Banned Books Week -- this guy equates a rape scene in YA literature to soft porn.

[Wheezy]

What kind of sick bastard would read a rape scene and call it porn?

This guy, Mr. Scroggins, wants to remove one of the most ground-breaking contemporary young adult books banned from his school district. The book is called SPEAK by Laurie Halse-Anderson, and it's fiction about a girl who was raped and chooses to remain silent about it rather than face the agony of everyone knowing. It first debuted over 10 years ago and has helped hundreds of teens deal with the violence of rape they've experienced.

Since it's banned books week, I thought I'd post this here and see if you all can get behind it, comment at the link, or get the word out. Here's the link and a clip of his letter:

Equally shocking is the content of the high school English classes. In high school English classes, children are required to read and view material that should be classified as soft pornography.

One such book is called "Speak." They also watch the movie. This is a book about a very dysfunctional family. Schoolteachers are losers, adults are losers and the cheerleading squad scores more than the football team. They have sex on Saturday night and then are goddesses at church on Sunday morning. The cheer squad also gets their group-rate abortions at prom time. As the main character in the book is alone with a boy who is touching her female parts, she makes the statement that this is what high school is supposed to feel like. The boy then rapes her on the next page. Actually, the book and movie both contain two rape scenes.
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20100918/OPINIONS02/9180307/Scroggins-Filthy-books-demeaning-to-Republic-education

The other books he is challenging are Slaughterhouse Five and Twenty Boy Summer.


The twitter hashtag for this is #SpeakLoudly. Here is a link to Scroggins' 29-page complaint: http://bit.ly/bUBBqT

[Odin2005]

1. That he considers rape to be porn just shows how sick he is.

[noamnety]

3. You could look at it another way.

A lot of porn does in fact portray rape. And a lot of movies portray rape in an erotic way.

What does that say about other people?

[Wheezy]

4. that's an interesting point.

[proud2BlibKansan]

2. There is always a group trying to ban Little House on the Prairie

It used to be on the top ten banned books list. Think it's still pretty close to the top.

Proof that book banners are lunatics.

[knitter4democracy]

5. My mentor teacher uses that book in her Eng 9 class.

It's a wonderful, edgy but not stupid book on high school and dealing with trauma and friends who aren't really friends. The fact that he thinks teens can't be trusted to read and understand that book shows how out of touch he really is. The book is fairly tame compared to a lot of what they read and experience.

Why do people keep trying to silence our teens, censor what they read and are exposed to, and then ignore them and their needs? It's mind-boggling.

[Wheezy]

6. These things happen to teens, yet teens aren't allowed to know about them?

It's completely nuts.

[PBS Poll-435]

7. I called Scooter Libby's bear-rape book 'porn'

:shrug:

[pokerfan]

8. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance

Censoring books that deal with difficult, adolescent issues does not protect anybody. Quite the opposite. It leaves kids in the darkness and makes them vulnerable. Censorship is the child of fear and the father of ignorance. Our children cannot afford to have the truth of the world withheld from them.
- Laurie Halse Anderson

[Wheezy]

9. That's a lovely quote.