Book banned from Brooklyn libraries for depicting Africans as monkeys

NYDailyNews ^ | 8-21-09 | Erin Durkin and Simone Weichselbaum

[past_present]

Brooklyn's chief librarian has yanked a nearly 80-year-old book from the shelves because it depicts Africans as monkeys.

Tintin Au Congo is the only book in the city library system hidden from public view after a reader complained that it was "racially offensive."

The popular Belgian children's work - due to be made into a movie by Steven Spielberg - is locked behind a series of hidden doors on the third floor of Brooklyn's central library.

"'Tintin au Congo' was relocated," said director Richard Reyes-Gavilan. Library officials across the city said they've debated pulling about 25 books and DVDs from city shelves, including "Godless: The Church of Liberalism," by Ann Coulter, and a Harold Robbins novel, but rejected the requests.

Only "Tintin" was blacklisted in Brooklyn - and quietly yanked from the

[freespirited]

When I was a kid whenever adults made an uproar over a book they felt was unfit for teenagers, their efforts assured that we all got our hands on it and devoured every word.

[Drew68]

You can call me a prophet then. I guarantee you my friend- Ann will be behind the hidden doors any day now.

As she should, --so that her books can continue to be checked out.

A popular liberal tactic is to "re-shelve" controversial books so that nobody can find them. No doubt there are many copies of Coulter's books hidden away behind stacks of childrens' or gardening books, listed as "unable to locate" in library computers.

[Doogle]

Ann will be behind the hidden doors any day now.

I doubt it

[chris_bdba]

Look if the book has been out longer than you’ve been alive just STFU and understand that the world doesn’t revolve around you and how you feel. GEEZ what is wrong with people today and how will they ever survive if they hav to face any sort of hardship?

[Charlespg]

"Brooklyn's chief librarian has yanked a nearly 80-year-old book from the shelves because it depicts Africans as monkeys."

I see some dated depictions of blacks but no monkeys

Liberals aways bring monkeys into these things which to me says that there is projection going on

[chris_bdba]

Yes I have to agree with you about that. When the warning labels went onto music in the mid 80’s that pretty much insured a hit album if it got the parental warning!

[Tanniker Smith]

Not if we can take back the libraries.

[Tanniker Smith]

Your request for Tintin au Congo / Hergé. was successful.

You will be able to pick up this material at Highlawn (42) when it is ready .

 

Copyright © 2009 Brooklyn Public Library | Terms & Conditions 

[Liberty Valance]

I'm offended. That library is specieist!

[VeniVidiVici]

New Yorkers head to their library.

[dog breath]

My mother had to remove, “Little Black Sambo” and “Brer Rabbit and the Tar Baby”, from her school library years ago. I thought that these were classics of children's literature and thought those removals were unfair. A note put on the book about changing attitudes, would of sufficed.

[bgill]

I remember when my public university locked “The Joy of Sex” in what was called “the cage” and the “Playboy” issue that featured a professor was locked in the attic.

[Sloth]

Yeah, I’m not seeing the monkeys...

[heartwood]

Pidgin French, big pale lips, worshipping the white visitor - offensive caricature, but not monkeys.

[BluesDuke]

Where is the censorship?

The library can't pass an all-encompassing, universal law to censor such books---it can't, legally or morally, ask any library other than itself to perform similarly---but it can perform, and apparently has performed, its own censorship for and within its own facility. We're no further enjoined from assailing its own censorship, however, than we would be enjoined from assailing any attempt by any government to consecrate any sort of censorship by law.

[SamuraiScot]

As the signs in front of the libraries in Lefty towns always say, "Read a banned book this week." I guess they mean to read the books banned by other people, not themselves.

Glad to oblige in any case, if the writer is good. Hergé is clean, good-hearted fun. Anyone who takes offense at innocent caricatures in cartoons might as well be a Moslem.

[heartwood]

My library has a gorgeous new edition of Little Black Sambo. Not the old golliwog illustrations.

http://www.amazon.com/Story-Little-Black-Sambo/dp/1929766556/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1250970645&sr=8-9

[trumandogz]

The library can't pass an all-encompassing, universal law to censor such books---it can't, legally or morally, ask any library other than itself to perform similarly---but it can perform, and apparently has performed, its own censorship for and within its own facility. We're no further enjoined from assailing its own censorship, however, than we would be enjoined from assailing any attempt by any government to consecrate any sort of censorship by law.

I am not by any means a "book burner" but to some extent to believe in "community standards" which has kept pornography out of libraries in conservative communities.

So, in the case, I must stand with the Brooklyn Library, while you stand with the ACLU.

[relictele]

Love love love Tintin.

Librarians get worked up over ‘freedom of speech’ observations but are very quick to squelch dissenting views.

[sand lake bar]

I’m not a lawyer, but I suspect the library’s action would not hold up to a civil lawsuit. My understanding is that public libraries must first establish criteria as to what constitutes an “offensive” book; that is, they can’t simply act in an arbitrary fashion regarding particular books.

This is how it works for public school libraries, so I suspect the law would be even more rigorous for municipal libraries. In schools, a parent or group of parents can’t simply insist a book be removed. Formal democratic procedures must be followed.