Censorship. What Is Happening? Dr. Ed Iannuccilli
Monday, May 02, 2022
When I was a kid the Legion of Decency, an organization dedicated to identifying for Catholic audiences, objectionable content in motion pictures, imposed itself (or so I thought) upon me. They listed movies that were prohibited because they were morally offensive. In our religious education classes, we were warned that we might suffer the consequences if we saw those movies. I don’t remember the penalties, but as soon as The Legion banned a movie, off we raced to see it.
We faithful were instructed to stay away from the unacceptable content. But for us, it was the sexually explicit content that we wanted to see; something racy enough to satisfy an adolescent’s spicy appetite, so we started, with minimal hesitation, on the trail of immorality.
I saw ‘The Moon is Blue’ and others, maybe ‘Outlaw’, that I don’t remember. Censored or not, we survived, uncorrupted. We considered those films part of our education.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTNow the censorship game has reared its ugly head again, and I’m not sure why. This time, book suppression and restriction are leading the list.
Here are some of today’s current (suggested) banned books that I read in my youth: Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Catcher in the Rye, The Great Gatsby, Grapes of Wrath . . . exceptional writing by outstanding authors. What if I had not been able to read them? What if they were not in my library? I could not imagine them not being there.
I was guided through those books by teachers who understood education, who understood freedom and the path to maturity. They understood the importance of releasing a student to engage in inquisitive thought. To take away intellectual freedom and affect creativity was unacceptable. My teachers grasped the power of the mind; the one thing we owned outright. I may have been stunned by James Joyce’s work, but I survived and was better educated thereof.
What is happening now? A Texas state lawmaker is targeting materials that "might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex." He wants to remove books from libraries and classrooms if they center on issues ranging from transgender identity to critical race theory. What? Suppressive censorship? He must be kidding!
Values of integrity, honesty, educational imperative, and moral conscience are learned in the home. It is parents who should advise their children about enhancing their education, and doing it with the help of professional educators (disagreement and discussion acceptable), not overreaching politicians seeking political capital on a witch hunt.
Why are books dealing with sexuality, racism, and U.S. history feared? I would ask those who promote censorship, “What do you fear? What are your issues?”
In 1933, Helen Keller wrote this sentence about censorship: “You can burn my books, but the ideas in them have seeped through a million channels and will continue to quicken other minds.”
Take heed those of you who try to delay the minds of the young. It may backfire.
Dr. Ed Iannuccilli is the author of three popular memoirs, “Growing up Italian; Grandfather’s Fig Tree and Other Stories”, “What Ever Happened to Sunday Dinner” and “My Story Continues: From Neighborhood to Junior High.” NOW, he has written his fourth book "A Whole Bunch of 500 Word Stories."
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