According to the Daily News, the chief librarian of the Brooklyn Public Library, after a borrower complained that it was "racially offensive", has ordered the comic book classic Tintin Au Congo banned from all local branches -- because it depicts black people as "monkeys".TinTin Au Congo has the distinction of being the only book in the city library system banned from public view. The popular Belgian comic is kept behind locked doors on the third floor of the Brooklyn central library, viewable only by appointment.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has called the library out for censoring artistic expression.
Critics of the comic say that, because TinTin violates the "sensitivities" (read political will) of the Brooklyn community, it should be locked up.
In my opinion, banning books -- even highly offensive ones -- is never a good thing. Better to air that stuff out and invite debate than keep it festering in secret.
The article from the New York Daily News.
