In both the library at my school and the district library in my town say that they don't believe in banning books. It is this Anti-Censorship that they are going for. And most people believe it.
But yet I walk into both of those libraries and there are many books that you can not get there. Books about anything that would make America as a society look bad are no where to be found. Books about gays or lesbians also tend to be absent from the shelfs. They refuse to even order them or borrow them from another library for you to use.
Why do they say they are "anti-censorship" and then act like that for wanting to check out a book about the gay rights movement. Or about the Holocaust.
The same goes for our textbooks. I took World History last year and I learned nothing other then that apparently America is super duper fantastical and we are the only people that matter on this planet.
Our textbooks said nothing about how the Holocaust actually started just that we stopped it. It talked about ancient rome and how they were the first absolute republic and that's what we base our government off.
The rest of the class we didn't even use the text books we listened to our bias teacher talk about how gay-marriage shouldn't be legalized because it is morally wrong. And how same-sex couples shouldn't be aloud to adopt or have their own children.
Schools want to teach us that there are other things out there and what has happened in other places but when they get the chance they only teach us about ourselves and sometimes these other "lesser" important people. They tell us about things that are happening in our own lives today and then try to force their opinions on us.
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I just wrote a blog about that. It's called Wee Tiny Racism. The things that are absent from the shelves teach us as much and sometimes more about the value system of the majority than the things that ARE on the shelves.
There's lots out there in the world, though. Take it upon yourself to find it, and you'll turn out just fine!
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
It's unfortunate that your teachers are misusing their platform as teachers by touting their biases, but you've got to face the fact that there are always going to be ignorant, tactless people in the world. It's about how you respond - are you going to rant about the injustice of it all, or are you going to learn from it by looking beyond it?
Hm, the fine line between nationalism/patriotism and realism in the retelling of history. I'd be interested to hear you blog about that.
I have donated books to my library. I think that's where a lot come from. Some libraries are on very tight budgets. It's possible there isn't enough interest in your location. I think they have to go with what the masses are interested in, unfortunately.
I've never had a professor or teacher be that on-sided. My American history professor would make comments about the one-sidedness of history education in America, so you could tell where he stood, but he would never come out and say that the class should believe everything he does.
Teachers take advantage of shaping young minds to follow their ideas. It's sickening. I haven't seen a textbook that didn't follow the pro-American bias. I've had teachers say, "We made a mistake here." Those were few and far between. That's how we end up with this whole American egotism- We're number ONE! Everyone else SUCKS!
The best books I've read on the Holocaust were actually comic books. Maus I and II, by Art Spiegelman. They're worth buying. If you can't find a copy, let me know. I've got them, I'd let you borrow them.
I think that's dumb with public libraries, but in my expirience, school libraries tend to avoid sensitive sucjects, at least on the grade school level. I personally think that a very foolish thing to do, but unfortunately no body asked.
For public libraries, I'm going to agree with sonja. They rely heavily on donations. Maybe you could start a fund or a charity or what not with the goal of rounding out the library's selection.
"Don't blame me. I voted for Kodos."
Homer Simpson