin that I was writing a blog about book banning and censorship she kind of giggled. The thought of me doing a blog made her laugh, but she loved my topic choice. We're both avid readers and we both feel that banning books is wrong and immoral. She told me a story about a friend of hers, I can't remember her friend's name, so I'm just going to refer to them as Heather. In Heather's school, they couldn't read certain books that are considered to be classics while they could read other books that are also considered classics. She didn't really mind because she had already read the books, like anything by Mark Twain or in the case of her school, John Steinbeck. She had always thought that banning books was stupid because people could still go out, find a copy of the book read it anyway, despite what the community or the school said. I agreed with Heather and Kaitlin and that was sort of the basis for this blog in the first place. Why schools ban certain books but not other books for the same reasons.

My other friend Codi also thought it was humorous that I would be doing a blog, but she also had a little story to tell about censorship and book banning. She was part of the book club in her high school when she attended. It was her favorite part about high school (mine too) and she always looked forward to book club. She is very much like me and is not a fan of the "Twilight" series. A few of the students in the club were and they had put the first two books in as their suggestions to read throughout the year. Well, the first book was picked and the students started to read it. Apparently, one of the students in the club complained to their parents because they had to read a stupid story about vampires. That person's parents were not happy after they did research on the book and tried to have it banned from being read in the school. The parents didn't win, but it just goes to show how people can be stupid sometimes. While I'm not a fan of the "Twilight" books, I don't think they should be banned from the schools because I don't know of a teacher in high school who would assign that book to be read unless they wanted to show the class about poor editing and writing.

Now, we have my own little story about censorship. This actually happened to me about a week or two weeks ago. I have a very... strange taste in books that I read. My friend Katrina bought my other friend Nicole a book titled "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal". This book got passed around amongst our group of friends and it sort of became our mascot in a way. I went out and purchased the book myself after I had read it because it is a great book. I read at least once a year and I am currently reading it now. Onto the story itself: I was sitting outside of my classroom waiting for the other class to come out. I was also reading "Lamb". A girl who was in my class sat down next to me and asked me when our paper was due. I closed my book and went to look in my bag when the girl asked me what I was reading. I showed her the cover of the book which has the title on it and she looked at me and said, "That's really offensive." I honestly didn't know what to say. I thought back on what I had done. I hadn't forced the book on her nor did I make her ask me what I was reading, so why did she have the right to tell me that it was offensive when all she did was read the title? I asked her why she thought it was offensive and she said that title said it all. I then proceeded to ask her what she had thought of "The Da Vinci Code" and she said that it had been banned from her town for a short while because the churches deemed it offensive and apparently, she was just going on what the churches said when she saw the title of my book.

I was absolutely floored that a decision like that could actually influence someone's opinion on a book before they even read it. I didn't ask her if she had actually read "The Da Vinci Code" but my guess is no. But, I just couldn't believe that she told me the book was offensive. It just goes to show you what banning and censoring can do to a person's opinion and thought process.

"For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people." -- John F. Kennedy

Like I’ve stated before, book banning is wrong. I adore books and reading is one of my favorite things to do. It upsets me when I hear about different communities or different countries banning books. I think that every book deserves to be read, even though I may not agree with every ideal or point of view, I do think that it still deserves to be read.

The one thing I really hate hearing about dealing with book banning? When schools ban books, it really makes me upset. My school didn’t actually take any action in actually trying to ban a book, but there were certain books that we weren’t allowed to read because my school didn’t agree with its message or the language in the book or something else that is just stupid. My one teacher in particular, Mrs. Jones, made it her mission to have us read banned books… granted, a few of them I didn’t really care for, but I admire her for having us read the books in the first place.

One of the books that we read that was previously banned is “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. It was banned in Ireland in 1932 because of its ‘alleged’ references of sexual promiscuity. I’m not entirely sure if it is still banned there today, but that is just one of the reasons why most schools won’t read this book and why this book is banned. Mrs. Jones had her own little Banned Books Week of sorts where we would each pick a book and read as much as we could in one week. She didn’t have all of the banned books obviously, but she had the more popular ones like, “Farenheit 451”, all of the books in the “Harry Potter” series, “Candide”, and “The Da Vinci Code”. She had the same views I do about banning books. She understood where people were coming from (sometimes) when they wanted to ban a book, but she also thought that banning the book itself was just such an insane idea because all books deserve to be read.

The one thing both her and I never understood, is why schools would even want to ban a book, especially high schools. If they’re really preparing us for the ‘real world’ and if they treat us like adults, then we should be able to read the books that ‘adults in the real world’ read.

I haven’t talked to her recently, but I’m sure she was just as upset as I was when I learned that they re-edited Mark Twain’s classic, “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. Now, while I don’t particularly like anything by Mark Twain, I do believe that it was just wrong of them to re-edit that novel. There is an article about it in my required reading list over there on the side of this blog, but in case you don’t feel like reading it, what happened is in the newest version of Huck Finn, the ‘n’ word is replaced with the word ‘slave’. Now, this may be seen as good by some people because the ‘n’ word is very offensive, but it’s necessary to the book’s message. Mark Twain himself didn’t use that word but the reason he used it in the novel to show that the word is offensive and shouldn’t be used under any circumstances. He wanted to show that the people who were known as ‘slaves’ or called the ‘n’ word, were just people, just like everyone else and they shouldn’t be treated differently, which is the entire point of that novel.

Hearing that news just aggravated me because I had to read it in school and while I didn’t really like the book, I still appreciated its message. My best friend is black and I couldn’t even imagine calling her a slave or the ‘n’ word. It’s mainly because of how my parents raised me, but I think reading Huck Finn really etched in my brain that using that word is not right and should never be used under any circumstances. I think that when schools ban that book, they’re doing the community a disservice and they’re stunting the intellectual growth of the children of the community.