Banned Books Week seems a bit exaggerated, doesn’t it? Sure, there are people who want to suppress certain books. The urge to ban reads has a certain appeal, but let’s be honest here. A challenge to a book doesn’t equate to an outright ban, right? Disputes in school libraries aren’t exactly on par with historical events like the Palmer raids. When a parent questions the reading material for their 11-year-old, it doesn’t quite resurrect figures like Anthony Comstock either.
Words should carry their weight. But the American Library Association (ALA) has been muddying these waters for years. Every October, we get the same act: librarians as the champions for freedom, readers as the fearless rebels, and classic novels being treated like they’re somehow forbidden treasures. Just last weekend, I saw a display at a Barnes & Noble in Southern California where books like “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “Nineteen Eighty-Four” were pushed as “banned.” A little overblown, don’t you think?
The ALA contends that “ban” has a specific meaning. They argue that a book doesn’t need to vanish from shelves to be considered banned. If it’s removed from a school or library, it fits their criteria. But here’s the thing: taking a book out of a single library collection isn’t the same as stamping it out of existence. Just because there’s a restriction doesn’t automatically mean there’s a ban. I think it’s reasonable to expect clarity from an organization that’s supposed to be all about promoting literature.
Censorship in America has a history, a real history. Back in 1926, H.L. Mencken sold a magazine issue known as the “Hatrack” that had been deemed obscene, and he got arrested. He won in court. The Postal Service even stepped in, declaring the issue un-mailable. If that had stuck, Mencken could have seen his magazine die out.
The government clamped down on dissent too. For instance, during World War I, Woodrow Wilson’s administration imprisoned Eugene V. Debs for an anti-war speech. Radical roundups occurred in the Palmer raids. In Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court upheld the conviction of a man simply handing out anti-draft flyers.
That’s real censorship, where the authority is definitely serious about it. Yes, some school boards make questionable decisions. I remember back in 2013 when a North Carolina board yanked Ralph Ellison’s “Invisible Man,” claiming it had “no literary value.” They backtracked just nine days later after ridicule poured in. Or take the Riverside County school district in California that briefly pulled Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary over a parent’s objection to the definition of “oral sex.” That dictionary is back on the shelves now too.
When someone acts foolishly, another steps up to object, and typically, the initial actor backs down. That’s kind of how freedom plays out. And no, Ron DeSantis didn’t ban books in Florida. He simply implemented laws about what public schools can include in their libraries and classrooms. Calling every restriction a ban turns a policy discussion into an absurd debate.
Azar Nafisi, who knows genuine censorship from her time in Iran, speaks about “literature as resistance” in her work, “Read Dangerously.” She ponders how we could confront an enemy without mimicking or yielding to them. It’s an interesting question, for sure. Reading under oppressive regimes can indeed represent a form of resistance.
But we have to be clear: America is not Iran. If we’re going to toss the term “dangerous” around, let’s use it thoughtfully. A truly dangerous book isn’t just any title someone raises an eyebrow at. It’s a book that has such a poor reputation that people dismiss it without reading it. It’s a book that’s hard to find, or one a publisher stops printing. For example, Jean Raspail’s “The Camp of the Saints,” published in 1973, gets branded as a racist anti-immigrant text, but I found it to be about far more than that.
Raspail’s true targets are the politicians and thinkers who lack the courage to uphold their own values. For years, getting an English version was a challenge, and even recently, Amazon briefly yanked it from their inventory. But it was restored after complaints. That’s a book with a dangerous reputation, doing most of the heavy lifting for critics who don’t delve into it themselves.
So, I suggest you pick up books by Raspail, Evola, and Rushdie, not to mention Nafisi and Ellison. Explore insights from authors that might irk your friends. Read the contested books or those supposedly infamous titles. Or not—it’s your choice. There’s no inherent virtue in merely purchasing a controversial book. Just because you buy “Nineteen Eighty-Four” doesn’t mean you’re a literary giant.
And please, let’s drop the pretense. Don’t conflate a challenge with a ban, nor claim a book is inaccessible just because it’s on a display table. And don’t assume that picking up a notable novel everyone can buy is some form of subversion. We’re debating banned books in a country where too many hardly pick up a book at all.
Mencken once noted that those who dared to disrupt the norm—like throwing dead cats into sanctuaries—ultimately showed that doubt was nonetheless safe. He had a point. So, if you feel inclined, read dangerously. Just read.
