THE AMERICAN CULTURE WARS

In the 1960s and 1970s, the USA was at the height of the cultural warfare. The majority of the victims were individuals of color, and the debate between liberals and conservatives dominated the news. Although the war was fought on numerous fronts, it also affected the world of art and writing artistry. Writers were subjected to censorship, and before their work was made public, it was destroyed. And those in positions of power and influence adapted the method that they employed as torture equipment against writers as an arsenal against their victims. Censorship can be taken to mean the act of denying the public the free access to an uninterrupted and unlimited circulation of ideas by "obliterating a selection of artistic work because a portion of the words appears unpleasant to a minor section of the population."

A detailed analysis of literary works of authors that were documented during that time depicts clearly the horrors they were going through as a result of their works being reviewed and sections or whole parts obliterated before releasing to the public.

While this might have been a tool of torture against the writers whose origin was not American and as a racist move, it can be concluded that it was a move that destroyed the talents of writers by demoralizing them and also "violated the fundamental doctrine of freedom of speech and expression."

Censorship as a Channel of Cultural Segregation

The wave of cultural wars had swept through the whole nation leading to the rise of civil rights upheavals with writers taking their pens and pads to wage the combat against the conservatives by informing the public about some issues they considered pertinent. The most critical ones included the issues of cultural segregation intertwined in racist ideologies. In her artistic work, “Alice Banned” Patricia Holt openly shows the torture that Alice Walker went through as her literary works were being censored. A heartbreaking thing happened to Walker in 1994 just as she was about to win yet another reputable prize of literature. Through its education board, the state of California removed two of her narratives meant for 10th graders from statewide competitions. Their explanations for doing so were that one of the articles, Rose Lily was anti-religious and the other Am I Blue was anti-meat eating.

But even after denying having had a hand in the fracas that led to the banning of Walkers two stories the governor of the state of California never suggested later that her two articles be returned to the test for competitions despite the pressure from civil groups and individuals that supported Walker. But the governor was too fast to defend himself, “Don't worry,” said a communication from the office of the governor: “This decision arrived at by the Education Board

doesn’t reflect censorship, far from it."

The big question, however, was, "what then did it represent if not censorship?" The stories were regarded as a menace to the tenth grade though that may not be an accurate categorization of the role of Alice Walker in life and art but. Still, the term echoes the Board of Education's fear of the effect of Walker's stories.

Am I Blue got obliterated on grounds that it appeared offensive because it was perceived as advocating for a particular lifestyle of nutrition and seemed to be inconsiderate of the family occupation of rural children because it had a reference to anti meat eating issues.

However, there was the possibility that if the story advocated for meat eating then through the board’s language, it could have been viewed as being anti-animal rights. So either way, the story was going to be censored. Therefore critical lesson concerning censorship is learned: One can't obliterate a particular thing just because it could, it may or might or can offend someone. A known pillar of a democracy is founded on converging together several different points of view, and any of them will probably irritate more or one person at any given time.As if that was not enough even the church took sides in the cultural scuffle and openly declared its dissatisfaction with the story.

But on analyzing the unfolding of events in the articles keenly, it is evident that censorship was practiced at three primary levels: at school, at the individual level, and in the libraries. At school, the mode of examination was entirely censored, and the books were carefully picked for the children. And during such discussions, the term culturally biased emerged to mean that the manner by which knowledge is dispersed and the testing of students may be skewed to favor the white kids. But then the truth that lied at the bottom of matters revealed the racial discrimination that the education system perpetrated. The system was specifically crafted to favor the white kids at the expense of the blacks. Upon proposition of a new method of learning that would be more engaging and based on authentic assessment as a way of bringing reforms in curriculum and teaching, a group of conservatives led by the clergy was out to protest against it. Their reasons were that the new education system was going to violate personal values and religious beliefs of individuals. Some believed that the underlining foundation of such remarks is the fear of Latino and black kids finding it easy to blend into the new method, thus creating equality. The statements of Walker gives an indication that, it's those particular learners considered to be of the "wrong" background and the “wrong” color whose ability happens to terrify the religious conservatives. This teaches us a lesson about the controversies that Walker went through: Censorship is fear motivated.

Conclusion

The cultural wars were fought on several fields using different types of weapons. Censorship was but one of them. The vice was practiced at schools with the interpretation of teachers being subjective. In the media, in the libraries where books are pulled off the shelves for subjective judgments and at the individual level where people read books and claim offense subjectively on anything written. Censorship was used as a weapon to perpetrate cultural segregation at different levels as explained above. My stand, however, remains that obliterating the works of writers harms the society in general because it denies the public information while at the same time it subjects the author's works to criticism and discrimination thus thwarting their efforts.









Bibliography

Holt, Patricia. Alice Banned. San Francisco, CA: Aunt Lute Books, 1996.







































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