Another Banned Books Week has come and gone here in the “Land of the Free”. It comes with a mix of emotions for those at the center of the stand against censorship because this is an issue that exists 365 days a year, not just 7. While it is true that “any press is good press” during the week, sometimes that media attention can turn bittersweet.

This year there was a lot of attention because the Randolph County Board of Education ignorantly chose that week to entrench itself in a censorship effort against Ralph Ellison’s 1952 classic, The Invisible Man. The issue was so heated that it was covered by many news organizations around the world.

Among its various sociological commentaries it touched on such issues as the social and intellectual problems of Blacks in the early twentieth century, Black nationalism, the relationship between Black identity and Marxism, the reformist racial policies of Booker T. Washington, and the concepts of individuality and personal identity.

It should come as little surprise, then, that it would come under fire in a state known for numerous censorship efforts. Leave it to good old North Carolina to, once again, demonstrate that the United States Constitution, reason, and logic all stop at its borders. That magical land where, upon crossing its border, one is instantly transported back 150 years in their mentality.

Read On and Share the Knowledge:
http://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2013/10/06/banned-books-awareness-the-invisible-man/