Alice Walker Banned

Reading is usually a solitary experience -- the reader engaged with the writer's words. That relationship can be enlarged with reading groups and in English classrooms. Banned further expands the relationship between reader and writer. What happens when what we read, or what teachers assign students to read, is challenged as inappropriate? The book's focus is the controversial decision by the California State Board of Education to remove two of Alice Walker's stories, "Roselily" and "Am I Blue?" from the 1994 California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) test. The book includes both stories, as well as an excerpt from The Color Purple, and nearly forty pages of letters to the editor and transcripts of the public hearing held by the California State Board of Education in response to the decision to remove the stories from the CLAS test "Roselily," a short story of an African-American single mother marrying a Muslim man, and "Am I Blue?" a reflective essay about a woman's musings of her place in the world and the relationships with others in that world, are worthwhile reading in themselves. I found them both to be provocative pieces for different reasons. As a high school English teacher, I would use -- and have used -- both in my classes. Of course, the pieces have characteristics I want my students to learn and possess: voice, passion, writing with a purpose in both fiction and non-fiction forms. They are, indeed, controversial; but shouldn't writing provoke us to not just think about our world, but perhaps, to re-think our place in the world around us? Banned's focus, however, is not the literary power of Alice Walker, but the power of her ideas. In the nearly forty pages of materials that either support or criticize the Board's decision to pull the pieces from the CLAS test, we witness the heart of the argument between censorship and free speech. "Roselily" was attacked as being "anti-religious" while "Am I Blue?" was challenged as being "anti-meat eating." Good argument has both emotion and logic in it; the editorials and the hearing transcripts reveal both the emotion and the logic in the censorship argument. Some of the arguments on both sides are heavily laden with emotion that distort the issue; others use emotional appeals very effectively to help prove their point. Some arguments attack the Board's decision as politically correct and motivated by the wrong reasons. Others reveal that there are clear thinking people on both sides of the issue, people who make a logical defense of their own positions whether in supportive or critical of the California State Board of Education's decision. As one who leans toward the side of free speech and is very cautious about pulling materials from library shelves or from a class reading list, I was impressed with several of the arguments supportive of the Board. Alice Walker's stories cause us to examine how we live our lives, cause us to question our beliefs, cause us to wonder about our relationships in our world. Similarly, Banned makes us think about what we read, and what we ask our students and our children to read. If you're a teacher, this small book will cause you to think about the readings that we give our students. As a parent, hopefully, you will ask your children what they are reading and what discussions they are having in their classes. As members of a democratic society, we will all ask what we should do with ideas that that may conflict with our own ideas. This book, a book of dialogue, really, about the issue of censorship, should become a focal point for further dialogue.

In "Banned" Alice Walker continues to do for her readers what she has done throughout her writing career: challenges us. She challenges our ideas, our perceptions, and our life choices. This is a large part of why her writing is such wonderful literature and excellent teaching material.To Walker's credit, much of this book is devoted to the ideas of those who oppose the inclusion of her works in state-wide CLAS tests. She could have easily written the book with only opinions in support of her own. However, were she to do that then she would be as guilty as those who oppose her without ever having read her stories in their entirety.It is unfair to take any piece of art or literature (including the Bible, of which this is often done) and judge its value solely on specific quotes taken out of context. Neither Walker's nor any other artist's brilliance is given justice when this happens.