Freedom

by
Erik Oosterwal



This past weekend I was at my favorite store, Barnes & Noble. My wife needed a couple reference books for school so I took my two sons into the large children's section so that they could look at the books. I told them that they could each pick one book to buy.

While they were busy, I started looking around at the various sections in the the children's area so I could keep one eye on the boys. There is a sports section (where my sons were looking), a special display for a book that Walt Disney is basing a movie on about a giant peach, there was a rack of Hardy Boys mysteries, Nancy Drew was along side those, lots of Berenstain Bears books, various classics like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Rabbit... I settled myself in the science area for a while, showing the kids things like fresnel lenses, magnets, and x-ray pictures, then I wandered over to a section entitled 'Development'. They have all kinds titles to help kids (and parents) cope with some of the social issues that have come up lately. There's books to help toddlers potty train, cope with new baby brothers and sisters, learn what divorce means, what a step mom or dad is. There were books on puberty and various bodily functions. Then I saw a book title that shocked me a little: "Daddy's Roommate".

Now I consider myself to be very open minded about such things, and I even like doing and saying things to shock people, but it was a little unsettling to see a book cover that showed a small child in a row boat with two men entitled "Daddy's Roommate". "Oh well", I thought to myself. "There are cases where a book like this could make a big difference in the psychological development of a child who grows up in a non-traditional family." My wife came by after finding her books, and I showed it too her. She was a bit surprised, like me, and later that day she joked that she was offended that they didn't have a similar book for homosexual mothers.

I got to thinking about this, and did a little research. As it turns out, there IS a children's book for this called "Heather has two Mommies".

These two books were among a list of literature that has been banned or censored in some way during our history. The situation for these books was this: Both the books were in the children's section in the Lawrence, New Jersey public library. Keith Smith, a resident, was offended by "Daddy's Roommate" and complained to the library commission and the county executive. They removed both books from the children's section and placed them in the parenting section.

My researching got a bit more interesting as I looked at the titles of other books that have been censored: Ulysses, Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Slaughter House Five, the Bible... 106 in my list.

An illustrated edition of "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned from two California school districts in 1989 because the heroine was bringing food and wine to her grandmother. The school boards were concerned about the use of alcohol in the story.

In 1925 John T. Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution theory from Darwin's "Origin of Species" in his high school class. Tennessee had a law prohibiting teaching evolution until 1967.

The Bible has been banned, censored, and burned many times during history for reasons like 'radical thoughts' and 'pornography'.

In 1973, a North Dakota high school English teacher ordered "Slaughter House Five" for one of his classes. The school custodian burned 32 copies of the book because the school board considered it to be pornographic.

I was reading these cases of censorship and not only was I more shocked at this censorship than I was about "Daddy's Roommate", I was getting ticked off. Shouldn't censorship start in the home? Shouldn't I have the right to decide what is best not only for my children, but also for myself? All this censorship reminded me of a dark time in America's history.

The story goes like this: Two young girls, 9 yr. Elizabeth Parris and 11 yr. Abigail Williams started to exhibit strange behaviour such as blasphemous screaming and and convulsive seizures. The doctors were called but could not find any physical problems so they concluded that the girls were under the influence of Satan. Prayer meetings were held by the minister. The girls were pressured into revealing the identity of the the source of the afflictions and gave the names of three women: Sarah Good, Sarah Osborne, and Tituba, the Parris' Caribbean house maid.

Over the next four months many more people were accused of being witches. By October, twenty people had been executed as witches, and four others died in prison.

Where do our freedoms lie? Do we have the right to restrict other people's freedom just because their beliefs or actions are different from ours? Why do we have war memorials to honor those who have died for our freedoms? Did they die so that we could continue our witch hunts?

These people parade about with an ounce of perception for every pound they obscure. They scare us into finding conclusions that we wouldn't come up with ourselves. I say it's time to stop the witch hunts in the book stores and libraries and start opening our eyes to the multitude of experiences that people have written for us. Let's exercise our freedom from ignorance and learn to embrace new thoughts and experiences.



Copyright Erik Oosterwal 1996 - 2004
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