What do you think about this? Should the book be banned? Restricted? No limits on it at all?
I, for one, would place it as restricted and with an explicit warning. No sales to children and that's it.
If so, then we should also ban and/or restrict access to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for its period-reflection of attitudes towards Blacks.
Ouch. The resident
Commie made a good point about how this is a bad idea.
Is Heart of Darkness next?
Speaking from personal example, I don't think banning that would go over well with young people: they lose a quick book to read when their huge book report comes due!
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This just furthers my evidence of how minorities seem to be overly-sensitive - my sister-in-law quit Twitter simply because my uncle made a Mexican joke about her even though she was Puerto Rican; poor move perhaps on his part, but no reason to quit talking to ALL family - about everything.
I once jokingly told a friend "we do not negotiate with terrorists" when he was playfully threatening me, and he got all angsty and angry about it simply because I guess the fact he's Iranian gives him extra rights to whine about everything. Once again, a misunderstanding, but no need to FLIP OUT. And then another friend apologises for him and says that since I'm white, I don't understand racism and thus can't understand my friend.
The apologist also likes to constantly talk about the plight of minorities based solely on skin-color, never mind the fact some whites are also poor and thus have the same damned plight. Reverse racism FTW.
/ramble
Back on topic, no, no restrictions should be imposed. I understand it's common practice in Europe to ban things simply because it isn't agreeable(Germany and Nazi symbols, for example), but there is no need to ban a book simply because some might misinterpret it. This is a problem with the people(and possibly the publicly-funded education system), and not the book.
Freedom of speech is more important than making sure some people's feelings aren't hurt. If you dislike a book so much, campaign to ban it from individual bookstores and encourage people to not read it; the government has no business in such matters. The fact people are so complacent with the government being able to censor, partially or wholly, works based on being "sensitive" is actually fairly terrifying...
Or in more eloquent terms:
"Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves." - Ronald Reagan
