Earlier this month, I finally got an entry-level position at a local non-profit. (Translation: I’m a cashier for Goodwill). Our store is not open yet, so we’re busy stocking. It is interesting to me, because I’m coming face-to-face with my own classism- the people I work with are not college educated (some aren’t even high school educated) and even the few that have aspirations of college consider it an impossible (or extremely difficult) dream. The urge to correct everyone’s grammar is occasionally overwhelming.
Today, we were talking while stocking books, and I got to listen to what everyone’s views on marriage and religion were. It was interesting, and then I ran across The Bell Curve. Submitted for your approval:
Conversation at work today-
Me: Can we not sell “The Bell Curve”? It’s racist, classist, and just flat bad science.
Manager: Yes, we have to sell it. This isn’t about personal preference, remember- it’s like the god-awful ugly sweater; someone might buy it.
Me: But this isn’t personal opinion- this book really is, objectively, racist, classist, and bad science.
Manager: That’s just your opinion.
Me: No, it’s reality. It IS, objectively, legitimately, bad science.
Manager: Fine, but we have to stock it anyway.
Me: Okay, but I’m putting it in fiction.
Manger: *smiles, rolls eyes*
I sure hope no one actually buys this book, and we can just chuck it in the garbage.
You could accidentally spill a can of spaghetti sauce on it.
The Bell Jar doesn’t claim to be science… Bell Curve?
I’m a little confused. Are we talking about the Sylvia Plath book? Because it’s basically a memoir, even though it’s sold as fiction… It’s certainly not a science book.
As for it being racist, I don’t know what to think when it comes to books from a certain time. They all have certain racist traits, just like most of the books by men that are taught in schools have certain sexist traits. I think we have to take them for what they are, take what’s good from them and learn from what’s bad about them. If we threw out every book that had some sort of -ism in it that we as a society have outgrown, we’d be getting rid of an awful lot of books.
Just for the record, I’m not defending racism, and I think if a person wrote the same book today, they would (and should) be called out for having some really outdated and damaging attitudes. But if we read the book as a product of its time rather than as a guideline for how we should think or feel, I’m not sure it’s capable of doing much real damage…
Think positive; someone might come in looking for a copy in order to write an article or essay about pseudo-scientific racism. Keeping awful books available does serve a purpose when it comes to understanding our culture and history. (But I was a history major, so I would say that).
Yez, folks, I think it’s obvious that Antigone had a typo. But I think we all know what book she meant. (Actually, I knew it to the point that I didn’t even catch the word substitution, lol).
Whoops, I’ll correct that
. It was the Bell CURVE, not the Bell Jar. The Bell Jar’s okay.
So you believe in censorship? And if not, how is this post to be interpreted otherwise?
Oooohhh…I’m worried about you being able to keep that job. Don’t go getting into arguments about whether a book is good or bad science, mmmkay? The Goodwill people just wanna get $ from stuff people donate – that’s the perspective. If you are gonna start being a commissar for your own worldview, they might decide eventually that you’re more trouble than you’re worth.
Besides, you KNOW you are gonna eventually paired up with Joe Born Again Nascar Republican. And then who will end up having to wipe up all the (his) blood? (Tip: do it when there are no witnesses, and make sure it’s over linoleum, not carpet.)
Good luck and shut up when appropriate! for your bank account’s sake. (Take it from someone who KNOWS. Oh god do I know….)
Stacy- I believe that “censorship” is something that the government does. Unless you think that Goodwill’s policy of not selling pornography or anything that “could be considered offensive” is also censorship. Heck, if “I don’t want to put up with stupid crap on my property” is censorship, then we censor this blog.
dveej- I’m the most qualified person they have working there, there are no customers, and I was not talking politics with the co-workers (I was just listening, for once). They’re not going to fire me
. Oh, and I’m not being a commissar for my own worldview- I stocked plenty of “The Purpose Driven Life”, “Dr.” Dobson’s tripe, Left Behind, and Rush Limbaugh. “The Bell Curve” just threw me for a loop because I thought everyone knew it was crap.
Should have offered to replace it with two of your own books.
I have to admit, I’m hugely relieved. I never read The Bell Curve, and I really thought Antigone had found some awful flaws with The Bell Jar, which I consider a classic (although it too contains some phrasings that we would now consider offensive). Thank you for correcting it, though.
Your first mistake was having a conversation with a manger.
“Stacy- I believe that “censorship” is something that the government does. ”
That’s true, and thus I’m directly giving you crap for it, as opposed to suggesting regulation to force the store to sell the book. They have the right to choose to carry only books of whose message they approve, and I have the right to say they’re acting like jerks if they do.
Um, what?
Apparently Stacy has been smoking too much ganja.
See, yes, Stacy, you have the right to say Antigone should not object to a decent store selling The Bell Curve to its trusting customers, even though you’re obviously going to have to support such a bizarre position, given that the text has been thoroughly debunked by every reputable scientist in the academy; what you can’t do is claim she is acting as a censor when she does object, since only a government or a government’s agent can be doing that.
Thus: my mama, an employee of the public school system, could, in fact, be censoring the school library, if she kept Harry Potter from the students, since she acted as an agent of the local government. Antigone, an employee of Good Will, which (correct me if I am wrong, Antigone) does not take money from the government, even if it did refuse to sell that racist tripe, would not be engaging in censorship.
Clear enough?
“That’s just your opinion” as a comeback to objective fact drives me insane. It may be my opinion that Rush Limbaugh is a douchebag but it is a fact that he returned from a trip abroad with prescription medication prescribed to someone else. It may be my opinion that people who believe that the government is proposing “death panels” are monumentally stupid, it is a fact that no such thing has been proposed. Referring to a fact in a conversation is not the same thing as stating an opinion.
“what you can’t do is claim she is acting as a censor when she does object,”
Luckily, I didn’t say she’s acting as a censor; I said she wishes someone else would, which is indisputably true based on the post above. Of course you can redefine the word however you want, and then act as if what I said makes no sense. It remains true that the whole point of this post is to wish a book off the shelves.
Since it obviously won’t go without saying in this thread, I neither support the thesis of The Bell Curve nor am particularly happy to see it continuing to have currency. What I do understand, and you don’t seem to, is that suppressing bad “rightwing” ideas automatically makes them more appealing just the same as suppressing bad leftwing ideas. The liberal response to a bad idea is to refute it.
Stacy, in what fashion do you suggest Antigone refute “The Bell Curve” in this specific situation? I mean, I haven’t got anything in particular against the principle you espouse, but I notice you’re rather light on practical suggestions for implementation, and I think it’s risible at best to get all high-handed with people on the basis of principle, while not bothering even to gesture in the direction of explaining how you’d do better.
Stacy-
Whatever, I’m acting as a censor. I’m really okay with censoring a) stupid, b) abusive and c) flat wrong stuff, and the Bell Curve satisfies all three. Again, by that definition, I censor this blog because I do moderate the comments (and there have been a couple really bad ones). If you want to call this censorship, go ahead. I don’t consider censorship a priori bad, I just consider it something that you have to be very careful about doing.
Additionally, I think it hurts the reputation of a store to carry tripe like that, and pass it off as non-fiction.