 WHALE TALK -- Crutcher responds to Oregon, Missouri challenge. CC Adult Read an Excerpt Complaints reported in December of 2001 by Alonzo Weston of the St. Joseph News-Press temporarily banned the book while board members could study the language and consider community opinions. Crutcher's response to that challenge and to the unfair attacks against his challenger's daughter in this pair of essays. "I think it is a very offensive book," said one parent. "I don't think these are the values our community has for our children." Excerpt Chris Crutcher's Reponse Sometimes it's hard to know what to say to the censors; it seems fruitless once you hear the power of righteous indignation. But it's also hard not to say something, when I believe the language of the complaints doesn't do justice to the story or my intent in writing it. The paragraph that stands out to me in your article is this quote from Ronda Hunziger regarding my book, WHALE TALK. "The damage has been done as far as I'm concerned. They should not have had it in the first place," she said. "The graphic violence and abuse of children, the vulgar sexual content and all the racial slurs and comments in the book make it sound like that's the norm." I'm not sure what Mrs. Hunziger is referring to when she talks about graphic violence, unless it's a heartbreaking scene in which one of the characters kills a child in an automobile accident. I know for certain that scene is no more violent than the video's any teenager sees when he or she gets an alcohol or drug related traffic ticket. And I find the use of "vulgar" to describe the sexual content interesting. There is a brief, maybe two-sentence reference to two adults having sex - a scene that is crucial to the book's ending - and a couple of references to an adolescent character hoping for sex, a thought I'm pretty sure is not foreign to many teenagers. The racial slurs are all uttered by racists, or mimicked by the mixed-race protagonist. (I have to say, I already feel tired addressing the obvious.) I still work part-time as a child and family therapist; at one time worked with seven or eight other therapists nearly ten hours a day five days a week, with families involved in child abuse and neglect. I live in a town of a little more than 250,000, yet with all those services in place, our agency still had up to a six-month waiting list. When the children we worked with were not in our program they were in the elementary, middle and high schools of our town. They are in every town, sitting in desks next to Mrs. Hunziger's kids, their behavior badly misunderstood because the only thing worse than their lives, is having somebody know about their lives, so they keep to themselves and are diminished by the children and teachers around them who simply don't understand. Many of them, of all ages, express the fear and anger and hopelessness of their lives in terms far more "vulgar" and "inappropriate" than any language I put in my book. Mrs. Hunziger, and I have to use her name because she was the only one designated in the article, seems to believe that when an adult writer writes "bad" language or includes uncomfortable ideas and situations in a book, that readers automatically think it's okay, and even sanctioned, to do the same, and she seems to believe that "damage" is done when kids read about in books what they encounter regularly in their daily lives. I think something different from that. I think the world can be a confusing place. While I don't necessarily think the situations in Whale Talk are the "norm" I believe, from my experience, that in a classroom of twenty-five or thirty kids of any age, there are two or three who have gone through traumas that, if we knew about them, we would respond to with creative wisdom rather than punishment directed at their expression of that trauma. I also believe that all kids live somewhere on that continuum at least part of the time. More often than not it is at the kinder end of that continuum, but it is confusing and scary just the same. I can't tell you the number of kids - not just the abused and neglected, but the priveleged also - who have sat in my office and lamented that they couldn't tell their parents the true secrets of their lives because they couldn't stand the reaction, and would be diminished in their parents' eyes. You can ban or restrict my book - and let me be very clear that I have no investment one way or the other - all you want, and it may turn out that Mrs. Hunziger's son will be spared the "damage" her daughter has already suffered. But let me say this: Mrs. Hunziger, your kids may agree with your stance on the book now; I certainly don't know what their position is. But when you follow a philosophy that tells you ignorance is protection, and you show your kids that you are afraid of uncomfortable material by keeping it from them, you will take yourself off that short list of people to turn to when they need you to listen to the expression of their fears rather than tell them what to do. That time comes for every kid sooner or later. In my opinion, you would put yourself in a much better position with them by discussing the story - including the language and ideas you don't like, and why you don't like them - than by following your current path. Again, I don't expect to change minds. People need to believe what they believe to justify their actions. It saddens me that a school will jerk a book until a decision is made based on the written complaint of one parent, because it lends credibility to the business of censorship and promotes the notion that the school doesn't know its business. It also doesn't take into account the students' responses to the book. But that's my beef with much of the public education system, another issue entirely. Respectfully Yours, Chris Crutcher FOLLOW UP & WARNING A new concern...be careful! When Chris Crutcher learned (via the message board) that Amanda Hunziger, the daughter of vocal WHALE TALK opponent Ronda Hunziger had been "harassed" for her mother's opinions, he was quick to respond. "One thing I would like to say to everyone, in response to a message that was posted today. It is important to me, though I have no control over it, that this question remain philosophical rather than personal. In my first message I addressed Mrs. Hunziger, because her name was the only one evident in the original story. But please understand this: Whether or not I agree with her, and I don't, I believe she believes she is doing the right thing. These are difficult times, and everyone wants to protect the people they love. If there is any backlash on either Mrs. Hunziger or her family, I would like to ask that it stop. One of the ways we allow hate and destructive thought and action to expand is to make philosophical things personal. Understand that I always know when I tell the things I see as truths in my stories, that I will be challenged. I KNOW people have trouble with language and I KNOW people have trouble with scary issues. We can have intellectual discourse on difficult issues if we respect everyone's right to believe. While I believe that censoring stops that, I also believe that many of the people who want to censor believe they are protecting someone. So I want everyone to allow everyone else to have that right." Chris Crutcher |
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