Banning Books On the Truth of the Human Condition ‘Cause (Eww) Sex, Death and Racism September 23, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in Art, Literature and Culture, Civil Liberties, Education, North Carolina, Racism.Tags: abby zimet, banned books, censorship, education, first amendment, invisible man, north carolina, racism, ralph ellison, roger hollander
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Last week, good ole North Carolina, whose wacko right-wing majority has been some busy passing laws that hurt women, minorities, the poor and the environment, got a nice jump on National Banned Books Week by banning of Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, which Ellison described in his speech accepting the National Book Award as “a return to the mood of personal moral responsibility for democracy.” Ellison’s classic about American racism, about being “a man of substance, of flesh and bone,” who is not seen because he’s black, was evidently banned after one parent complained it was “not so innocent…filthier….too much for teenagers”; school board members agreed it was “a hard read” that “didn’t (have) any literary value.” Banning books is a time-tested, spirit-deadening tradition in fearful communities; there were 464 challenges to books reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2012, with The Bluest Eye and Persopolis perhaps the most recently banned. In the past, almost half of what are widely viewed as the top 100 novels of the 20th century have been banned or challenged, including The Grapes of Wrath, The Catcher in the Rye, To Kill A Mockingbird, The Color Purple, 1984, Ulysses, Sophie’s Choice, Rabbit Run, Slaughterhouse-Five, A Farewell to Arms, and An American Tragedy, which it is.
“I am an invisible man…No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you see sometimes in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination—indeed, everything and anything except me.”
roger hollander 
The Most Jaw-Droppingly Racist Daily Show Interview Ever Just Cost This GOP Chair His Job October 26, 2013
Posted by rogerhollander in North Carolina, Racism, Right Wing.Tags: aasif mandyl, abby zimet, daily show, don yelton, north carolina, racism, racist, Republican Party, roger hollander, voter suppression, voting rights
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Roger’s note: The video link at the end of this post is priceless (you need to click on it). You will see an honest to God dyed in the wool racist at work; and — surprise, surprise — he is a Republican state official. And at the end of the video you will have revealed to you something that few of us realize, a startling fact: the act of voting can change your sexual preference! Remember, you first heard it here.
by Abby Zimet, http://www.commondreams.org
Politics As Tawdry Theater Dept: It’s tough to pick the highlights from last night’s surreal Daily Show interview, in which correspondent Aasif Mandvi asked GOP precinct chair Don Yelton about North Carolina’s controversial new voter ID law. Is it when Yelton says the law’s purpose is “to kick Democrats in the butt,” or when he says, “If it hurts a bunch of lazy blacks that want the government to give them everything, so be it,” or when he complains he can’t use the N word, or when he fails for several long agonizing seconds to stake his claim to non-racism after Mandvi almost begs him to, or when he boasts that one of his best friends is…you know. It might just be the stunned Mandvi finally asking, “You know that we can hear you, right?” Oh yeah: Though he later stood by his comments, Yelton resigned today after being asked to by fellow-Republicans.
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-23-2013/suppressing-the-vote