The Girl Who Relates Everything to Books

So, I am the girl that relates everything back to books, partly because I am a library science major, and thus am literally immersed in literature on a daily basis, but partly because I am one of the people that are constantly reminded of other things. I could be watching a movie and I will say to myself “oh, that character reminds me of the one in this book!” or something of the sort. But, after this long ramble, I just kept being reminded of books today in our class discussion. I think that today was one of our better discussions, simply because the whole class was there and was seemingly more willing to participate than usual. We were also talking about a lot of interesting topics, of course all relating to Native Americans.

The interesting thing is that I kept being reminded about Banned Books through the discussion. Banned books are something that are talked about quite frequently in the library world, due to the fact that we often have to deal with those who wish to ban the books, and that we have an entire week dedicated to celebrate banned books. The reason that today’s discussion reminded me of banned books is because banned books are often the forgotten, but never really gone. They are also often taught in schools, and the people who are banning them usually have never even read the book or if they have they miss the greater purpose the author was trying to portray. In many ways, as saddening as this sounds, banned books remind me of Native Americans.

Natives are often all but forgotten, although they are not in fact gone at all. (Is it sad that Natives are less prevalent and heard about now than they were when they were an almost extinct population? They really are never in the news, that’s the truth.) There are some 3 million Native people in just the US alone, but there must be millions more if you count the whole of just North America. So, why are they all but forgotten? (I think that that should actually be the new title of the course, because I’m pretty sure that we have more questions now, as time goes on, than ever.) Natives are also often taught about in school, albeit the information is usually much fabricated and usually about Pocahontas or Thanksgiving, with maybe a little Sacajawea thrown in for good measure. The people who are censoring/excluding/banning/segregating/ignorant about Natives are often the people that have never actually met a Native person in their lives. These are often the ignoramus type of people that would shout things such as “Go back to the reservation” or other convoluted things. They have no real sense of who Natives are, or the fact that they do not want to simply be categorized by a name that was made up by Christopher Columbus, in his own misguided adventurous way. An Indian is a person from the country of India, so why did the incorrect and often rude name stick? Anyway, in many ways I feel like Natives are the banned people of America. Still very much present, but no one seems to really know what to do with them. They are the outcasts, the mysterious, and the often celebrated for entirely the wrong reasons.

Now this is what we should be teaching in schools!

Some censored books

This is ironic considering Natives always have to carry identification and often how "Indian" they are is determined by how much Indian blood they have.

This so true but so sad.

This looks like a good source of information on Native Americans

Banned books, what are you so afraid of?