|
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
opinionAlso in
this section: McCarthyism redux: what next, book burnings? by W. E. Gutman The First Amendment provides the best legal protection for free expression in the world. As a result, people don't think censorship exists in America. Indeed, compared to other countries where newsmen are routinely imprisoned --- or worse --- for "heresy" or "sedition," we are fortunate. But this doesn't mean that speech here is free. Reporters still face the jail time for refusing to disclose the identity of confidential sources. Or they face censorship if their accounts do not harmonize with a publication's "editorial philosophy," double-speak for "let's not risk advertising revenue and paid circulation by alienating our readers." Less extreme infringements on free speech occur on a daily basis, often well below the radar screen. A sixth grader in California was charged with sexual harassment for bringing her copy of Judy Bloome's "Forever" to school to lend to a friend. The friend showed it to another student, who read excerpts to a group of children during recess. The teacher confiscated the book and filed charges against the student who brought the book to school, even though she had not witnessed the reading. The teacher argued that the book was "like a loaded gun." School administrators backed off the sexual harassment charge but still pursued disciplinary action against the student. The matter was quietly dropped when the New York-based National Coalition Against Censorship intervened, asking the school to justify its action. The incident never made the news. The student returned to school as if nothing had happened --- the optimal result. However, for students aware of the incident, "Forever" will always be associated with the disapproval of school officials. Kids will think twice before they bring a book to school to lend a friend. The take-home-lesson: Some issues are off limits. You're not supposed to be interested in these issues. And you're forbidden to tell anyone that you are. "Forever" was recently removed from all school libraries in Pasadena, Texas. Books by Isabel Allende, Toni Morrison, Richard Wright, Barbara Kingsolveer, E. R. Frank, Rudolph Anaya and Lois Lowry have since been pulled off the shelves in other states. Hundreds more are being impugned, some for their erotic content, others for challenging dearly held political and religious beliefs. Such onslaught against academic freedom and free inquiry may not rise to the level of incarceration or retaliatory "fatwah," but the cumulative effect undermines the value placed on reading and the acquisition of knowledge. This creates a framework for a national policy to suppress information deemed "inappropriate," "profane" or "unpatriotic" by certain groups who would, should they so be empowered, rule from the pulpit. Capricious attempts to put a chill on freedom of expression, creativity and dissent through the use of blackjack tactics found fertile ground in an America hijacked by the right. · The House of Representatives garnered bipartisan support for a bill that would raise the top fines for broadcast "indecency" from $32,000 to $500,000. The fines would apply to commentators, talk-show hosts, musicians and filmmakers. Which is worse? A fleeting glimpse of Janet Jackson's breast, or Armstrong Williams hyping a government program without disclosing that he was paid $240,000 to tout rapacious administration policies. What is worse, a sonorous expletive or a phony news report by a pseudo-journalist (Jeff Gannon) about Medicare? · PBS was railroaded into pulling an episode of the children's show, "Postcards from Buster," when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings complained that, in a certain segment, Buster, a rabbit, learns how sugar maple is made in Vermont at the home of children with two female parents. · Calling it "anti-American and anti-military," City Council members in Lakewood, Colorado removed an artwork by Air Force veteran Gayla Lemke, in which she cites quotes about war from luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin. · Under attack for language depicting the realities of racism, the historical book "War Comes To Willy Freeman," by James Collier, was removed by the principal from a middle school in Ithaca, New York even though it had been taught for ten years. · In Portland, Oregon, Douglas County Commissioners asked the museum to remove a display of the pagan goddess, Hebe, from a historical exhibit when some viewers complained that paganism is offensive. We don't put people in jail for what they write or think --- yet. But we grimly manipulate what they think by controlling what they read. Other civilized nations react to this aberration with astonishment, if not consternation. "How can this happen in a country which purports to embraces free speech," a French academic asked me recently. I had no answer. I shrugged my shoulders and smiled. After all, had I not brought to school some fifty years ago an oddball assortment of things for show-and-tell --- my two-headed pet tortoise, an exquisitely explicit anatomical atlas, my father's gynecological speculum, and an illustrated copy of the Marquis de Sade's works --- without incurring the wrath of my teachers or fearing that I might bring it upon myself? Of course, I was about ten and living in Europe at the time. Now in my sixties, I find it a great paradox that a nation that has honed promiscuity to an art can be (or pretend to be) so puritanical. But that's another story. A First Amendment is not enough. People have to understand it, believe in it and protect it. Freedom of expression is not only a fundamental individual right, but an essential aspect of an intellectually emancipated, enlightened and informed society.
W. E. Gutman is a veteran journalist on assignment in Central America. He lives in Southern California.
News
|
Business |
Editorial |
Opinion |
Letters |
Arts |
Review |
Community |
Fun |
Travel
|
|||||||
|
