University of South Florida Scholar Commons FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities Florida Humanities 1-1-1997 Forum : Vol. 19, No. 02 (Winter : 1996/1997) Florida Humanities Council. Raymond Arsenault Jeb Bush John S. Simmons Justin Kaplan See next page for additional authors Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine Recommended Citation Florida Humanities Council.; Arsenault, Raymond; Bush, Jeb; Simmons, John S.; Kaplan, Justin; Herman, Marc; Pipkin, Gloria; Fleming, John; Pills, Leonard Jr.; Bennett, William J.; Perez, Louis A. Jr.; Morgan, Robin; Blumner, Robyn; Mailer, Norman; Palley, Marcia; and Johnson, Claudia, "Forum : Vol. 19, No. 02 (Winter : 1996/1997)" (1997). FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities. 65. https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/65 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Florida Humanities at Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FORUM : the Magazine of the Florida Humanities by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Authors Florida Humanities Council., Raymond Arsenault, Jeb Bush, John S. Simmons, Justin Kaplan, Marc Herman, Gloria Pipkin, John Fleming, Leonard Pills Jr., William J. Bennett, Louis A. Perez Jr., Robin Morgan, Robyn Blumner, Norman Mailer, Marcia Palley, and Claudia Johnson This article is available at Scholar Commons: https://scholarcommons.usf.edu/forum_magazine/65 - put - I 4 P. ‘r :4, 4tfl I ________ FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FLORIDA 11 HUMANITIES A Humanities Perspective c o u NC I L On Censorship Issues BOARD OF DIRECTORS LESTER ABBERGER ABRAHAM FISCHLER ast year when a parent demanded that Poetry in America be removed Tallahassee Ft. Lauderdale form School libraries in Okaloosa County Florida, for "inciting vio ELAINET. AZEN FRANK HELSDM lence," a community group arranged for Nikki Giovanni, whose Boca Raton Palm Beach work was published in the book, to speak with school officials. The BEITIE BARKDULL JEAN LUDLOW Coral Gables Jacksonville Okaloosa School Board then voted to keep the book on the library shelves. ANDREW BARNES WILLIAM MCBRIDE Would-be censors like the complaining parents are fearful, The fear St. Petersburg Tarn pa may be of what we do not understand or even of each other. The humanities SAMUEL F BELL IRMA McLAURIN help break down boundaries between people by finding the universals within Tallahassee Gainesville PHYLLIS BLEIWEIS SAMUEL MORRISON our individual experiences. They also help us understand that "right" and Ft. Lauderdale "wrong" or "art" and "pornography" are definitions that are deeply embedded Seaside PARTICIA BLIZZARD GINNY 0. MYRICK in our own personal histories and values, St. Petersburg Jacksonville Our view of whether or not to censor may also depend on our role in JAN M. BROWN SARAH H. PAPPAS society. We may read about the controversy in Okaloosa and react very differ Fort Myers Daytona Beach ently depending on whether we are parents, writers, school administrators, JOAN S. CARVER ALZO REDDICK Jacksonville Orlando teachers, or members of a minority community. A decade ago, the Ethics in LLOYD W, CHAPIN LOUISE ROSEMOND America series visited Florida for a panel discussion of censorship. Harvard law SE. Petersburg Daytona professor Arthur Miller’s first hypothetical case seemed a snap. A fundamen DONALD SHAW talist preacher wants school authorities to remove from the required reading list Orlando a racy Tennessee Williams’ play. None of the panelists seemed sympathetic to STAFF the minister - or the notion that his daughter be given an alternative assign ment. Then Miller turned the tables. What if your daughter is Jewish in a ANN HENDERSON school with few Jews? What if her class is assigned The Merchant of Venice? Is Executive Director this a different case? Might she be allowed to study some other Shakespeare SUSAN LOCKWOOD JANINE FARVER play? a Associate Drrector Development Director No author in this edition of FORUM advocates unconditional free JOAN BRAGGINTON ANN SOHOENACHER speech. Every author recognizes instances, when, with some degree of reluc Program Director Program Director tance, he or she would agree to limiting another’s freedom of speech. In these DAVID REDDY LAURIE BERLIN Resource Center Director Administrative Assistant instances when values conflict freedom of speech versus the freedom from - TINA GUREVITCH TRUDY COOK obscenity or freedom from violent language, or freedom from hate language, Finance Director Secretary/Receptionist the humanities contribute the framework for meaningful discussion and the ANN BOOKS opportunity to foster a communal vision. Administnatlve Consultant *** Editor Now for some very important news from the Florida Humanities Council: RICK EDMONDS Design & Production The Florida Center for Teachers, a FHC program, will soon have a permanent RUSS KRAMER home on the St. Petersburg campus of the University of South Florida. The 1996 FHC state of florida has appropriated $5.1 million to build a headquarters for the © Florida Center for Teachers, dedicated to the recognition and renewal of Florida’s finest educators. FHC FORUM Betty Castor, president of the University of South Florida, is a long-time Vol. XIX, No. 2, Winter 1996/1997 advocate for the humanities and for excellence in teaching. Six years ago, while The magazine of Commissioner of Education, President Castor visited a similar program in THE FLORIDA HUMANITIES COUNCIL North Carolina. Upon her return, she asked the Florida Humanities Council to 1514 1/2 East Eighth Avenue, study the feasibility of establishing a center in Florida that would offer week- Tampa. Florida 33605-3708 long, intellectually rigorous residential seminars to outstanding teachers. The Phone 813 272-3473 Florida Humanities Council has designed and operated such a program, using E-mail address: [email protected] Web site address: vAvw.flahum.org rented space, for the past five years. This new headquarters building will be a permanent home for the The Florida Humanities Council is a non Florida Center for Teachers. There are 150,000 public school teachers in Florida; profit organization, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the state some of these teachers now work on a year-round schedule; many work in the of Florida and private contributors. FHC summer when we have offered seminars. This new facility will enable us to FORUM is published twice a year and dis more teachers we hope host tributed tree of charge to the friends of the serve to approximately 2,000 teachers per year by norida Humanities Council and interested 2001, at a lower cost, throughout the calendar year. Importantly, this new Floridians. It you wish to be added to the headquarters building is a recognition of the crucial contribution teachers make mailing list, please request so in writing. Views expressed by contributors to the to the future of our children and our state. Forum are not necessarily those of the - Ann Henderson Florida Humanities CounCil. FORUM The Magazine of the Florida Humanities Council INSIDE PAGE 4 Censorship-Defined and Debated 4 ACLIJ stalwart Raymond Arsenault and conservative Jeb Bush have contrasting takes on the issue. Censorship in florida Schools 12 A bad practice continues By John S. Simmons S Huck Finn: Misunderstood By Justin Kaplan 16 A dissenting view on school censorship By Marc Herman 7 Teaching reading at a juvenile correction center By Gloria Pipkin 19 The statue that needed a drape Cutting Edge Art 20 Mike Diana-A Dangerous Man? How a cartoonist became a convicted criminal By John Fleming 2 Live Crew Reconsidered Their lyrics were legal, the prosecution was racist, but where’s the responsibility? By Leonard Pills, Jr. How 2 Live Crew Beat the Rap The Case Against Rap Music By William J. Bennett Political Speech 32 What you can and cannot say about Cuba in Florida -Reflections on a conference disrupted By Louis A. Perez, Jr. The Professor who used the N-word In Miami, thuggery as usual Pornography and Feminism 38 Varying perspectives from Robin Morgan, Robyn Blumner and Norman Mailer and Marcia Pal ley The Tast Word 2 Author Claudia Johnson looks ahead-and sees more censorship PAGE 38 BY RAYMOND ARSENAL LI ike Michael Dukakis, the beleaguered 1988 presidential candidate from Massachusetts, I OFFICIALLY am a card-carrying member of the ACLU. I have been an advocate of civil liberties in gen eral and free speech in particular all my adult SUPPRESS INC life. Like most of my fellow ACLU members, I deplore censorship in its many guises- whether it be directed at literature in schools and libraries, cutting-edge artistic creations, or UNORTHODOX non-conforming political views. Why? The short history of censorship that follows is a parade of authoritarian absurdities. VIEWS IS Much of what has been censored through the ages and over the last 150 years in Florida, in retrospect, isn’t dangerous or harmful at all. Some of the orthodoxies defended turn out over time to have been AS OLD AS downright wrong. Take, for example, "the Southern way of life" invoked by white supremacists against advocates of racial equality. Don’t infer from my opposition to censorship, however, that I ANCIENT am a fan of violent pornography or an apologist for misogynist rap music lyrics. I am also a parent, and I am concerned like so many others about the cheapening of popular culture. Even here, though, ROME censorship doesn’t seem to me the way to go. It is condescending and often counterproductive to treat children as if they are mental ly ill. Raising children with strong enough values to sort through the chaff is the better solution. U Civil libertarians like me acknowledge the government’s limit- ed right to restrict the "time, place, and manner" of speech in the interest of public safety But we insist that the restrictions must be "content neutral." In our view, the Constitution protects even the IT IS most offensive speech; in a true democracy, citizens have the right to be insensitive or disgusting or blasphemous-indeed, they have "the right to be wrong," as one ACLU official put it.