Sealed for Your Protection

•••

Having spent most of my formative years in eastern Pennsylvania—a region known for having been built upon anthracite coal mining and Bethlehem Steel—I came to notice a recurring theme among people who were best described as “the locals” (those who had several generations of their family living in the area): they want life to live in a bubble.

From the 1940s through the 1970s, eastern Pennsylvania was, for all intents and purposes, the poster town for what a wholesome, hometown America was “supposed” to be: lots of blue-collar jobs, lots of mom-and-pop stores, kids who spent their time hunting and playing football, and lots of red, white, and blue. The area hadn’t been “tainted” with all the “ills” that were permeating the rest of the country: non-Caucasions, homosexuals, vegetarians—you get the idea.

As the years went by, however, the rest of the planet was changing—much to the chagrin of the locals. As the area, which became known as the “coal region” of Pennsylvania, saw its economy affected by the outside world (e.g., anthracite coal mines closing, Bethlehem Steel shutting down), the locals developed a mentality which pushed the notion that ignorance really could be bliss. If you just ignored the outside world, they seemed to think, time and life as you knew it could simply stand still.

The coal mines wouldn’t have to be a slave to supply and demand, they thought. The local stores wouldn’t have to close down just because fewer people were shopping there, they thought. Bethlehem Steel wouldn’t have to close up shop just because cheaper Japanese steel hit the market, they thought. Howdy Doody and Bonanza wouldn’t go off the air, they thought. Happy Days wasn’t a sitcom; it was a documentary, they thought.

Meanwhile, the outside world was changing. Technology-based jobs were increasing due to technological advancements; blue-collar manufacturing jobs weren’t needed as much. People—Americans and foreigners alike—were beginning to realize that the world was becoming smaller and more dependent upon everyone else. Gone were the days when your life would be affected by only your fellow townsmen and perhaps a few people from the nearby hamlets. A global economy was developing and it threatened to burst the bubble that had been built with Bethlehem Steel and fueled by anthracite coal.

Some of the small towns throughout eastern Pennsylvania have tried diligently to keep that bubble from bursting, including the burned-out coal town of Tamaqua.

•••

In mid-November, I was informed of a story that initially piqued my interest, but after some consideration I didn’t bother to write a blog post about it. Now that a second story has come my way about it—a story that adds additional, more disturbing information about the issue—I couldn’t imagine not commenting on it.

The original story at first appeared to be a classic tale of a school yanking a book off one of its shelves because a parent didn’t like it. I say this because the story didn’t offer much detail about the situation—not because the reporter didn’t do his job, but because the school board didn’t want to divulge any information to the public about it. The story, which appeared in a newspaper called The Times News, said this:

The Tamaqua Area School District has pulled a book from its middle school library following a complaint by a parent that it contains sexually explicit material.

Joyce Minehan, Still Creek, addressed the district’s board of education Tuesday evening and expressed concern about the reading material brought home from the school by her 12-year-old daughter.

“I was distraught with what was on a page,” said Minehan. “I feel this is not for this school population.”

Minehan did not mention the book in question and neither did the school board members. A copy of a passage from the book was circulated among the board members.

Minehan said there were explicit sexual references in the book.

[...]

[School board president Larry A. Wittig] said the book had received several literary awards and was purchased with the approval of middle school librarian Sally LeMasters. When LeMasters was approached about the offending passages in the book, however, she agreed that it shouldn’t be in circulation in the middle school library.

[...]

While the book is now out of school circulation students have read it and Wittig said he would like to see to it that offensive material doesn’t slip through the cracks.

“In my opinion the district should be sensitive to the most sensitive parent’s concerns,” said Wittig. “Graphic sexual or violent content does not enhance anyone’s educational horizon.”

“This book has six awards but the people making those recommendations may not have a 12-year-old daughter.”

The reason that I didn’t comment on this story at the time was because of one thing: the librarian made the ultimate decision to pull the book from the shelf. If I were to sit here and say that the librarian in question should or shouldn’t keep something on her shelf, I’d be suggesting that she shouldn’t be given any power over the titles in her collection. I refuse to do that; she’s the librarian and she deserves to have a say just as other librarians do. Even though we can read between the lines, the story didn’t say that the librarian was threatened or forced to remove the book. In this case, she made the final decision and she has the power to do so.

With that said, the story made me very uncomfortable. First, the school board refused to name the book. This had me suspicious immediately because it prevents readers from finding out for themselves if this book was or wasn’t appropriate for a middle school student. We can’t determine if the passages in question were as “explicit” as they claim. Even if the passages were explicit, we can’t tell if the purpose of the explicitness was to show how evil the act was. For instance, was it a violent act and the perpetrator was punished severely for it? If so, the book shouldn’t be pulled because, if anything, it would show the reader that such an act is wrong and should be socially unacceptable. Unfortunately, because the board chose to keep quiet, we’ll never know. They want to keep the title hush-hush.

Second, it’s asinine to think that a passage or two could be used to justify the value of an entire book. If the book is 200 pages long (but remember that we’re not sure how long it really is because the board refuses to name it), but has one or two violent scenes in it, and those scenes play a major role in the overall theme, does the entire book suddenly become offensive? If so, such a decision is sheer lunacy. At the same time, the article didn’t say that the decision was definitely made based solely upon the passages (a follow-up story clarified this point, and I’ll get to that in the next section).

Third, and this one might have me angrier than the first two, the board president has illustrated the mentality that I described in my opening section of this post: the idea that what might be good for the rest of the country isn’t necessarily good for the little, insulated town of Tamaqua.

Read his comment: “This book has six awards but the people making those recommendations may not have a 12-year-old daughter.” Yes, but they may have a 12-year-old daughter, too. We won’t know because we don’t know what awards the book received. We don’t know that because the school board in question refused to name the book.

Within a few weeks, I hadn’t heard of anything related to the story and I thought that the issue was over. I was wrong.

•••

On Friday, January 16, I was given an article from the same newspaper that was a follow-up to this issue. The follow-up article reported that the Tamaqua Area School District was “not recommending any change in its policy regarding library materials.” I initially chuckled because it didn’t seem as if an actual policy was followed in mid-November: a parent complained, the librarian pulled the book, the school board president vowed to protect the children from the evil outside world. It seemed to be pretty open-and-shut.

Then I read more:

The district has a policy regarding library research materials that allows a parent who objects to a book to contest the title in writing and have the objection considered by the administration. If there is a disagreement on the decision, it is then referred to a committee of the school board.

At the November meeting, it was mentioned the offending book has been pulled from circulation at the middle school.

Superintendent Carol Makuta followed up with an administrative review of the district’s library policies.

At Tuesday’s education committee meeting, Makuta, who reviewed library policies provided through the Pennsylvania School Board Association, said Tamaqua Area’s policy is stricter than ones used by other districts, but it could have been utilized better in this case.

“I am not making any recommendation,” said Makuta. “It would have been more successful if we followed the policy to begin with.”

School Board President Larry A. Wittig felt the district should strive to have more control over the library materials it uses.

“The problem is, [the policy] is reactive, not proactive,” said Wittig. “It doesn’t prevent us from getting a book we don’t want.”

[...]

RuthAnn A. Gardiner, Tamaqua Area High School Principal, indicated that while she had served as middle school principal, there were two books that were deemed offensive, but neither of them had been challenged by parents.

Gardiner said the books selected for the library include national award winners, but Wittig suggested those standards might not necessarily agree with those of the district and school board.

“The people delivering these books could be totally off the reservation,” said Wittig. “As a district, we have to err on the side of decency.”

“This was just a rotten book,” said Makuta.

[...]

Gardiner stressed that there were just two pages in the offending book that were questionable. “You can’t even do it by scanning,” she remarked.

Where can I even begin after reading this? I thought that the first story from mid-November was worrisome, but now that more information—and comments that still have my jaw on the floor—have come to light, this issue has become much scarier.

First, the district’s library policy wasn’t “utilized better,” in their own words. Why not? If you have a policy for something, it’s there to follow, step by step. Policies are written and adopted in order to have a clear-cut procedures, as to avoid a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach. Policies allow for consistency, thus preventing double-standards if similar situations arise.

Second, the comments by Wittig have solidified my earlier evaluation: Do any guidelines even exist that are being used to determine what books the district “doesn’t want”? Does it want only books that are curriculum-related? Does it want a mixture of books that are both curriculum-related and recreational? Does it want only books that support its definition of “patriotic” (if a definition exists)? Does it want to avoid anything that mentions sex whatsoever? Do clear-cut rules even exist, or is this some kind of veiled reference to the idea that books on the shelves in Tamaqua’s schools must only discuss pure and innocent aspects of Americana and keep students in the dark to what might go on outside Tamaqua’s town limits?

That question is quickly answered in Wittig’s next remark: “The people delivering these books could be totally off the reservation.” Off the reservation? I’m getting flashbacks to old westerns that my dad used to watch when I was a kid. The Native Americans were on the warpath, looking to scalp the white man and rape the white woman; John Wayne rode in with the cavalry and quickly saved the day. The Natives were exterminated, the cowboys were victorious, and Howdy Doody had a reason to keep smiling.

I’m also trying to figure out to whom he’s referring when he said “the people delivering these books.” Does he mean the publishers? Does he mean the vendors who sell them? Does he mean FedEx and UPS? This is a minor point, but I was still confused. Maybe it’s supposed to just be “those people,” and “those people” are whomever you want them to be.

Wittig also reaffirms the idea that what’s good for the rest of the country isn’t necessarily good for Tamaqua when he mentions his view on the legitimacy of literary awards. Just because the rest of the United States likes it, doesn’t mean that it’s good for this particular school district. After all, Tamaqua is probably still a pure and innocent baseball-and-apple-pie small town that has yet to be tainted by the outside world. The streets of America might be dangerous, but the streets of Tamaqua are crime-free and bathed in red, white, and blue.

Third, the administration in this story were repeatedly discussing “decency” and “offensiveness.” Makuta referred to the book as “rotten.” How are they determining this? How are they defining this? Is it the idea that “you just know it when you see it,” as Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart once said? We don’t know because they don’t say how these terms are defined and we still don’t know what the title of this book is.

Is “indecent” something that mentions sex? Is it violence? Is it profanity? Is it something politically-oriented? Is it racial? Is it whatever they want it to be? Is it supposed to remain ambiguous like “the people who deliver the books”? We don’t know. Likewise, how “rotten” is this book if it received as many awards as they say that it did? Doesn’t this suggest that what Tamaqua Area School District deems “rotten” might be the polar opposite of what the rest of the country deems as “rotten”? Is this a “good” book everywhere else? We don’t know.

Fourth, the high school principal not only answered my question from mid-November, but she “stressed” it: two pages in the book were used to judge the value of the entire book. Can you believe that we’re in the year 2009 and this country has a school board that is willing to determine a book’s worth based upon two pages?

As I had asked before, how were these two “offensive,” “indecent,” and “rotten” scenes described? Why were they in the book in the first place? Was the author describing the scenes to show how vile they were? Was the author encouraging them? Was the perpetrator punished? Was the perpetrator being lauded? We have no idea. The board refuses to name the book.

Such is the case in the land of purity, decency, baseball, apple pie, and all things good.

•••

My fear is that this is going to lead to a witch-hunt in neighboring school districts and public libraries. Let’s be honest: in the United States today, people are copy-cats. It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about crime, fashion, or looking for “indecent” books in our local library. When people hear about something being done, too many other people want to do the same thing.

In this case, how many parents or members of the general public are going to go to their local public and school libraries just looking to be offended with something? How many hardcore Christians are going to bring back the anti-Harry Potter hysteria? How many atheists are going to hit shelves in search of the word God? How many people are going to demand that health books be pulled because they have clinical diagrams of penises and vaginas?

Hopefully libraries have detailed policies for dealing with such challenges and hopefully—unlike in Tamaqua School District—the policies will be followed.

In the meantime, I’m officially declaring this blog as being “indecent” and “offensive,” as defined by me, since I’ve posed too many thought-provoking questions. If you’re offended, click here and feel good.

References

Plasko, Joe. “Book Pulled from School Library Shelf.” The Times News. 19 Nov. 2008. p. 1.

Plasko, Joe. “Tamaqua Area District Reviews Library Policy.” The Times News. 15 Jan. 2009. p. 3.

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