Those Who Ban Books are Never the Heroes of the Story
Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day and inappropriately timed is news that a Tennessee school board has removed, aka banned, Maus from the curriculum due to “language and nudity” concerns.
Maus is the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the experiences of Holocaust survivors. The Tennessee school board of McMinn County voted 10-0 to remove the book from the curriculum to be replaced by another book that didn’t feature “objectionable” content. Maus is based on Spiegelman’s parents in 1940s Poland, their experiences of anti-Semitism, and their internment in Auschwitz. Jewish people are depicted as mice and Nazis as cats.
McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison stated:
The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that.
The word “damn” was brought up as an example of an objectionable word.
Talking to CNN’s New Day, Spiegelman said:
I’m trying to, like, wrap my brain around it. …I moved past total bafflement to try to be tolerant of people who may possibly not be Nazis, maybe… They’re totally focused on some bad words that are in the book. I can’t believe the word ‘damn’ would get the book jettisoned out of the school on its own.
I think they’re so myopic in their focus and they’re so afraid of what’s implied and having to defend the decision to teach ‘Maus’ as part of the curriculum that it lead to this kind of daffily myopic response.
English language arts instructional supervisors spoke out at the meeting explainging why the book was used in the curriculum.
Board member Tony Allman showed further ignorance by stating:
We don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff. It shows people hanging, it shows them killing kids, why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy.
Allman apparently is more offended of reminding people about the six million murdered than the six million murdered. One wonders what Allman thinks about teaching the reality of slavery, and Jim Crow in the United States which also saw hangings and kids being killed.
An instructional surpervisor responded:
I was a history teacher, and there is nothing pretty about the Holocaust, and, for me, this was a great way to depict a horrific time in history.
Mr. Spiegelman did his very best to depict his mother passing away, and we are almost 80 years away. It’s hard for this generation. These kids don’t even know 9/11. They were not even born. For me, this was his way to convey the message.
Board member Mike Cochran stated in the meeting:
I went to school here 13 years. I learned math, English, reading and history. I never had a book with a naked picture in it, never had one with foul language. … So, this idea that we have to have this kind of material in the class in order to teach history, I don’t buy it.
We highly doubt that was reality and sure Cochran has no issue with the violence, rape, and murder that is depicted in the Bible.
The issue isn’t as it stands isn’t about dropping Maus for another text to teach about the Holocaust. It’s calling it “obscenity”, a slippery slope of a claim. Even the preacher of Footloose realized their mistake and what a slope that claim is. It should also be noted that no text has been suggested to replace Maus showing that part of the argument is dubious at best.
This is the latest example of book banning that is being pushed by right-wing provocateurs to make gains politically by stoking “culture wars”.
As has been shown, a dark money network is funding campaigns against “Critical Race Theory”, something not being taught in schools. This book banning is an off-shoot of that showing these pushes are about as natural as an oral bowel movement. The “movement” is being used as a wedge issue to whip up voters and by the right since they have nothing else to run on. It pits parents vs. bureaucrats (and teachers), a match that’s pretty easy to get traction on. The movement has been working for decades and continues the right-wing push to take over at the local level, first at the state and now even lower to get their regressive agenda passed.
The controversy and backwards thinking has just shined a greater spotlight on Maus causing it to sell out and rocket to #1 in numerous lists.
I recently a watched a movie on Netflix called Come Sunday starring Chewitel Ejitofor, Condola Rashad, Danny Glover and Jason Segal. In the movie, Ejitofr’s character questioned the existence of hell. This created a firestorm in his life which showed him his enemies from his friends. Eventually he would lose everything and truly look to understand why God put him in that position, which is something many Christians often paraphrase “God only gives you what you can handle.”
A version of this originally ran January 2016.
Indeed, many of the greatest names in American comics are often the first generation born in the new country, such as Art Speigelman (the author of Maus), Bill Finger (co-creator of Batman, Green Lantern, and many many others), Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster (the men who created Superman). Even Bob Kane‘s (Batman‘s other co-creator) parents were of Eastern European Jewish descent. The point I am attempting to make here is that the sons of Jewish immigrants created some of our biggest super heroes, and some of our greatest stories.
In terms of the more traditional Earthbound type of immigration, the of moving between countries, look at almost the entire second team of X-Men; Banshee, Colossus, Nightcrawler, Sunfire, Storm and Wolverine are all from countries other than the US. You know what that makes them, eh?
