Pat Conroy Writes Letter to the Editor on His Books Being Banned
Submitted by kingrat on Tue, 2007-11-06 16:54."My knowledge of mountain lore is strong enough to know the dangers of refusing to help a Hatfield of West Virginia. I also do not mess with McCoys."
"People cuss in my books. People cuss in my real life. I cuss, especially at Citadel basketball games. I’m perfectly sure that Steve Shamblin and other teachers prepared their students well for any encounters with ... profanity in my books."
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wow...they ban this book for profanity but what about movies with extreme violence that welcome 13 years old and up? Something doesnt measure up here.....
By "ban" they mean "remove from the curriculum." It's not exactly banning like forbidding the publishing or distribution of the books in bookstores or the library. It's a form of censorship, but it's limited to the school setting.
So it's not exactly analogous to banning violent movies. It might be if the schools were using "Full Metal Jacket" in the history curriculum on Viet Nam, and then pulled that movie due to an outcry. But such movies are rarely used in a school setting in the first place.
Rat's Reading - http://reading.kingrat.biz/
My main problem with this "banning" of Pat Conroy's novels is that it is extraneous. The kids who had a problem with the books or whose parents had a problem with the books were given alternate books. These parents don't want to stop their own kids from reading the books, they want to stop everyone in the school system from reading the books as part of the curriculum. This class is essentially a college-level course and if parents think they can shielf their children from rape and violence on a college campus, they are sorely mistaken.