Reading Lolita in Montana

We went to an interesting panel discussion yesterday concerning experiences with censorship within Montana's highschool english lit departments. A number of the panelists discussed their run-ins with local parents, churches, school boards or administrations over particular works of fiction they had in their curriculums. The greatest number of challenges seem to come from conservative Christians (not much in the way of other faith communities here) and they generally concern sex but it was telling that Fools Crow ,by Montana author James Welch, had generated so much controversy. The sexual content is miniscule but Welch is a native and the book is about the native experience and apparently this is not something some folks feel their children need to be educated about.

My perspective on the whole thing is that rather than educators always being on the defensive and always worrying about the oh-so-subjective "community standards"or dominant attitudes, they should be out there challenging all conventions and morays at every chance and this includes proposing ever more and more "challenging" works of literature to be included in curriculums. Democracy is a messy business and the dissemination of ideas one of the messyist aspects of it. The tension which results is a GOOD thing and those of us who advocate that ideas are never scary or harmful in and of themselves (this should include all educators) need to be on the front lines , taking the fight to the thought police rather than fighting rear-guard battles in fear. Attitudes are shaped and one of the best ways for this to happen is the process of fighting, in a civil manner, over content. Easy for me to say, Im not an untenured , single parent teacher fighting to make her car payment but in principle..

By the way, Happy Birthday to Me ,born in 1953! The year Mussadiq was overthrown in a CIA supported coup, Nasser took power in Egypt, the cease-fire was signed in Korea, the USSR aquired the hydrogen bomb, Stalin died (thankfully, sonia) Rosenbergs executed, Arbentz overthrown by CIA trained forces in Guatemala, Castro attacks barracks at Santiago, one million southern blacks registered to vote (20%). Go Niners.