Tennessee news has my stomach churning. To comply with the legislature’s newly mandated guidelines, Knox County Schools recently banned several books including Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel Roots, which depicts the horrors of enslavement.
Two weeks later, the county director of schools reinstated the book, and some members of the board have now presented resolutions to include examination of literary nuances that blanket policies fail to consider. Indeed, distinguishing merit versus potential harm of literature involves even more complexity than what shade of orange to wear to a game between the University of Tennessee versus the University of Texas.
Brad Bull
When I was in sixth grade, my family’s TV couldn’t pick up the ABC network. Plus, my bedtime was 8 p.m., so, I didn’t get to watch the popular miniseries Roots. Instead, at the Jefferson Elementary School library — one county east of Knox County — I checked out and read the book.
I’m so glad I read Roots in sixth grade. But now it’s been banned in accordance with the “Age Appropriate Materials Act” passed to eliminate books that “contain nudity or descriptions or depictions of sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse.”
I’ll admit the violence and sex in Roots are pretty strong. But so are parts of the Bible — like one introduced to me by one my middle school female classmates:
Your lips distill nectar, my bride; honey and milk are under your tongue; the scent of your garments is like the scent of Lebanon. A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed. Your channel is an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits, henna with nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes, with all chief spices — a garden fountain, a well of living water, and flowing streams from Lebanon.
That’s not from Roots; that’s from Song of Solomon.
Evangelicals are less discerning about what is age-appropriate in the Bible than in other literature.
I did my pre-dissertation thesis on the use of media as a counseling tool. And I wrote my dissertation on how parents can use media to teach critical thinking and healthy behavior. One thing I learned is that discerning what media content is health-promoting and what is dangerous for kids is very complex, and how to monitor and regulate it is very complicated.
For instance, my father grew up in McMinn County, the home of the young man who cast the deciding vote to pass the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. A few years ago, their school board voted to eliminate the graphic autobiography Maus from the eighth grade curriculum. While many of my fellow progressives were crying “antisemitism,” I wrote an article asserting this book on the Holocaust had elements that led even a Jewish rabbi to say it wasn’t appropriate for eighth grade required reading. Tweens prone to cutting don’t need to be forced to view an image of a woman slitting her wrists in a bathtub. Even Victor Frankl’s uplifting Holocaust memoir Man’s Search for Meaning has a juvenile edition.
Context is everything. Some stories make violence and promiscuous sex look inviting, while others signal children to dangers. Our rating system doesn’t account for this distinction. There’s a huge difference between the gratuitous violence in Rambo versus the tragic violence portrayed in Schindler’s List. The movie XXX is sexually provocative and ridiculously violent. But since it was merely rated PG-13, a family I knew would let their children watch it, but they refused to let their older teen sons watch Saving Private Ryan or The Passion of the Christ because they were rated R.
Sorry, but that’s a misguided reliance on a rating system that’s based on rote content rather than overall message.
However, we do need to consider age appropriateness. My 10-year-old daughter handled G-rated The Incredibles just fine. My 4-year-old son, not so much.
Blanket-approach book banning is half-baked and short-sighted.
Another book on the list is Go Ask Alice. My father was appalled I found it on a middle school shelf. But let me tell you: It so grossed me out, I successfully committed to avoiding drugs and other common youthful indiscretions — just like when my dad made me watch a movie scene of a man going through severe drug withdrawals.
And watching The Hiding Place at age 11 horrified me, but it steeled my resolve against antisemitism and authoritarianism. As a father myself, I cherish the memory of reading together The Kite Runner, which my son was assigned in school.
I’m really weary of Christianity being exploited for power mongering that doesn’t reflect Christ and that drives people from faith. That’s what we need to ban.
Brad Bull is a descendant of the Revolutionary War gunsmith who founded Bulls Gap, Tenn. He’s a Ph.D. graduate of the University of Tennessee.
Related articles:
Understanding the legacy of Roots after 50 years | Opinion by Edmond Davis
The shame is mine: ‘Roots’ 2016 | Opinion by Alan Sherouse