What. The. Merry. Fuck.

[sakon76]

Normally I think my classmates in my writing class are relatively intelligent, sane people. Well, with a possible caveat for the one person who takes Fox News seriously.

But tonight, somehow, the topic of colleges putting trigger warnings on works for literature classes came up, and I am AGHAST that at least one of my classmates and the teacher were comparing this to censorship and book banning.

What. The. Merry. Fuck.?!

How the hell does saying "this work contains scenes of rape/incest/racism/ableism/name-your-social-ill-here" equate to changing or removing a single WORD of that work? All it does is warn those people who might be hurt by it that they need to either shore themselves up or have a word with their professor.

To boot, the classmate who was against it blamed the ACLU.

She has been in a wheelchair for years.

I guess the ACLU is only useful when it's putting in wheelchair ramps, not when it's taking care of people's psychological health?

I am just, ARGH, I have no words. Frothing at the mouth at the cruelty and callousness of people I like. You can BELIEVE I argued my point.

Maybe it's because I'm younger (by a generation or two) than these people, and cut my writing teeth on fanfiction and the internet, where warning tags are more notable in their absence than their presence.

But saying "this story contains these things" is NOT censorship. It's not book banning. It's saying what's in the story.

When did common courtesy become oppression?

Comments

[dragondancer515.livejournal.com]

When did common courtesy become oppression?

When we got too PC for our own damned good. >,>

That said, I agree with you. Not sure that content warnings are always /necessary/, per se?? . . . but choosing - or even being /made/ - to add them is NOT the same as "DON'T READ THIS YOU CAN'T IT'S THE DEVIL'S WORK OMG!!!"

[therhoda.livejournal.com]

Personally i like content warning because then i can filter. I don't want to Read certain things, if its marked then i can go on about my reading without a rude surprise. Now I dont think this should get people out of reading things that are core subjects, warnings to be prepared are good though.

[rose0mary.livejournal.com]

I think, people have been so far removed from a government that dictates what can and cannot be said, that they confuse "censorship" from "warning: possible triggers within".

Not saying that excuses them from claiming people are NOT tagging enough warnings on the story, and crying 'foul, fowl', as people will be people, complete with bad judgement, filled with self-importance, and simply wanting to be heard, in a world where everyone is screaming trying to find the one word that will attract everyone's attention, no matter how false the accusation.

As towards "Banned Books", I have read Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and a few others (don't remember the titles to others that were considered/have been removed from school shelves due to instances of using period correct phrases, which do not fit in today's 'politically correct' climate, where ALL POTENTIALLY OFFENSIVE WORDS HAVE BEEN REMOVED!) You do that, you change the entire story, even if it was just one word!. - need to see if I have an older copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I'm sorry you had to go through that.