Week Seven Prompt

Referring to the controversy over A Birthday Cake for George Washington, the author of the article, and the book, made some really good points. It is unacceptable that there was such a disconnect between the writer and the illustrator, who partly played a role in the controversy in the first place. The writer should have had a say and provided approval for the book. Doesn't it make sense to make sure the words and the pictures reflect one another? The book publisher even censored the author, when she was told to remain silent as outcries poured out through social media outlets. This whole article screamed "CENSORSHIP ISSUES" out to me. I liked the quote that was printed in bold in the article, "Most pressing is the question of whether we can ever reach a place in our society where questions of race can be openly and objectively discussed, especially with our children". How can we speak on these issues if there is so much reluctance to bring them to light? Issues like slavery, racism, classism, and the like? 

Specifically talking about slavery, the author of A Birthday Cake for George Washington was being questioned on if they were "allowed" to write a story like this. Basically, unless the author can sugar-coat a story about slavery, it should not be written. "...America still does not uniformly accept that slavery was an inhuman abomination". Unless America can accept that, stories of slavery will continue to be rewritten and will not be portrayed as the monstrosity that it really was. I enjoyed reading this article because I had not heard of this book controversy before but it resonated with me because of my own ethnicity. Another reason I enjoyed this article was because of how important censorship is, and how important it is for writers and authors to collaborate and create true portrayal of events. If the event wasn't true, it would be labeled as such. As a (pending) librarian, I feel like it is my duty to fight for and on the side of banned books, especially when those books are meant to bring dark times to light. "The righting of racial injustice doesn't come from shutting down conversations by banning books or screaming the loudest but from opening dialogues".