Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

This "ban" is removal of the book from required curriculum for 8th graders rather than from the library system, which is what traditionally referred to as a "book ban". Not that I agree with this particular decision, but school boards must be able to make decisions for what is appropriate in their district. It should be just as easy to add a book to the curriculum as to remove it without summoning undue unwelcome outside attention that something sinister is going on.

I looked briefly through rather lengthy minutes [1] of the meeting. Objections seem to come down to usage of words like "bitch" and phrases like "god damn" that students would get in trouble for using in the hallways according to existing school rules. The participants seemed quite queazy about saying the objectionable words themselves and instead either referred by their abbreviations or spelling them out by letter.

One part of the discussion that was also interesting was they considered censoring the book with whiteout for the offending words and one naked drawing but decided against it. They thought they need to get permission from the author because of copyright laws. I believe these kind of redactions are considered fair use for education under copyright laws.

[1] https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_...

It's very important to reserve the use of "banned" for actual bans, this kind of misuse is apparently very common when something like this happens.

That having been said, the people debating the issue seem to be grossly intellectually unqualified to be deciding anything regarding the education of others, which should be very concerning.

> the people debating the issue seem to be grossly intellectually unqualified to be deciding anything regarding the education of others

I'd say they have the one qualification that actually matters here: they were elected specifically for this purpose by the residents of the school district.

Consider that these people are also likely eligible for jury duty, which could very well mean that they would be considered qualified to literally condemn someone to death. Thought of in that light, removing a book from the local school's curriculum seems downright inconsequential.

Maus, and works like it, are powerful because they show the history of the holocaust through the eyes of those who survived it. This recollection will include the way the corpses were piled naked, or the verbal abuse they suffered. The intention of this board may not have been to water down or remove history, but this sort of knee-jerk reaction to anything objectionable will do just that by removing some of the most visceral works. The photo of “napalm girl” at the burning of Trang Bang village is deeply moving, and historically important - yet it includes full frontal nudity. Any attempt to “correct” something like this - whether it be with black bars, a blur, or with a photoshopped on shirt - would cheapen the impact of the image and dilute reality. Any attempt to censor Maus would be the same - a cheapening of the recollection of a survivor of a horrific event. Regardless of intention, exorcising or modifying works like these for superficial reasons despite their value will result in a watering down of history, simply because the real history is often crude or objectionable.

I don't know if it's possible to traumatize people by showing them pictures, but it seems like it would be, so it may be wise to delay some things for, say, college or highschool.

Oh, I would say it's definitely possible.

As evidence, I present this photograph, captioned: "A Congolese man looking at the severed hand and foot of his five-year-old daughter who was killed, and allegedly cannibalized, by the members of Anglo-Belgian India Rubber Company militia."

https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/father-hand-belgian-congo-1...

Perhaps it would be better to merely tell grade school students that this stuff happens, and only show them when they're too old to be traumatized.

Yeah, there's a big difference between "we're not going to force everyone's children to read this book" and "we're banning this book".

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