Band Together Against The Banning of Books

I’m going to ask you a few questions. These aren’t easy questions to answer, in some cases, but how you answer these two questions will undoubtedly give not only others, but you, an opportunity to get to know yourself better.

What do you stand for?
What do you have conviction about?

For me, the answers are pretty straight forward. I stand for justice. I stand for social and economic welfare. I stand for equality. I stand for righting wrongs. I stand for liberty, for freedom of not only speech, but freedom of the thoughts that eventually take form as speech.

For these things, I also have conviction. Faith and conviction are often lumped into the same catagory, but I wholly believe they are different entities. Faith is hope, and conviction is truth. Truth comes in many different forms, truth means different things to different people. Truth can be fickle, hard to find, easy to misinterpret…but all the the things truth is, there is one thing truth is not. And that is discriminating. Your convictions are truths you act to protect, and no matter what that truth is, you fight for it.

This week, and as I live and breathe, I will not only stand, but fight, for freedom of choice. Banned books are a symbol. A symptom of a deeper problem. When people want to take away your right to choose what it is you can and cannot read, what they are really trying to do is dictate what you can and cannot think about. Imagine a world with no imagination, no creativity, no color. Imagine your brain being locked into its own private Azkaban by people who claim to be serving “The Greater Good”. Throughout history, in life and in art, these people who work to push your own thoughts and ideas out of your head never win. Why? you might ask. Because they are wrong. They fear what they do not understand, and try to make others pay for their own short-comings. They don’t see books and thoughts as keys to a deeper understanding, but a plague in which the likes need to be squelched into lifeless ash. However, they fail to realize that out of the ashes, the Phoenix always rises…and the song from the Phoenix is beautiful enough to ebb away any of their misgivings. The Phoenix is not to be fears, but to be revered.

Do yourself a favor this week. Pick up a banned book. Allow yourself to get lost in the story, allow your life to glean from the knowledge of the writer, and allow your mind to produce its own thoughts and feelings about what you’ve read. Allow yourself to be part of something bigger than yourself…if only for a couple hundred pages.

Thank you.