In Search of Censored Paragraphs

Last month, I updated my link list. I've continued to add more sites. It's fun for me because I use it as a launching place to go exploring all kinds of things I'm interested in.

When I first added Diana Abu-Jaber's website, I noticed something on there about a school in Texas banning her book Crescent and a link to the offending paragraphs. At the time, on my linking spree, I didn't stop to read more. Crescent was a great book, but it's been years since I read it and I couldn't think what would be offensive about it. It's a story featuring Iraqi-Americans and so I thought maybe it had something to do with that - this probably will expose my own ignorance but it wasn't until reading Crescent that I realized that the US continued to bomb Iraq between the Gulf Wars. Mostly though, Crescent is a love story, rich with myth and story and family, faraway homelands, poetry and cooking. Reading that book will make your mouth water for certain.

Years ago, Diana Abu-Jaber came to Orcas for a signing/reading at our local bookstore, and I didn't find out about it until afterward. Neither did my friend who'd loaned me But Crescent. We were disappointed we'd missed her. Last week, I was pointing out Crescent to Leo and looked at some of her other books and ended up picking up her first novel, Arabian Jazz and just started reading it the other day.

It got me thinking about Crescent, and curious. I wanted to find the censored section. I'm fascinated by book censorship, though completely diametrically opposed to it. I've often found that if something is censored, it's probably excellent literature. I mean just looking at banned book lists is like looking at a delicious menu of literary treats. But now it's not there on her site anymore! I've tried googling it and haven't found it, grrrr.

I did find this though, and I think it's pretty cool. There's a blog called As If! Authors Support Intellectual Freedom. There is some really fascinating reading in there. Some of it is disheartening and just goes to show how narrow and fearful some people are. Really great reading on that blog though, and I encourage everyone to go over there and check it out. And of course, in the blog posts, there are lots of interesting sounding books to check out!

And then there's the post about Diana Abu-Jaber which made it come up on my google search. In it, I learned that a Texas schoolteacher wrote to her and asked her if she'd be okay blacking out the supposedly offensive paragraphs. Here is a link to the full post about the issue: As If! blog entry on the censorship of the four paragraphs. I highly recommend reading the whole thing, and reading Crescent.

Here is the part of the blog I liked the most, Diana Abu-Jaber's response to the inquiry. I'll excerpt it here:

"Thanks so much for your thoughtful and insightful email. I've spent several days considering your question.

Ultimately, I find that I can't condone your principal's offer to censor my novel in order to make it more acceptable. That said, you do have my permission, to do what you think is right for your students.

In a strange way, I suppose, I think this discussion is an encouraging thing. I find it fascinating that, in our culture of war, macabre violence, and shocking cinema, a literary novel could still carry enough of an impact as to make someone want to silence it.

My husband pointed out that censors are always with us, determining the limits of morality and conventions, in every source of art and information, from books to film to music. He argues, along with you, that it’s better to allow students to read some of a book—indeed most of a book—rather than none at all.

Even though I see the excellent sense of this argument, I couldn’t find a way to feel right about crossing out text. I became a writer in large part because I felt like I couldn’t otherwise make my voice heard. To agree to blackening out such passages feels like colluding in my own silencing.

I once had a debate with a student from Saudi Arabia. I’d complained to him that the problem with America was that nothing was sacred. He’d laughed at me and said, on the contrary, that the great thing about America was that nothing was sacred.

I worry, though, that the American problem is that the wrong things are sacred.

I won’t belabor pointing out the obvious irony of blacking out scenes of love-making in a book that’s concerned with the depiction and the violence of unjust wars and dictatorship. We all already know this—in America, love gets bleeped, the violence stays. The two main characters in Crescent are in love, the few sexual passages in the book are far from graphic. Indeed, the scenes in which they cook and eat together are nearly just as suggestive as the contested passages.

But a friend, upon hearing about this debate, postulated that the real reason the students’ parents are upset is because the book gives a human face to Arab Muslim people.

That might be the part of this that unnerves me the most – and like so many forms of subtle discrimination and racism, we’ll never really know if that’s the case or not. The people who want the book banned may not even be entirely conscious of it themselves.

So I thank you for giving me the chance to think out loud a little about such an important issue. If you decide to proceed with blacking out the passages, I'll be happy to post the offending text on my website, so those students who might be curious, can decide for themselves if they'd like to see what the fuss is about.

Please feel free to share my response with your principal, the parents, and even with your students. It’s a wonderful object lesson in the free and open exchange of ideas vs. book banning, especially during this, Banned Books Week."


It's really interesting to think about what our culture censors and what it doesn't. I think it could be argued that sometimes the opposite is true, that sometimes the sex is allowed and real depictions of real violence are censored. I vaguely remember there being some issue around the music videos for Metallica's "One" and Alice in Chains' "Rooster," which both had war images. I know "Rooster" a lot more, a song about Jerry Cantrell's father's experiences in Vietnam. And what about recent media censorship, arguments about whether it's allowable for them to show anything related to soldiers who've died in Iraq. I mean, I think there are some way mixed-up priorities. I mean, personally I'm about as anti-censorship and pro free speech as imaginably possible. It's almost like, in our culture, gratuitous violence or sex is okay (in different venues maybe), but actual meaningful portrayals of either is not. It's fucked up. I agree with what Diana Abu-Jaber said, that maybe "the wrong things are sacred."

I'm still searching for those paragraphs though. I want to reread Crescent too. Sometimes that's the thing with reading a lot, so much can slip through with the years passed. I remember parts of the book, but too much is lost.


Currently Listening:
"Heartfist" - Chris Cornell - one of my favorite Cornell b-sides. Gotta love a song that starts out, "Love me to death cuz I need the sleep/I've been wired awake..." Love it.