Speak loudly
I tend to go mostly offline most weekends (except for Four Square! And, of course, Tweeting about Make It or Break It with Adele at Persnickety Snark), so I didn’t even know about the whole Speak Loudly controversy until the very end of Sunday evening, but now that I’m all caught up I want to echo the sentiments of the entire blogosphere when I say, OMG CENSORSHIP IS GIVING ME AN ULCER.
I would never say that books aren’t influencers; after all, that’s tantamount to saying that books don’t have power, and I just don’t believe that. But books, in my experience (and I have been a reader since age three, and a really, really big reader at that, of books at my age level and above and below and everything in between), are about strengthening the human condition, not weakening it by asserting that people should keep low moral values close and not hold themselves to a higher standard of behavior. I have never read one novel whose agenda it is to encourage people to think less, to act worse, or to devalue themselves or others. The purpose of most fiction, at least, is to investigate what it means to be human, to enter into a conversation about how much power we have over our own lives and our own choices, to try to puzzle out just how best to communicate with people, be part of a community, find family, embrace change, to love, live and set forth on a path that will hopefully someday bring us happiness. Maybe I’m just reading the wrong books; maybe there are a bunch of novels out there about just how horrible the world is, and how we should all behave like animals because what else is there to do with our miserable lives but look out for ourselves? But I suspect not. If those novels do exist, and their messages are sincere and all they aspire to be is evil, well, pass them on to me and I’ll get back to you.*
Wesley Scroggins, the man who so vehemently opposes Speak and other books-such as the tried and true classic Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, or Twenty Boy Summer by 2009 debut author Sarah Ockler-is choosing to rush to reaction instead of to think critically about exactly why books like Speak, Slaughterhouse Five, and Twenty Boy Summer are being taught in school. Unless he thinks that the teachers in these schools are actively trying to titillate their students with soft core pornography, which seems pretty unlikely to me considering they are TEACHERS and not Larry Flint, what Scroggins seems to be objecting to is not their messages, but instead the very idea that Laurie Halse Anderson, Sarah Ockler, and Kurt Vonnegut find issues like sex, choice, doubt, anger, fear, remorse, pain, and especially sex, to be important topics of discussion for their readers. He’s not championing morality; he’s actively trying to squash any discussion surrounding difficult topics in favor of limiting ideas about adolescence and sex and violence and faith to one-his.
And this is why books exist. The whole reason all books-not just Speak, but every book written in the history of mankind-are even written is because there is not just one perspective, not just one right answer, not just one experience and not just one thing worth fighting for. It’s why all art exists-poetry, music, movies, television, painting, sculpture, architecture, you name it. By closing your eyes to the reality of human existence and refusing to look at, talk about, or engage with difficult topics, you are closing yourself off from the world and the many things it can teach you. But that’s your business. But to actively hinder others, especially people just coming into their own like teens are, from doing the same is criminal. It really is. And I’m not even saying that parents shouldn’t take an interest in what their children are reading, for school or for pleasure-of course they should! Parents should take an interest in all areas of their children’s lives.
But the thing I believe most fervently is that children (and teens, and adults, too) will put aside books that they aren’t ready to read, for any reason, whether it’s content, or straight up boredom. The thing about books is that they can’t actually hurt you-they’re made of paper and ink. Their ideas are potent, but they’re not going to turn anyone into a slavish zombie who never thinks for themselves ever again and just blindly follows the lead of admittedly fictional characters in a book about events that did not actually occur. In fact, books help create critical thinkers! JUST READ THE BLOGS. And the thing about books that is different from movies-and that’s why they don’t have ratings or ID checks when you’re trying to buy them-is that they’re totally opt-in. A movie, you might not know what you’re going to see until you’re seeing it, and then you just can’t unsee it (not that I’m advocating censorship in movies, of course I’m not). But a book isn’t like that. If its ideas or characters start to bug you or upset you, just can just set it aside and move on to something else. People make those sorts of choices every day. It’s natural, and great! We should be able to pick up and put down books as we see fit. That is the beauty of living in a free society full of choice.
Having read it, I can say for sure that Speak is a powerful, important book about taking power over your own life, the process of recovering from abuse, and not letting your past dictate your future. Rape is what happens in the book, but that-self empowerment, self acceptance, self expression, self love-is what it says, what it means. To dismiss such a deeply important message as soft core pornography is absolutely ridiculous (and, to be honest, downright disgusting and suspect of Monsieur Scroggins). But in order to say the things it says, Speak first has to show you how things got that bad, how the need for the message, for the conversation the book creates, even came about. THAT IS HOW STORIES WORK. God, I’m sorry for all the CAPITAL LETTERS, but seriously. I feel like all of this should just be self-evident, and I’m sure it is to you, dear readers (Mom).
It’s so alarmingly ironic that the book is called Speak and it’s about giving a voice to a survivor of sexual abuse and Scroggins is saying that because the book depicts “immorality”, it should be silenced. I’m sorry, but at the risk of being indelicate about this, that’s just plain stupid. It is. Only stupid people believe that by refusing to talk about something, it goes away. Wesley Scroggins is an idiot.
And I don’t care about him. It’s likely that all of our raging on this topic isn’t going to change this dude’s mind at all, and I couldn’t care less. I couldn’t even care less about the people who are going to read his article and assume Speak is a piece of trash they should shield themselves from-it’s their loss, and God bless them. People are responsible for their own critical thinking and the choices they make as a result of it. But the people who really get hurt here are: 1.) the teachers who obviously felt strongly enough about Speak that they decided to teach it in their schools despite possible controversy, and 2.) the students who may or may not pick the book up outside of the classroom if it’s removed from the curriculum, but who will definitely miss out on the opportunity to discuss it as a group in their classroom with their peers.
I often think about what my policy about media consumption in my household might be when I have children. When I was a kid, my TV watching was monitored, as was my movie going, but I don’t ever remember being told not to read a certain book. I had the run of my parents’ bookshelves; I don’t know that my parents ever deliberately made sure I wasn’t reading anything “bad”, but I sure didn’t hide what I was reading from them-I left books all over the house, splayed open upon coffee table and arm rest and kitchen counter. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to figure out what it was I was reading, and I don’t ever remember having books kept from me, even, like, The Clan of the Cave Bear. I don’t know if I’ve ever asked my parents why this is, but I assume it’s because they’re readers and they understand the value of the written word. They also probably had way more faith in their parenting than to think that some random novel was going to scar me for life and transform me into an immoral person-I mean, their influence had way more to do with how I turned out than one freaking book, no matter how good it is.
Not being fool enough to say “this is the kind of parent I’m going to be!” when I am not a parent yet and probably won’t be for a while, I’ll just say that my parents’ strategy worked for me and I’m likely to continue the pattern. I think literature is just about the safest place for children, teens, and adults, too, to be challenged in a real way. Speak does that, and parents and school administrators who are denying their kids and students the opportunity to discover things for themselves within its pages are committing a far greater moral crime than any book ever has.*
*Except Mein Kampf and the like, obviously. Here I am talking about fiction, not propaganda or political manifestos.
Originally published at AnnaJarzab.com