Social Justice Project Entry

 v Think about one of the following: Movies, TV Shows, and Young Adult Fiction.  Think about how people your age are portrayed.  What are “normal” teens supposed to look like?  What race are they (generally)?  Where do they live?  How much money do they have?  What is their family like?  Write about what you think about the images portrayed in Movies, TV, or YA.  Do you think these are accurate portrayals of the way young people live in our world?  Do they perpetuate stereotypes or break them?

If you look at the majority of movies today that are supposed to portray teens, most of them are way off the mark.  The majority of teens are white, rich, “beautiful”, skinny, and live in fabulous homes, and if old enough, drive fabulous cars.  These are very inaccurate portrayals of teenagers.  Most real teens don’t have perfect hair, flawless complexion, and white teeth.  Adolescence is a difficult stage of life, so most have some acne, or “unattractive” body shapes.  Occasionally, in a movie you will see an overweight person, or someone with pimples, but they always play the weirdo’s.  When kids see these “perfect” people, they think that they have to be “perfect” too.  They try to change themselves so that they will be seen as more pretty.  They become hard on themselves, and convince themselves that they are ugly.  Society should show teens how they really are.  Not everyone is perfect, and if you aren’t, there is nothing to be ashamed of.

Banning Books Argument Letter

Dear Ms. Berner,                                                                               November 11, 2013

I have received word that you have been considering banning books in 6th grade libraries.  I do not believe that you should do this. I believe that banning these books is a form of censorship, a violation of our first amendment rights, by prejudice.   I think that if you stop the 6th graders from reading a book, because of someone else’s beliefs, they will be less prepared for the real world.  I believe children along with their parents should decide what they should and shouldn't read, despite how disturbing a book may be.  Only parents and their kids really know whether they are ready to handle a particular subject.  I believe that there are valuable life lessons to be learned, and understood from reading certain books, and many children want to have the freedom to read them.

To begin with, books are challenged because they have topics that are considered inappropriate, such as drugs, death, and sex.  Adults try to ban books with these things in them because they believe that young adults shouldn’t be exposed to such harsh topics. People also ban books because they feel that they violate their religion or their beliefs.  I feel that this is unfair because not everyone has the same beliefs.

Many books are written for a purpose.  There is usually a valuable lesson to be learned from the book. The article, "'Sick-lit'? Evidently young adult fiction is too complex for the Daily Mail" by Michelle Pauli, states, “Children and teens – well, all of us really – read to explore and experience other lives and thoughts and situations in a safe way, not purely for escapism and adventures and fantasy”.  This is definitely true for me.  For example, a commonly banned book, “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green, is challenged because of the tough topic of cancer, and death.  I really enjoyed this book, because I felt like it would help me tackle real-life situations.  It taught me about love, friendship, and family in midst of the horrible situation they were in.  Even though I haven't experienced these problems specifically, I can still relate to it because I know what it is like to go through difficult situations and I believe it will help me handle situations in the future.  Most banned books have a lesson to be learned that will help prepare readers for these tough issues in their own lives.

If people try to censor books, they aren’t allowing the author to choose his words, and authors choose to use certain words on purpose, no matter how harsh they may be.  Some people want to change the words, and I feel like they shouldn’t be able to do that.  There are already organizations that regulate author’s content.  Writers of children and teen books, have to adhere to certain rules of conduct.  “They also adhere to codes of suitability around the three Ss – swearing, shagging and slaughter – to a much greater extent than writers in other forms of media regularly consumed by teens.” states Michelle Pauli in her article "'Sick-lit'? Evidently young adult fiction is too complex for the Daily Mail".  Further editing by prejudice and judgmental people is not only a violation of the constitution, but it is just plain wrong.  Come on, when they are banning Captain Underpants, a hilarious children’s book, it is getting ridiculous.  According to the article "Why ‘Captain Underpants’ Is The Most Banned Book In America" by Pamela Engel, when the first book of the series came out, there was a Sturgeon General’s Warning that said, "Some material in this book may be considered offensive by people who don't wear underwear.” It received other criticism because the main character was flying around in his underwear. What kind of message are we telling kids about their bodies, when we can’t see a comic character flying around in a cape and his underwear?  Who didn’t do this as a kid in his or her own bedroom?  And I haven’t seen one kid come to school in his underwear, so it doesn’t affect them in that way.  Books like these, we can relate to, and they are funny.

In conclusion, please do not ban books because reading different kinds of books including ones with tough topics such as sex, depression, death, and illness, all issues that we are going to face eventually, help prepare us for life.  The books soften the blow, because they are not real life, yet. 

Sincerely,

Louis Celi