The Color Purple Ban

Georgette 1 GR Forbidden Books Sharon Holmes March 22, 2019 The Color Purple​ Ban “Activism is my rent for living on the planet,” once said Alice Walker. ​The Color Purple​ is an example of how Alice Walker pays “rent” to the planet. ​The Color Purple ​is formatted as the diary of Celie who is a 14 year old girl. The start of the book is a very graphic description of how she has raped by her father who she calls Papa. Later, Celie becomes pregnant with two of her father’s children. Papa continues to abuse her until he marries her off to an unknown man called Mister. Celie has a little sister named Nettie whom Celie loves very much, but Nettie is later married off, and she promised to write to Celie everyday, sadly she doesn’t. Celie falls in love with a famous singer named Shug Avery whom she claims to be, “The most beautiful woman I ever saw” (Walker 6). There are multiple themes throughout the whole book like diversity, politics, and religion. The main theme of ​The Color Purple​ is finding ways to keep healthy relationships with God, family, and romantic relationships. The most stable relationship that Celie has in this book seems to be with God. She talks and writes to him as if God is her best friend. Due to its vivid descriptions of rape, homosexuality, explicit language, and violence,​ The Color Purple i​ s very controversial. These topics have brought up conversations about if the book should be banned or not. ​ The Color Purple​ should not be banned because it is related to a lot of women.

However, school boards and public libraries across the country have voted to ban teachers from teaching this book in classrooms due to the reasons shared above. There are many institutions that have voted to banned ​The Color Purple.​ ​The Color Purple​ was banned in

Georgette 2 Oakland, California at a high school named Oakland High School. It was banned from an honors class due to its “sexual explicitness” and its “troubling depictions about race, relations, man’s relationship, God, African American history, and human sexuality”. ​ ​It was also banned in 1985 at Hayward School in California, In 1986, Newport New School Library, and In 1989, at the Saginaw Public Libraries. These reasons are attributions towards religion and politics.

As an example for why people want this book banned, “First he put his thing up against my hip and sort of wiggle it around. The he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. When that hurt, I cry. He start to choke me, saying You better shut up and git used to it.” (Walker 1). Celie wrote to God. As soon as a reader opens the first page of the book, They see these words. Another example of a quote that someone could of found offensive enough to want the book banned is,“...have you ever found God in church? I never did. I just found a bunch of folks hoping for him to show. Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me. And I think all the other folks did too. They come to church to share God, not find God”(Walker 175).

Alice Walker initially wrote this book to create characters that resembled her grandparents and her parents who died long ago, “so I set out to write a book in which I could really live for year or two and be with them by creating characters who resemble them and by giving them a life that they might of had and in fact many of them didn’t have”(Walker).

The first reason ​This Color Purple​ should not be banned is because overall it has some powerful messages. It talks about real life experiences which a lot of women can relate to.

Secondly, this book wasn’t intended for young audiences to read. Schools and libraries should restrict children under the age of 15 from reading or checking out this book just because it might be a bit too mature for them. ​The Color Purple​ is very explicit and raw because these are issue that are often ignored. For Alice Walker to take these controversial topics and not walk around the issues but instead fully on attack it. It is important that she didn’t cover anything up because

Georgette 3 it’s how she imagined how her grandparent lives were like. For Alice to bring up these topics is a very bold move to do, considering how people would react to these topics especially since it was first published in 1982. The 1980’s doesn’t seem it was a time where people were very open to talking about sexual abuse, homosexualitiy and all the heavy topics that Alice wrote about in the color purple. In 2019, people are more open to these topics. There are movements that have empowered women like the #Metoo movement helping sexual abused women speak up about their stories and not feel like they have to hide anything.​ The Color Purple​ Is very relevant to helping empower women who have been abused and underrepresented. ​The Color Purple ​is a conversation starter and since it has had many conversation about if it should be banned or not just goes out​ ​to show that people are talking about these issues.

To summarize, books have been banned or censored since the beginning of time. Books have been banned for a number of reasons including religion, politics, and diversity. Whenever a group of people feel offended or attacked by an idea, they feel the need to protected themselves by immediately banning it. However, it is more complex than that. If artist start tip toeing around certain topics, then their work won’t be as authentic. This is why the Color Purple is such an incredible book.

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Works Cited Baldassarro, R. Wolf . Banned Book Awareness: “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. Banned Books Awareness and Reading for Knowledge. March 20, 2011. March 15, 2019.https://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2011/03/20/banned-book-awarenesscolor-purple-alice-walker/

“Banned Book: The Color Purple.” ​Banned Book: The Color Purple | Politics and Prose Bookstore,​ www.politics-prose.com/book-notes/banned-book-color-purple.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. Boston; Mariner Books, 1985

Walker, Alice. Interviewed by Amy, Goodman. ​Democracy Now.​ September 28, 2012.