Greg Sergeant of the Washington Post reviews the decision in Florida to ban Amanda Gorman’s Inaugural poem, keeping it out of the reach of elementary age children. Librarians are just following orders, as DeSantis knew they would. He doesn’t need to name the books. Hyper-vigilant parents do his dirty work for him.
At this point, it should be obvious that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s culture-war directives are designed to encourage parents to indulge in book purges for sport. Precisely because removals have become so easy, lone right-wing actors are feverishly hunting for offending titles, getting them pulled from school libraries on absurdly flimsy grounds, sometimes by the dozens.
A new turn in the explosive saga involving the poem that Amanda Gorman read at President Biden’s inauguration underscores the point. DeSantis is now defending a Florida school’s decision to restrict access to “The Hill We Climb” — a move that has become a national controversy.
“It was a book of poems that was in an elementary school library,” DeSantis told a convention on Friday, though it was in fact one poem. DeSantis insisted the school district in question merely “moved it from the elementary school library to the middle school library,” and ripped “legacy media” for calling this a “ban,” complaining of a “poem hoax.”
That’s a shameless but revealing characterization of what happened. It’s true that Gorman’s poem was removed from the elementary school section of the library at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes and that access was preserved for middle school students. But this came in response to an objection from one parent.
The woman who complained about Amanda Gorman’s poem filled out a card. She thought the poem was written by Oprah Winfrey. She admitted that she had not read Gorman’s poem.
It turns out that Amanda Gorman’s poem is not freely available to students in middle school. As the Washington Post reported, a student must request it from a media specialist, then prove that they can read at a fifth-grade level. Otherwise it is restricted.
Imagine having to take a test to check out a book with one poem in it!
The reality of what DeSantis and Moms for Liberty are doing is now clear to everyone: With a combination of lies, misinformation and intimidation, they want to create an America where it’s easier for a white supremacist to ban a book than it is for a Black child to read a poem.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Gil Scott Herron always comes to mind when “looking for the truth.”
One poem. One story. One article written the way THEY want, eh?
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/heronblackhistory.html
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From merely a public policy perspective, this should be a wake up call. It is a template, not just an event. If one person’s targeted ignorance can change policy for all, it is an expression of enforcement and process that will be common — and already has been historically in this nation in differing guises — in American fascism.
Singular “citizens” who agree with political intent of powerful or prevailing interests will always overrule numbers and facts based on deliberate examination, the scientific method, and open, fair, and accessible public debate. Regardless of the issue, this should be of great concern. And when media sources don’t point this out, they are a major part of the problem. This is about much more than one poem, one school district, or one state’s policy. This is a preview of where our transforming legal and governing systems are headed. Full implementation scheduled to begin in earnest by January 2025.
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Dissenters should use mechanisms like this to challenge and remove any and all religious texts from libraries.
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FLERP,
I know you are doing your customary “devil’s advocate” thing, but I for one don’t want any book banned. Do you?
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This wasn’t a devil’s advocate thing. I’m serious—this is a mechanism that effectively allows parents to make censorship decisions with a single objection. Why not abuse that mechanism and make it collapse under its own administrative weight?
I’m generally anti-censorship but I’m not an absolutist. I can absolutely imagine material that I consider inappropriate for school libraries, or for elementary student sections in school libraries. I don’t think Gorman’s poem is inappropriate for either, but some things are. For example, I would not object to the removal of the book Gender Queer from the elementary student section of a K-8 library.
I’m smiling now remembering the recent discussion here about whether Smith’s graduate school social work was “banning” the use of the word “field” and whether that constituted censorship. One commenter was extremely adamant that there was no “ban” because the school had simply directed its employees to stop using the word in certain contexts, but students remained free to use the term in their own speech. For some reason I suspect that commenter will not appear in this thread and argue that moving Gorman’s poem from one section of the library to another is not a “ban.”
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FLERP, there are several major religions in the US, hundreds of Christian sects, and hundreds of translations of the Bible just in English.
Do you want to remove all religious texts from libraries for every religion and sect or just the fundamentalists that call themselves Christians when they are not?
Individuals must be free to decide what books they want to check out and study/read. If anyone has the right to decide what a child reads, it is that child’s parent and no one else.
Here’s where I laugh. Once a child reaches adolescents, the odds are that he or she will find a copy of what their parents wouldn’t let them read and read it anyway.
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I think it is totally disingenuous for FLERP! to say that we can just do the same thing and get a religious text banned.. It isn’t any “one” person. It is “one” person cited by people in power as their excuse. It doesn’t matter if 100 people objected to a religious text if those in power like it.
This woman, who apparently has a history of posting offensive racist memes, got her wish because her views reflect the views of those in power.
No one “censored” the word “field”. Smith College chose to start using a different word to describe their former “field work” requirement. Just like at some point years ago, Smith College chose to start using women instead of “ladies” or “girls” to describe their students. Or started referring to women as “Ms” instead of Miss or Mrs.
I will point out that one reason I tried to reason with people trying to equate what Smith College and USC did as “censorship” is because I had been there. I heard the Riush Limbaughs ranting about feminazis “censoring” language whenever a university or anyone else announced a policy change about using Ms instead of Miss in official documents. It minimizes the real censorship that goes on.
And officially declaring that Amanda Gorman’s poem is not allowed to be read by grade school students because of its official content is in no way equivalent to a university social work program deciding to change a department name or how they refer to required coursework that must be completed outside of the classroom and where typical social work clients are. And social work students don’t work with their clients in a field. Nor was the word field ever banned or censored, although there was a suggestion that students in the program should consider how they used it.
The false equivalency of banning Amanda Gorman’s poem from an elementary school library based on a single racist person’s declaration that there is something wrong with the content is censorship. Deciding to use Ms instead of Miss is NOT censorship. Nor is deciding to use a word other than “field”.
If Rush Limbaugh wants to belittle the use of Ms, that is different than calling it “censorship” if a university decides to change its practice and start using Ms instead of Miss. Calling that censorship is simply wrong. Just like calling Smith College’s decision to use a word other than “field” is wrong.
This mother didn’t make fun of Amanda Gorman’s poem and belittle it. She demanded it be BANNED. I have no idea what flerp!’s agenda is, but it’s a lot more than playing “devil’s advocate”. It is about constantly makeing false equivalencies.
And it is the height of hypocrisy for someone who posts edited video clips of hapless educators from unknown people’s twitter feeds – twitter feeds designed to sow outrage against diversity – to profess to just want to have a serious discussion.
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^^^^correction:
“And officially declaring that Amanda Gorman’s poem is not allowed to be read by grade school students because of its OFFENSIVE content…..”
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Lloyd, I’m proposing a bit of “administrative terrorism,” if I may coin the term, to gum up the works of a process that shouldn’t be allowed to decide whether a book gets pulled from a shelf. There is no guiding principle to it other than to make the process unmanageable.
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Oh boy here’s the old “Ms.” discussion again!
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Why do you consider the use of Ms “censorship”, flerp!?
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FLERP: The way things are going, I would not be ok with any book that is currently in a school library being banned/removed. This is a time for principles, not preferences.
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I’m glad to hear that you oppose banning books. They don’t get there by chance. Librarians read reviews and choose them.
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I think I get you, FLERP. One of the reason’s Youngkin’s tattle-on-a-teacher “tipline” was abandoned [reportedly] was that parents and students flooded it with praise for their teachers. But I don’t think we could find enough open-minded people to protest banning by individuals via filing complaints against religious material in school libraries. Because they don’t support it, so it would be disingenuous. How about good old-fashioned organizing: flood the supt’s, govr’s, & school boards’ in-boxes with emails and letters protesting the policy?
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Being CONSIDERATE is not “censorship”. Condemning something offensive is not “censorship”.
Does flerp! consider the fact that many people condemn white people performing in Blackface “censorship”? It is not. Censorship would be arresting them for it. Prosecuting them for it.
The far right – with help by propaganda similar to what we see here – as done a good job of equating condemning something offensive – which many on the left do — with the censorship and banning that those on the right do.
At a so-called “liberal” college, a privileged professor whines that they can’t use offensive words anymore without a student objecting to it. At conservative colleges, everyone who uses an expression that is not approved by the far right is fired. Or, in the future Republican utopia — arrested and executed.
Orwell understood the difference.
We already have SENSIBLE limiting of books available in elementary school libraries that is done by trained educators/librarian who have considered appropriate content. That isn’t censorship.
But allowing a random parent to decide because her views correspond to those of the people in power seems to be the hallmark of far right politics.
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I wish I had resisted the urge to make a mischievous reference to the infamous Smith College comment thread, where you flipped your lid and typed 100 comments because you were completely outraged that the other commenters found the graduate school’s attempt to expunge the use of the term field within the graduate school to be silly.
My only point, which I agree I shouldn’t have made but which has been completely borne out here, is that there would be a 100% chance that you would (1) object wildly to any characterization of Smith’s policy as a “ban” but also (2) object wildly to the slightest suggestion that moving a book from one part of a library to another is a “ban.”
For the record (if any of this constitutes a “record”), I don’t know if either of those things is a “ban.” I don’t really have a good working definition of what a “ban” is around the margins.
But I do think that both things are forms of censorship. The library is restricting access to a book—that’s a form of censorship. The Smith grad school “field” policy is less pernicious but it is still a policing of language from the top down, which I also consider a form of censorship.
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Thank you for making the false equivalency clear.
Smith College using Ms instead of Miss, or using “women” instead of “ladies”, or one single division of the Social Work Department using “remote work” instead of “field work” is “policing language” and is as dangerous as a public elementary school library banning a perfectly reasonable poem by a Black author because a single racist parent objects.
Got it. Enough said.
The far right confuses being considerate of others with censorship, and is able to minimize the serious harm done by real censorship by bringing up ridiculous examples that are NOT in any way, shape or form equivalent to “censorship” or “banning” something.
Rush Limbaugh types made that false equivalency, accusing colleges who changes their policies to start using Ms and referring to female students as women of “censorship” or “banning” the use of Miss and Mrs. It wasn’t. Banning a book from an elementary school library IS censorship.
It doesn’t surprise me that the same person who posts edited videos of hapless educators saying something about diversity in order to condemn diversity programs would also make these types of false equivalencies here.
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^^Most folks here are outraged that Amanda Gorman’s poem is banned. They weren’t outraged about Smith College because – at worst – it was silly, not censorship.
I assume that flerp! brought up the Smith College Social Work change in language because flerp! wanted to minimize what the Florida school did as “silly”.
Banning Amanda Gorman’s poem from an elementary school library because a racist parent didn’t like it wasn’t silly. It was censorship. Stop making false equivalencies.
Being “silly” isn’t dangerous. In fact, people thought Ms was “silly” too, until they didn’t. Because those who tried to eliminate the use of Ms by accusing those using it of “censorship” were marginalized. We’ve stopped doing that, and democracy is in grave danger.
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Your assumption, as usual, is wrong.
Type some more about “Ms.” though.
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Your non-answer, as usual, is expected, flerp!
I repeat my point about the false equivalencies you made here:
Banning Amanda Gorman’s poem from an elementary school library because a racist parent didn’t like it wasn’t “silly”. It was censorship. What Smith College Social Work program did was NOT censorship. Stop making false equivalencies.
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May I help, nycpsp? Because I think put your finger on it, but buried the lede.
It is true that progressives have utilized public pressure and the complaint process to get a few classics removed from assigned reading/ classroom discussion [but not from school libraries] due to proliferation of racial and handicapped slurs. [A debatable issue. One could argue that these books work in class if there is a focus on the use of language in its historical context, done at an age where such nuance can be digested.]
That is a far, far cry from using vaguely-worded state legislation to encourage lawsuits against districts, librarians, teachers. Or politicizing local complaint processes with state bullying to the point where a tiny minority (or one complainant) can alter curriculum for an entire district without consulting the public.
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NYCPSP. I really want to thank you for bringing the whole use of “field” in our everyday language to our attention. My initial response was that it was a little strange, “what in the world are they talking about?” It took a couple of days to, as Wayne says in Letterkenny, “marinate.” And the more I thought about it, the more I understood the point. First, it didn’t matter whether it made sense to me, but it was to understand why it did to administrators at Smith, which is a legit school. And when I did that, I began to realize their point, and even though it hadn’t ever occurred to me before. I used the term all the time, and all of a sudden I caught myself whenever I was going to write or say it and asked, “is there another way of expressing this?” Personally, I don’t think that’s asking too much of anyone. And if you think it is, perhaps why that is so is the real question needing to be asked.
I spent last week speaking to very educated people who deal with other people all the time and are as apolitical as one will find today. During the chit-chat starting the interviews and getting some biographical information, the word “field” came up quickly every time. So, again to ease the rest of the conversation/interview, I mentioned the “field” anecdote as an ice-breaker to get them to think differently as we would continue to talk. The responses were universally like mine, each one independently conceived. At first they thought it was weird. When I explained it, literally each one had a pause of reflection. Each said pretty much the same thing, akin to: “You know, I never thought about it like that. But it’s good to know and think about.” Not one reacted offended or put out once they considered the whole story and rationale. And it turned out to be a great way to start my interviews because it illustrated how I wanted them to look at some things differently than they were used to discussing all the time. Although they don’t know you, they appreciate knowing of this very much.
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GregB,
Thank you for taking the time to recount this anecdote and I’m honored that something I wrote here resonated with someone who posts so many informative and analytical comments.
“You know, I never thought about it like that. But it’s good to know and think about.”
That was my reaction to the Smith College post, too. I never thought about it like that, but it’s good to know and think about.
I was very surprised that so many people here jumped immediately to belittle and denigrate Smith’s Social Work program for making this change. Or to use terms like “ban”, “censor” or “language police” to present this decision by a small division of the larger Social Work department as if it was dangerous.
I think flerp!’s comment proves my point. The only reason a non-issue change of terminology that bothered no one at Smith got amplified – first in the right wing media – as “censorship” and “banning” was so it could be invoked later on to justify the most abhorrent real censorship of the far right. False equivalency.
It’s no different than the manufactured danger of CRT, which is also invoked as the left practicing censorship, despite it being no such thing. It’s all used to normalize what the far right is doing and blame the people they victimize as causing their own victimization. “Banning Gorman’s poem from an elementary school library is just like Smith College banning the word field from ever being spoken”. Imagine, if every time the far right tried one of these manufactured outrages, we laughed at the people who were bothered about whether a college used “field work” or “Practicum Learning”. Instead of belittling the people defending this as something that – whether you care or not – is NOT worthy of belittling.
“Not one reacted offended or put out once they considered the whole story and rationale. ” And I assume they didn’t jump in to belittle the Smith College social work program either. Or invoke this change in terminology as equivalent to a Florida elementary school banning a perfectly good poem from an elementary school library.
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GregB, nycpsp, FLERP– I think bringing the Smith College thing into this is a distraction. As I noted in that discussion: the Smith letter did cite possible hurtful associations for blacks or indigenous of the phrase “field work,” which IMHO is a stretch (but who am I to say; I just noticed that the change was not spurred by pressure from any such group).
But the lingo change, to me, makes a lot of sense for a sociology dept, as “field work” is universally associated in other scientific fields as the place you go to collect specimens or observe specimens in their natural habitat. However, field work in sociology means leaving desk/ lab analysis to interview and observe– humans. Therefore terms like “practicum” or “clinical” – somewhat analogous to medical terms– are more appropriate, and more sensitive.
Another point to be made: Smith’s grad soc program change was not some radical move; they were following an ongoing trend in their “field.” They just had the misfortune to be picked up by Fox or whoever trying to politicize it. Gradual changes in terminology are pretty normal in all academic fields. The term “field” itself started in cartography in the early 1800’s, then was picked up by geology, then naturalists. I don’t see this phenomenon as relating to censorship in any way.
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Smith College is definitely a distraction, that was my fault.
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bethree,
The reason the right wing mediaverse made the effort to turn a non-controversial, non-issue by a division of the Social Work dept. at Smith College into a “very serious issue” and amplifies it is specifically to distract and to NORMALIZE what the far right is doing.
I can almost always count on certain posters on here to amplify the right wing narrative whenever Diane Ravitch has a post about some right wing (or Putin) atrocity. In this case, the right wing narrative to normalize what happened in Florida is:
BOTH THINGS ARE CENSORSHIP.
Today, Diane Ravitch made a post about how one right wing parent could get a perfectly fine poem by a young Black woman banned from an elementary school library without needing to offer any reason other than “it bothers me”. Is anyone surprised that a certain poster on here invoked what a small Social Work department at Smith College did and stated:
“For the record (if any of this constitutes a “record”), I don’t know if either of those things is a “ban.” I don’t really have a good working definition of what a “ban” is around the margins.
But I do think that both things are forms of censorship. The library is restricting access to a book—that’s a form of censorship. The Smith grad school “field” policy is less pernicious but it is still a policing of language from the top down, which I also consider a form of censorship.”
The right didn’t just decide it would pick on Smith College that week. The right knows how to make us complicit. We are always CONCEDING that they have a very good point and then we don’t understand why the average Joe doesn’t understand the nuance after we have conceded that the right wing’s concerns are valid.
Have you seen any right winger say that our concerns about the Florida elementary school ban of Amanda Gorman’s poem are valid? And people wonder why the right wing narratives are so powerful that people believe them over the truth. It is because our side too often says “yes it’s true that what the right wing says is a problem really is a problem, but……”
“I do think that both things are forms of censorship….” is exactly what you say when you want to minimize what the right wing does. Or demonize something that the right doesn’t like.
False equivalency. We legitimize the right’s false equivalencies when we should be discrediting them.
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Thank you for reposting this. On review, this was a solid comment. I’d like to meet the man who wrote it and shake his hand.
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Ginny,
I object when some authority figure tells me what I can and cannot say, what I can or cannot read. The nerve!
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My mom telling me not to swear is a “form of censorship”.
The college board not allowing students to talk amongst themselves during the SAT is a “form of censorship”.
Stopping someone from running into a crowded theater and yelling fire when there isn’t a fire is a “form of censorship”.
A college saying it will refer to all females as Ms instead of Miss or Mrs. is a “form of censorship”.
A college social work department announcing it will use the term “clinical” work instead of “field work” is a “form of censorship”.
Removing all copies of a poem by Amanda Gorman from an elementary school library is a “form of censorship”.
Shouting at a conservative speaker is a “form of censorship”.
If you want to normalize the right wing’s version of censorship, you make the definition of the word “censorship” so all-encompassing that the word is rendered meaningless and normal.
Also, I find it interesting that shouting, heckling and disrupting AOC town halls and having AOC laugh it off instead of accusing the people shouting at her as “censoring” her means that AOC was NOT being censored. Even if she had protested, the arbiters of what is censorship or not — the NY Post – would certainly belittle and make fun of anyone who called that censorship.
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Give me a break! By your definition, nycppp, any attempt to make rules of any kind is a form of censorship. Really!! And is that really a useful advance to the argument? Take the word fascist and apply it to a lot of random situation. I am a bit of a fascist (intolerant and authoritarian) when it comes to the way the garden is maintained.
Thanks, flerp, for opening the floodgates.
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This is a very unfair comment. Your argument is about semantics, not substance. As one who has been very specific about what fascism is and how it is expressed by the republican party and its apologists/rationalizers since 2016, before it was fashionable, I’ve not observed NYCPSP “apply it to a lot of random situation[s].” I have no idea what the sentence after that about being “a bit of a fascist” even means. Common, long-held assumptions are not infallible, untouchable, or undebatable because they are common, long-held assumptions.
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I don’t agree, but I should just do what I usually do when nycppp takes off and skip her comments. She generally has useful things to say, but I just can’t make myself read twenty different variations on a theme.
The meanings of words morf over time as they always have. I found this one silly, especially since they felt the need to explain themselves. Just change the title to practicum or clinical practice and go about business! I would love to hear a sociologist who supported the elimination of the term field work at Smith or wherever it was in California defend making an issue out of it although, to be fair, that was probably the media more than anyone. I found the reasoning as presented rather flimsy and frankly, when you think about it, rather dismissive of all the different contributions blacks actually made in the slave economy. Plantation owners seem to me to be fairly useless and almost entirely dependent on their black slaves for running all aspects of the plantation.
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“By your definition, nycppp, any attempt to make rules of any kind is a form of censorship.”
speduktr, I have no idea what you are talking about. It’s not “my” definition, it is a favorite right wing narrative that is amplified by some folks here.
I disagree with calling all of those things “censorship” but other people have specifically mentioned that a college choosing to use a different word instead of a word that many people still believe is perfectly acceptable should be invoked as “censorship” similar to a right winger getting a poem banned from an elementary school library.
It’s always been the case that changes in terminology happen over the years. Ms instead of Miss, Latinx instead of Latino, clinical instead of field. It’s also pretty typical that someone objects by invoking all the people who are still fine with using the previous terminology. It’s also pretty typical that people invoke “censorship” even though changing terminology is NOT censorship. It really isn’t, and it defiles the meaning of the word to equate this with examples of real censorship – like removing a perfectly good poem from a public school library simply because one right wing parent heard it was written by a Black woman and so it is inappropriate for children.
I like what GregB says:
“Common, long-held assumptions are not infallible, untouchable, or undebatable because they are common, long-held assumptions.”
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We agree. If you had said that and nothing else,…but you didn’t.
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I really find it ironic that the people most critical of my style are the ones who always make personal digs. I don’t criticize Linda for writing comments that are too long or are perhaps variations of a theme and repetitive. Because she writes her comment with genuine intent to inform or express her view and NEVER writes in order to deceive. I don’t need to remark on whether Linda commented too many times or attack her style, and make it personal, even if I might occasionally disagree. Why would I?
I believe you are a person of integrity, spedktr, and I think if you search your own feelings, you will just admit you don’t particularly care for me. That’s fine, I have a tough shell and you don’t have to like me personally. But that doesn’t give you license to be rude. My post didn’t insult you. But you insulted me because you couldn’t just ignore it and move on.
Bob S. wrote about disingenuousness and equivocation of the far right in a comment. It’s how the far right wins hearts and minds. And we help them by attacking their enemies on “style”, conceding their points. To wit, flerp could not JUST acknowledge the egregious right wing censorship when a right wing Florida parent with a history of right wing activism can demand that a perfectly good poem get banned from an elementary school library — instead flerp! had to remind us that “liberal” Smith College practiced “censorship”, too. Which isn’t true, by the way, unless you stretch the definition of “censorship” to include a Social Work program changing the terminology in how they refer to clinical work with Social Work clients (no longer “field” work). Citing both examples as “censorship” renders that term meaningless, which is exactly why the far right propaganda machine manufactured something that was NOT a controversy at all at Smith College into a “censorship” issue. So that the normalizers of right wing fascism could invoke Smith College to minimize the effects of any public outrage about Amanda Gorman’s poem being banned from an elementary school library. “Both sides” do it. Smith College censored, Florida censored, hey progressive young people or disaffected middle aged people, don’t get outraged at the Republicans because of Florida, get outraged at both parties because we don’t want you to disempower us. Meanwhile, the rabid Republican voters understand that voting for Republicans is absolutely necessary to preserve their way of life. Republican voters don’t believe “both sides are the same”. they know keeping Republicans in power is the only way to get what they want. While some professing to be on our side just keep legitimizing and amplifying the right wing propaganda directed ONLY to those who would typically vote Democratic that BOTH SIDES ARE THE SAME.
I post here because I know how important it is to discredit that right wing propaganda instead of giving it legitimacy.
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NYCPSP,
Please read “The Language Police.” Both sides do it.
I read last night that John Cleese of the Monty Python group was planning a revival of “The Life of Brian.” Americans urged him to delete the Loretta bit, where Eric Idle announces that he wants to be a woman and have babies. He wants to be called Loretta. Cleese’s character insists he can’t have babies because he doesn’t have a womb. Another character says, “But he can have the right to have a baby.” Why censor it?
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I apologize, nycppp. You are right that I was less than kind or fair in my response. You are, however, wrong in your assumption that I don’t like you, but I don’t have to “examine” my heart to know I find your condescending analysis of what I feel offensive. (You do have a tendency to tell other people what they think or feel.) More often than not, I find your comments spot on, but sometimes when you refuse to quit, I lose it. That’s on me.
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NYCPSP will blame that on the far right. But maybe Greg should run it by his focus group of Very Educated People and see what they think.
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Diane,
I am confused about how the John Cleese anecdote relates to “both sides”.
“Americans urged him to delete the Loretta bit, where Eric Idle announces that he wants to be a woman and have babies.”
Do you mean the British are on one side and Americans are on the other?
That seems like an anecdote that says that there are a million “sides” when it comes to language, and that’s why the terminology and what we find acceptable to say changes all the time. The same is true with comedy. Some people urged Billy Crystal to stop doing Blackface, but they were belittled and marginalized right up until suddenly they weren’t and everyone agreed that they had been right all the time.
I feel like the term “censorship” is misused. When the first people start being critical of something they find offensive and ask for it to change, they are accused of “censorship”. But as soon as other people with more privilege decide it is offensive and no longer want that character played, they aren’t accused of practicing “censorship” anymore.
It is no longer acceptable to use a lot of terms – especially ones that refer to racial or ethnic backgrounds – that were used in the past. To me, that isn’t censorship, that is common courtesy. I feel like the standard of what is “censorship” is set by privileged white men who are likely to be a lot slower to recognize when a term that doesn’t bother them at all might be offensive to someone else. They want to keep using it and they feel “censored” if they get criticized for it. But when they come to the realization that there are other words that cause less offensive, they are often fine changing what they use and don’t feel “policed” or “censored”.
Which “side” censored in the John Cleese story? Probably someone worried that someone would take offense,but I’m not sure there is a “side” to who would take offense to that story about Loretta.
Maybe “censorship” is an “I know it if I see it” idea. But I think it is dangerous to present it as a “both sides” problem today.
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People on both the left and right have censored language from tests and textbooks. Feminists don’t like any reference to gender. They don’t women pictured cooking or doing any household chores. Mexicans cannot be portrayed wearing sombreros or serapes. Seniors can’t be depicted with walkers or canes. There is a very long list of prohibitions coming from rightwingers and progressives. Read “The Language Police.” It’s not about the British. It’s about political correctness. Why do you think Dr. Seuss’s books were censored. Not because of complaints by rightwingers. The cartoon that Greg posted would be censored today, as Disney’s “Song of the South” was censored. Everyone gets in on the act.
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Maybe this explains my perspective more succinctly:
If someone on the left asks for some language to be removed or a book to no longer be required reading in the classroom, there is always a significant and loud chorus of voices of Democrats shouting about how that is censorship.
If someone on the right asks for a book to be removed from an elementary school library, or for the 1619 Project to be banned, or for doctors to be forbidden to discuss certain things with their patients, there is always a significant and loud chorus of voices of Republicans shouting about how that is NOT censorship. And not a single voice on the right that says it is.
So when I hear “both sides do it”, I see a very grave danger to democracy.
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Both sides do it. It’s not called censorship, it’s called a “bias and sensitivity review.”
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NYCPSP — I have access to Google so I think I can help. Life of Brian is being adapted for the stage. As part of that project, John Cleese participated in a table-reading of a draft sometime last year. The other actors participating in the table-reading all advised him to cut the Loretta scene because the jokes about whether a man could have a baby might be considered offensive to trans men, i.e. biological males who identify as women.
Why shouldn’t that scene be cut? Wouldn’t it be easy to be considerate to the feelings of trans men and their allies who might take offense to the scene? There must be many examples where works of literature, film, and drama have been changed to adapt to changes in culture. So what’s the big deal about cutting the Loretta scene?
P.S. I just told a group of very educated people about this (I keep them on retainer for such purposes), and they all said, “Huh, that’s interesting, I never thought about that before. It’s good to know about that.” Not one was bothered by the idea of cutting the scene.
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I tweeted John Cleese last night and urged him, “Never never never” cut Loretta.
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👏 👏 👏
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Diane,
I don’t know that particular Loretta sketch.
“The other actors participating in the table-reading ALL advised him to cut the Loretta scene…”
ALL the actors? Could there be a generational thing here? I don’t know that sketch, so maybe it’s hilarious, or maybe it’s like a lot of the comedy I thought was funny until I watched it with multicultural young people who didn’t see the hilarity.
Some of that old comedy isn’t funny anymore. More on that in next post…
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I definitely don’t see the grave danger that some others see because my kids didn’t get to see depictions of all the women doing household chores and depictions of Mexicans in sombreros that were in all the textbooks I got in school.
If it was “political correctness” that removed the constant gender and ethnic stereotyping that was the hallmark of virtually every kids’ book, then count me in as a supporter of “political correctness”. And yes, I am ashamed at the Asian stereotypes in Dr. Seuss’ “Mulberry Street” book and I would never give it as a gift. Just because I didn’t know it was offensive doesn’t mean it wasn’t offensive. Courtesy, not censorship.
(I do remember even as a child watching the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang movie and kind of recognizing the Jewish-looking child-catcher and feeling anxious about that stereotype, so I can imagine what it’s like for other children having to see ethnic stereotypes that I wouldn’t notice.)
If I watch a movie from the 1980s, 1990, and sometimes even the early 2000s, I grimace at the non-stop ethnic stereotypes in supposedly “liberal” Hollywood in those days before “political correctness”.
If I watch them with a woke 20 year old, they are usually appalled that we accepted that as normal and mystified about why we found that so funny.
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NYCPSP — I mean no offense by this, but it seems to me that the reason you never have a problem with censorship (broadly defined) that is driven “by the left” is that you pretty much agree with all censorship that is driven by the left. Here, you seem pretty open to the idea of cutting a scene from a play on the basis that it might be offensive to some potential audience members. Personally I can not recall you being anything other than an enthusiastic defender of any example of left-driven “censorship” that has been brought up on this blog (whether it be removing books from curricula, bowdlerizing texts because of cultural sensitivity, renaming institutions or ditching long-used terminology because of negative historical associations the language may have).
Could you give an example of any kind of censorship “from the left” that you would not agree with?
Again, I mean no offense, I’m just curious. And I think everyone would agree that if you gave such an example, it would not be considered assisting the right-wing project of propaganda.
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FYI, the story about John Cleese – a man who has made it his mission to fight the scourge of “wokeism” (racism doesn’t seem to bother him) – sounds like manufactured outrage.
I googled and the right wing press has dozens of stories manufacturing outrage about a completely unremarkable story. At a table read A YEAR EARLIER, some actors supposedly suggested John Cleese cut out the Loretta scene and John Cleese said “nope”.
THAT is “censorship”?? That is “outrage”?
Guess what’s been missing over the last year? Multiple stories about outraged actors calling John Cleese anti-trans for not following their suggestion to cut the Loretta scene. I guess those political correct tyrants just don’t have the power they used to have to control everything that is said and written.
But this was NOT censorship. It was a suggesting made to a powerful and wealthy white man who is extremely right wing politically that the right wing man simply said “no” to.
The fact that we equate this to censorship means we have only ourselves to blame when our democracy fails. it is no longer allowed to make a suggestion to a powerful right wing person because merely making that suggestion that the powerful right wing white man simply says “no” to is “censorship” and he can invoke it for the rest of his life to justify why it’s no big deal for the right to “ALSO practice censorship” and ban books.
THIS is what well-known right wing comedian John Cleese was NOT censored from saying:
“[People] get competitive about this business of being oppressed,” Cleese commented, adding, “You do know the British have been slaves twice, right?”.
At one point Dulcé Sloan took the microphone from Cleese and said, “I saved a comic whose career I respect,” before the Monty Python star continued, explaining: “I want reparations from Italy…And then the Normans came over in 1066… they were horrible people from France and they colonised us for 30 years and we need reparations there too, I’m afraid”.
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flerp!
Looking forward to hearing why you think a powerful man refusing to take the suggestion of actors – who most certainly did NOT turn his refusal into a scandal – is censorship.
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LOL, as I predicted: https://dianeravitch.net/2023/05/29/florida-the-banning-of-amanda-gormans-poem-is-shameful/#comment-3470188
This is consistent with my sense that there literally is no form of left-driven censorship that you would not support. Correct me if I’m wrong, here or elsewhere.
I don’t understand your question. Rephrase and I’ll answer if I can, if you actually care. If it’s just some kind of gotcha attempt that will lead to nothing but more walls of text from you, don’t bother rephrasing.
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flerp!,
Calling your bluff.
Here are the facts: a year earlier, a group of actors at a table read suggested to a wealthy white male actor/writer/producer that the Loretta skit be removed because it could be offensive to some people. The wealthy white male actor/writer/producer said no. That was the end of is UNTIL suddenly John Cleese whined that he was being asked to do something he didn’t want to do and he had to say no.
Cleese had to say “no” to a suggestion to remove something, and the people he said no to DID NOTHING AFTER HE TOLD THEM NO.
Are you now censoring people from offering opinions or suggestions? Sounds like you are the one policing the actors’ free speech to express an opinion.
How did John Cleese get censored, and why do you so strongly object to this censorship you claim John Cleese had to suffer?
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“Are you now censoring people from offering opinions or suggestions?”
No. People are and should be free to offer opinions and suggestions.
Well, that was easy.
Now, can you oblige and give me an example of left-driven censorship that you would not support? I’m still assuming that there is no such case, but if there is, let me know.
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flerp!,
You gave me the John Cleese example as an example of what you characterized as “left wing censorship” that you wanted me to join you in being outraged about.
I explained why I was not outraged, and I also explained why I did not believe that was “left wing censorship”.
I am confused that you still seem very angry at me for not sharing your view that what happened to John Cleese is exactly the kind of “left wing censorship” you want me to condemn because you believe what happened to John Cleese is censorship.
To clarify, flerp! believes that John Cleese has been badly victimized by “left wing censorship”and I do not.
Why are you asking me to research in the hopes of finding a prime example of “left wing censorship” when YOU have already given me one — the John Cleese story where actors suggested he remove a sketch and he said no.
If YOU can’t find a better example for me to condemn, think about what that says about whether left wing censorship is actually happening.
If John Cleese is the best you can come up with, well, that speaks for itself.
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John Cleese was asked to remove the hilarious Loretta skit. He refused to censor the show. Good for him!
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Lol, you don’t have to “research” it. This is a hypothetical question. The question is, for the nth time, are you capable of imagining any circumstances in which you would not support censorship driven by the left. The answer clearly is no, so I won’t ask again.
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Diane,
Maybe I didn’t see the right Loretta skit, because I watched a clip from the Life of Brian movie and I didn’t think it was that funny. Maybe I’m just lacking the right Monty Python humor gene, as even 40+ years ago I remember finding the movie only mildly funny at times.
But I would never expect someone like Cleese who seems to get off on offending people on the left to care whether he was offending someone. From the interview I read with him, being able to offend someone who is less powerful than you seems to give him joy.
John Cleese is the decider of what is funny, as he explained in the interview:
“The problem is that people are knee-jerk in thinking something is offensive. Sometimes in my show I say, “There were these two Mexicans” and immediately the whole audience goes, “Oooh.” People think something is going to be offensive before it’s even been said. The story I then tell involves an American patrol boat in the Gulf of Mexico. The guy on the boat is cruising along, and suddenly sees two Mexicans going for the border. The guy says, “Hey, what are you doing?” And the Mexicans say, “We’re invading America.” And the guy on the boat says, “What, just the two of you?” And the Mexicans say back, “Oh no, we’re the last ones. The others are already there.”
But is that a nasty joke? Think about the content of it. The Mexicans are actually the heroes! They’ve won! There are millions of Mexicans in America. Are we trying to pretend that isn’t the case? So is that a nasty story to tell? I don’t think it is.”
If John Cleese thinks this “joke” is funny and not offensive, how dare anyone else disagree.
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I wonder why nobody ever suggests banning cell phones from students’ hands (and the population in general for that matter). There’s certainly far more egregious content there that can be accessed in seconds.
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I tried to post an excellent conversation between John Cleese and the writer David Marchese from a September 2017 issue of New York Magazine, but it isn’t posting.
You can judge for yourself whether his humor about Mexicans and Blacks is hilarious or offensive.
Being criticized when your humor involves offensive stereotypes of Mexicans and Blacks is not “censorship”.
Having actors make a suggestion to cut something that might be offensive and having the power to say “nope, I’m not going to cut that” and having the position of power where after you say no, everyone remains silent and follows your orders, is NOT “censorship”.
The story of the Loretta sketch is more manufactured outrage, just like the Smith College Social Work division change in terminology was. Wrongly being characterized as “censorship” to normalize the real and dangerous censorship of the right wing. “Both sides” indeed.
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You would have more credibility as an arbiter of when censorship is appropriate if you could (1) acknowledge that censorship is not a phenomenon driven solely by the right wing and (2) give one single example of when censorship driven by the left is not a good thing. The problem is that you seem to think that all censorship driven by the left IS a good thing. You don’t like to phrase it that way, so instead you just deny that it’s censorship.
The Loretta story is indeed a non-story. It was driven by something that Cleese tweeted. In today’s pathetic news-scape, “Someone Tweeted Something” is worthy of a news story. But the fact remains that you support even the totally hypothetical bowdlerization of Life of Brian. Because, again, it appears that any rules or restrictions on speech, any bowdlerization, any decision about reading lists or library shelves–as long as it’s nominally done in service of values of inclusion and protecting hurt feelings of people who are important to the left, you support it.
Diane mentioned “bias and sensitivity reviews.” Do you think publishers should refuse to publish fiction written by a white author where the protagonist is a person of color? (If you think they should not refuse, then this might be an example of left-driven censorship that you disagree with!)
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flerp! says:
“The Loretta story is indeed a non-story.”
Wow, falling over in my chair as this seems to be the closest thing to an admission of being wrong that I have seen from you.
When will you just accept that the reason I bothered to learn the facts for myself instead of taking your posts at face value is because I don’t have any preconceived notions except to have a discussion based on truth, not exaggerated right wing narratives? We butt heads a lot because you tend to post a lot of these kinds of exaggerated narratives, as you did about John Cleese. Why did it have to take so long for you to just acknowledge that the entire John Cleese thing was manufactured “censorship of the left”?
Think about why the right wing media has to manufacture these so-called “left wing censorship scandals” so often. Because there aren’t actual scandals that would outrage people, the way that one right wing parent getting a school system to ban a perfectly fine poem by a young Black woman from an elementary school library is actually outrageous. No exaggeration needed.
Often I look closely at a “left wing censorship” scandal and it’s simply people being considerate. It’s privileged white folks who equate criticism for censorship, and thus demand that all criticism of them end.
I think publishers considering their own implicit biases when making decisions on what to publish has been a tremendous boon to literature. If a publisher chooses not to publish a narrative of a Japanese woman or Black non-binary person or Cuban trans woman because it was written by a white person and the publisher realizes that maybe their view of how amazing it portrays that character might have been biased by their own unfamiliarity with those characters, should they be forced to publish it simply because the writer is white? I assume another publisher will be thrilled to publish it if it is that good. For decades and decades, many Black writers couldn’t get published because publishers cared about making money and (often wrongly) believed their books wouldn’t sell. Only when that happens to white writers is it called censorship.
If it’s that hard to come up with examples of “left censorship”, then maybe it has been greatly exaggerated. Criticism isn’t censorship. Censorship is censorship.
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No need to respond to my comment just above. I saw in your most recent comment that you still deny that any censorship driven by the left is even happening. So this is truly pointless.
Thanks to Diane for making her sensible position known here
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Too late.
But thank you for FINALLY acknowledging that the John Cleese story was a manufactured scandal and not “left wing censorship”.
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Trying to post a part of the 2017 New York Magazine interview with John Cleese:
John Cleese: “When will we be able to treat black people in the same way that we treat Germans?
David Marchese: “When they’re treated equally outside of comedy. I don’t think anyone would seriously argue that Germans are dealing with systematic oppression.”
John Cleese: “Well that’s right, but when will be able to say things are equal? Where’s the line? Here’s another example: Americans love jokes about English dentistry. Now that’s not very nice, is it? Have you ever heard an Englishman saying, “Stop persecuting me?” So where’s the line about what’s allowable? It’s very thin, wherever it is.”
David Marchese: “I think the line is actually pretty thick: The people who historically have had more power in a society don’t get to decide what’s offensive to those who historically have had less power.”
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