By: The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log » Commission for Racial Equality demands Tintin pulled from bookshelves

Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:28:56 +0000

[...] It also seems to endorse a message anyone who has studied history knows is foolish – trying to judge the past by modern standards. If we apply this reasoning to Tintin in the Congo what other, older books will someone demand is withdrawn next? Even a venerated, campaigning text like Uncle Tom’s Cabin could be seen as reinforcing stereotypical imagery of people of African descent. Maybe we should demand that the Simpsons withdraw Groundskeeper Willy and apologise for this stereotypical portrayal of Scotsmen? Maybe DC Thomson should have edited that facsimile 1930s Dandy annual from the other year which also attracted accusations of racism? Where do we draw the line if we start banning books on these grounds? Some work is always going to be offensive to someone; if we start pulling books on grounds of offensiveness we will have few books on the shelves. And in the process we will effectively airbrush out a section of history which may be distasteful to modern eyes, but nonetheless it happened. Hiding from it won’t change it. Use it positively – encourage kids to read it and use it as a positive weapon to show them how we’ve changed those attitudes and how we still have more work to do in building notions of equality. You cannot make people’s minds up for them by committee – you need to engage with them and you don’t achieve that by banning books, you achieve it by reading and discussing them. Reading and debate, folks, the greatest tools we have against ignorance. Print this Story Send to a Friend [...]

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By: The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log » Commission for Racial Equality demands Tintin pulled from bookshelves