In Which I Discover That I Am Persona Non Grata on Social Media

Today I was inspired to post a quote from 1930s labor organizer Sol Alinsky on Facebook. In it, he advises the Baby Boomer student activists of 1971 not to ridicule, disparage or harass their parents’ generation because they would need them to vote for the change they wanted to see in Washington.

 “To reject them is to lose them by default,” Alinsky writes. “They will not shrivel and disappear. You can’t switch channels and get rid of them. This is what you have been doing in your radicalized dream world but they are here and will be. If we don’t win them Wallace or Nixon will.”  

 I’d hoped that advice from an old socialist might still be relevant in today’s divisive political world, especially to those once youthful hippies who are now on social security but still fighting for their candidate. My goal was to do what I could to calm the troubled waters and to inspire others to view those with different viewpoints as opponents rather than enemies. I certainly didn’t think anyone would find my rather tame comment objectionable. It never occurred to me that my call for moderation would be censored by Facebook.

But censored it was. I still don’t know why the Powers found me guilty of Thought Crime. I guess their reasons are on a need-to-know basis and I don’t need to know. I’m just an uninformed citizen who dared to stray from the proscribed path and my aberrant opinions needed to be quelched before the contagion could spread to another mind. I shouldn’t be so miffed about such a relatively small thing, but I am. I can’t stand to have anyone tell me what I can or cannot believe, say or write. Not while I continue to live in the so-called Land of the Free.

I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised that Big Brother is keeping us under surveillance. Facebook may be using modern media to ensure right thinking, but censorship is nothing new. Back in the 1950s-- at the height of the Cold War -- writers who dared to voice their support of socialist policies or their disgust with capitalist excesses were blacklisted and were unable to have their books published or their scripts produced.  In the new century, writers who dare to create characters that are considered politically incorrect are finding it more difficult to market their books or scripts. And now that we’re in an election year, watch dogs from both sides are quick to point out unacceptable opinions.

 Today's social justice blacklisters feel that they’re taken a moral high-ground against racism, sexism and any other ‘ism’ that exists or can be invented, but they are no different than the commie-hunting blacklisters who participated in the McCarthy witch-hunts. As a moderate, I truly don’t care if it’s the Right telling me I can’t write about gays and Wiccans or the Left telling me I can’t write about sympathetic Trump supporters and heroes who aren’t dedicated to the Green Revolution. I dislike anyone infringing on my freedom to create any character I choose for my books or to post any quote I please on social media.   

Unfortunately it's not just random folks online who are quick to cancel those who they decide are out-of-bounds. The American Library Association –sponsors of Banned Book Week –removed Laura Ingalls Wilder’s name from a children’s literature award because she was deemed to be racist when writing about Native Americans. The Mystery Writers of America withdrew their Grand Master Edgar award from author Linda Fairstein because the Twitterverse complained that she had been a sex crimes prosecutor during the now infamous 1989 Central Park Jogger case. And eBay unilaterally decided to ban people from buying or selling ‘outdated’ Dr. Seuss books, lest they fall into the hands of innocent children.

 In Wilder’s case, the works of a woman from a previous era –one that included tension between natives and settlers –were cancelled for not predicting modern-day sensibilities. Fairstein was denied an award for her writing achievements because she was tangentially involved in an event that was condemned decades later. Dr. Seuss’ early books are apparently no longer safe for children because of objectionable drawings from an bygone era, so not even adults are allowed to collect them. If we continue in this vein, all writers’ works will have to be retired within a few decades of their creation to ensure that no one will be offended by their outdated views or by their author’s behavior in pre-politically correct times.  

I should mention that I do feel a twinge of repulsion when Hemingway’s characters ridicule gays, Fitzgerald’s characters complain about the ‘unwashed masses,’ and Twain’s characters talk about slaves. And I really have to bite my tongue on occasions when reading the male-female interactions created by many pre-1990s writers. But I try to read their books in context with their times and focus on their writing ability. When I find an older book too offensive by current standards to read, I do something which anyone who is offended by historical language and mores can do: I close the book and donate it to my local thrift shop. In one or two cases, I have tossed it into the trash. I have never recommended that a book that offends me –especially when it was written by someone living in an earlier time – be banned so that no one else can decide for themselves whether or not the book has any relevance to them.

 Sadly, this ‘live and let live’ philosophy is quickly becoming a thing of the past in the publishing world.  At a writer’s convention I attended, one of the speakers talked about the demands her publisher made regarding the need to be politically sensitive in her children’s books. I thought she was going to complain about such a restrictive system, but she spoke gratefully of the committees of diverse people that read each of her manuscripts and make suggestions for improvements before they are deemed appropriate for young readers.

 While she spoke, I flashed back to Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and George Orwell’s 1984. Truly, books and movies are increasingly becoming vehicles for educating the masses in the proper way to think and act. Bradbury prophesied that in the future a civilized society would burn books with incorrect views because they make people unhappy with their lives, jealous of their neighbors and –most importantly –at odds with their leaders. When authors begin to freely tailor their books to conform with the goals of government –however noble those goals may be –we are one day closer to government-approved books and blacklisted authors. 

In the meantime, beware of what you write on social media. Big Brother is definitely watching.