Words as Revolution: The Right to Write
by Jordan Resnick
Here lies Freedom, reads America’s epitaph. She stood by her ideals, vivisected by idolatry to false pretenses of intellectual liberation. Placing down the bouquet of white carnations, American writers mourn the loss of ideals that was written into our country’s original text. Nursed on ideas of intellectual pursuits and exploration, we find ourselves at present reprimanding schools for teaching our greatest minds. This wounds not only who we are becoming, but who we fought to be.
Free expression is the inalienable right for people -- all people -- to use their voice, body, and mind to their own autonomous capacity. It entails a liberation of thought from external oppression. Inhibiting free expression forces people to behave in a certain manner, adhere to social rules foreign to their ethics. Free expression is a cousin of Democracy. A Democratic state represents all her people as they are. When people are allowed to express themselves freely and openly, we allow our democracy to take a shape reflecting the people as we authentically stand.
Every perspective is valid, especially those you disagree with. Every person in unanimous agreement sounds deceptively appealing, right? What could go wrong with people getting along? In actuality, sole-sighted solutions blind people to the nuances of the larger issue. Take for example a town hall meeting discussing the ethical value of raising pay for inmate laborers featuring personalities like the prison warden, inmates past and present, local activists, political representatives and the state governor. Each person offers a valid viewpoint on this issue because they all offer a differing perspective. The activists may be fighting to abolish prison jobs as an extension of slave labor, while the prison warden sees labor as an opportunity to give their inmates purpose. The governor may like prison labor because it keeps people who have committed crime a way to pay penance, while the local representatives may encourage employers to hire employees from their community easing their jurisdiction’s unemployment rate. One inmate may be fighting for higher wages, while another may advocate for replacing labor with rehabilitation programs as a better pipeline to get better footing once their sentence ends. Coming together, they each bring a piece of the larger puzzle and together can discuss what would be the most ethical, democratic solution to appeal to the greatest majority.
Hate is a close-minded force that fears what it doesn’t understand. Where love is acceptance, hate is school yard bully denial admonishing anything seen as “other.” Hate seethes, causing the perpetrator to project their own insecurity and self-denial onto people who do not fit their prescribed model of ideal personhood. Free expression, when taken liberally, can begin to loosen the shackles of inhibition. When done correctly, free expression will be abrasive and seemingly offensive to first-time experiencers of another’s true being, a necessity to begin breaking down barriers. Free expression is an educational tool that sets a positive example for people to be themselves.
Bans on books are a free expression issue because censorship is antithetical to ideas of true liberal expression. Prohibiting books according to their ideals limits exposure to ideas deemed dangerous, pacifying populaces away from mental strength training that could be intellectually viable to wrestle with new forms of thought. School libraries are different from public libraries because while both are learning institutions, a school library considers a smaller subsect of people and curates their libraries accordingly. A public library has an entire town or larger population to consider, therefore necessitates a larger range of reading materials. There should not be limitations on content for students because as people learn, we need exposure to new ideas to help ourselves grow. Only reading ideas of the same lineage will stifle opportunities of exploration; banning books atrophies mental stimulation by “protecting” young minds from content deemed unseemly.
Popularly banned books such as Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale, George Orwell’s 1984, or Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird are not new to print yet still fresh in ideas about addressing systematic oppression that halts civilization in its tracks to a more equitable society. What kind of people would ban books about fighting back against oppression besides the oppressors themselves? The fact that censorship is steadily rising across the United States is indicative that people need to read more. People need exposure to enlightening ideas, to stories of rising above dangerous standards of common practice and to see our common humanity. Understanding why specific books are being banned is the first step towards larger education and elucidation.
Educators are the first line of defense to ensure tomorrow’s generation has the thinking tools that are being rapidly stripped away. Teachers like Tennessee’s Matt Hawn, a white high school teacher fired for educating his students about critical race theory, are vital to the health of the American public school system. People on the ground in public schools are battling in today’s institutionalized war zones for the freedom of inquiring minds play a massive role in ensuring a future of forward thinking community members.
In Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s widely circulated TedTalk, “The Danger of a Single Story,” she makes light of her childhood in Nigeria consuming media made by white Brits. She jokes how an African born-and-bred child was writing stories featuring blonde haired, blue eyed protagonists eating apples when she had never seen an apple in real life. As composed as a British museum, she encapsulates all the stories stolen from her own breath and voice given to light in an imperalist’s context. Turning towards the meat of her speech, she expertly addresses how it wasn’t until she was exposed to African writers that she began to actually see herself represented in the media. Finally finding people who looked like her gave her the confidence to write stories featuring more of her own essence imbued into each line of text. She didn’t have to translate her thoughts into the mouths of a foreigner to be understood; she could speak as freely as she felt.
That is the power of free expression, for people like novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to raise her voice so that more people like her can take up the mantle and raise theirs. Access to reading materials of overcoming conquest, of communities banding together, of non-white voices are modern day revolutions taking place across the page. We hold the power to write our history as we make it; it’s in the best interest of our species if we diversify our pool of thoughts as much as possible to ensure a healthy ecosystem. Too much algae suffocates the pond, yet in proper balance produces essential amounts of oxygen for animals to breathe. We coexist in tenuous balance between communities, the literary word bridges worlds and cultivates environments of mutual understanding and growth. Freedom of expression is freedom of life, everything humankind has ever fought and stood for printed and stacked on shelves for future generations to learn from previous mistakes and triumphs. We cannot keep emptying shelves out of fear of knowledge when the world needs love of learning to carry us out of the dark.
Sources
Natanson, Hannah. “A White teacher taught White students about White privilege. It cost him his
job.” The Washington Post. Accessed April 15th, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/12/06/tennessee-teacher-fired-critical-race-theory/
Ngozi Adichie, Chimamanda. “The Danger of a Single Story.” Ted. Accessed April 15, 2022.
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story
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