libraries: Reading a book = harrassment

Novanglus (

novanglus) wrote in

libraries,
@ 2008-03-05 14:14:00

Reading a book = harrassment
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/9017.html

They'll come for the ones on your shelves next.

(Post a new comment)

	jayne_190 2008-03-05 07:28 pm UTC (link)
	Now I want to read the book in question! (Reply to this)

	chaptal 2008-03-05 07:31 pm UTC (link)
	Don't read a book on WWII in public, someone might not like Nazis. (Reply to this)

	amymccabe 2008-03-05 07:35 pm UTC (link)
	:0 (Reply to this)

	eternitat 2008-03-05 07:48 pm UTC (link)
	I'm appalled. Reading a book informing people about the evils of the KKK and why it is not a good organization should NOT be considered racial harassment. Some people just want to pick battles about everything. (Reply to this)

	just1soul 2008-03-05 08:00 pm UTC (link)
	Good grief, that is ridiculous. (Reply to this)

	i_ballyhoo 2008-03-05 08:10 pm UTC (link)
	The poor guy. I'm surprised how quick people are to judge just by the title of the book. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	quietgrrrl 2008-03-05 09:48 pm UTC (link)
	It sounds to me like this co-worker didn't even read the whole title, just the KKK part. :( (Reply to this)(Parent)

	rabidsamfan 2008-03-05 08:47 pm UTC (link)
	That's appalling. Ignorance is definitely not bliss. (Reply to this)

	danceswithbooks 2008-03-05 09:02 pm UTC (link)
	Appalling does not even begin to describe the ignorance and level of self-righteousness those people at IUPUI displayed. I thought educating one self and learning were things to be encouraged in a university. Guess we may need to reconsider that one. That campus should be ashamed of itself for letting its workers and its AA officer act with such ignorance and close-mindedness. (Reply to this)

metabrilliant
2008-03-05 09:40 pm UTC (link)

While sitting in my college cafeteria some years ago, I started reading Imagining the Holocaust. A rather provocative title, it caught the eyes of students sitting at the next table. Fortunately, they walked over and sat down, and we had a nice (if brief) discussion about it. The book is about how narrative representations of the Holocaust have changed over time, or in the words of the book jacket:

Schwarz argues that as we move further away from the original events, the narratives authors use to render the Holocaust horror evolve to include fantasy and parable, and he shows how diverse audiences respond differently to these highly charged and emotional texts.

Hardly the sort of topic such a volume might appear to cover based on title alone.

Frankly, I think that the school's claims are outlandish. Political correctness run amok? Perhaps. But what bothers me just as much as all that is their complete lack of professionalism in dealing with the case. That no one listened to Sampson or appeared to give him a fair hearing is deeply troubling, to say the least.

(Reply to this)

alalibrary
2008-03-05 10:06 pm UTC (link)

Most of all, I'm unimpressed by the co-worker's refusal to listen to what the book was about and why he was reading it. That group is repugnant to a *lot* of people, not just us.

I just had to get a look at the cover of the book, to see if maybe it was somewhat provocative and upsetting--make that a no.

It would have been one thing if the employee was waving the book around, saying he was reading it to figure out a way to "avenge his brethren" or somesuch. I could understand if the title had appeared to be supportive of the group in some way. But the employee was just sitting there, reading it. And the book clearly notes that it's about the group's defeat--at the hands of an institution all but defined by its religious, Catholic roots. And he was willing to discuss it--!

Moreover, the book's about some pretty uncomfortably close and fairly recent local history, as far as Purdue is concerned. Only recently have more people become aware of how active this group was in this northern state of the USA. I'm glad someone has taken the time to write a book about this.

Information is power.

(Reply to this)

	automatica 2008-03-05 10:31 pm UTC (link)
	I got called anti-feminist by a friend once for reading Camille Paglia (in public no less) to see what she was all about. (Reply to this)

	labingi 2008-03-06 12:49 am UTC (link)
	It seems to me that legitimizing the book isn't the biggest issue. Say he was reading a pro-KKK book, is it not his right to do so on his own time when he's not engaging with anyone else or making any kind of pointed public gesture? If we start telling people they can't read X (or even read X on a work break at work), where would that logically end? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	gateandgarden 2008-03-06 01:46 am UTC (link)
	Agreed. I don't care if he's reading a book called I Hate All Ethnicities Other Than My Own. If co-workers don't want to interact with him any more than they absolutely have to because of a book he's reading, that's their prerogative. But to ask him to just stop reading the book on his own time? So insane. Edited at 2008-03-06 01:47 am UTC (Reply to this)(Parent)

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