"Julie of the Wolves" attacked by Christians

"Julie of the Wolves" attacked by Christians Scientology

I've been going through the top 100 banned or otherwise attacked books from the American Library Association's web site and one of the books I checked out was "Julie of the Wolves" since it is one of the many on the list that aren't about sex or non-Christian occultism that make me wonder what's in them that Christian extremists don't want others to read.

"Julie of the Wolves" is another book like "The Goats" that contains absolutely nothing that could even remotely be considered worth banning or attacking.

The boko is divided into three parts: Julie on the tundra getting adopted by a small pack of wolves -- 5 of them, contribulting to the wolves and being fed by the wolves as part of their pack.

Part 2 has Julie's early life from the age of 4 to 12, after he mother dies and she's packed up and taken to Seal Camp with her father. When a "westernized" relative comes to the sod hut and says she has to go to school and takes her away from her family after the father aranges her marriage when she reaches 13 years old. She learns that he father has disappeared on the ice, and at 13 she's married to a mentally dysfunctional boy but they live apart and it's basically a symbolic marriage: she rarely sees the kid off in the distance except for one day -- the day she walks away and out into the tundra -- when the boy tries to mate her.

Part 3 is basically her travel with the wolf pack to the edge of the sea where she learns that her father is living in the nearby village. She goes to see him and finds that the Eskimo ways are dying out and her father has taken up with a white woman. Worse: it may have been her father that was flying the airplane that was used to shoot and kill the Alpha male of the wolf pack that adopted her. She walks back toward the tundra and, not getting very far, admits to herself that the Eskimo way of life is no longer. In the end she turns around and heads back to her father and the westernized white man's life.

There _may_ be three things about the book that Christian extremists might hate about it... No, four:

1) The book is an accurate depiction of Eskimo life before Alaska wasinvaded and taken over by the United States.

2) The girl is married at 13 and the boy she's married to attempts to have sex with his wife once, prompting the girl to walk away.

3) In walking away, the girl is basically divorced.

4) The girl lives with the wolves and like the wolves, eating what they do, using body language that they use, learning to jip and understand some of the verbal language, and learning to recognize the speech of the individual wolves in the pack.

What I'm finding about almost all of these banned books -- aside from the obvious Stephen King and other "scary" books like Harry Potter and Goosbumps -- is that the majority of the books are banned because they speak a particular truth or tell some truthful story or accurate depiction of real life.

"Go Ask Alice" and "Catcher in the Rye" along with others of the "true life" genre are obvious targets for extremist Christians who don't want people to realize that their fictionalized Perfect Christian Family fantasies are utterly absurd and unevidenced in reality.

+--+ | Hezbollah endorses George W. Bush: http://www.hezbollah.ws/ | http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html -- Scientology crime syndicate | "And his daughter drips semen relentlessly." - Molina +--+

<hr> From: "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster>
Subject: Re: "Julie of the Wolves" attacked by Christians
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 16:49:39 -0500
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In our last episode <10o8231mdun3167@corp.supernews.com>, George Washington Hayduke lept out of the bushes shouting:

> There _may_ be three things about the book that Christian extremists
> might hate about it... No, four:

You may have missed the one I would immediately suspect. Though I haven't read the book and can't say for sure this is involved, it would be my prime suspect.

There is a strong undercurrent in the fundie mindset that no other culture or way of life--particularly native--can *ever* be shown sympathetically. You *must show it as some awful state of depravity, despair, devil worshipping, or other such things because it is, after all, "godless." And somewhere in there, some character has to be "saved" from their awful people (returning to them, of course, as a "missionary").

Suggest this is racist or bigoted, they'll get *very upset...

(I wonder why)

-- Mark K. Bilbo - a.a. #1423 EAC Department of Linguistic Subversion Alt-atheism website at: http://www.alt-atheism.org ----------------------------------------------------------- "Being surprised at the fact that the universe is fine tuned for life is akin to a puddle being surprised at how well it fits its hole" -- Douglas Adams

<hr> Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 15:10:15 -0700
From: "Rev. Karl E. Taylor" <ktayloraz@getnet.net>
Subject: Re: "Julie of the Wolves" attacked by Christians
In-Reply-To: <mOOdnWwOM5OgkRncRVn-3Q@megapath.net> Message-ID: <a3gd52-7mu1.ln1@dhcpdns2.ddsoho.com>

Mark K. Bilbo wrote: > In our last episode <10o8231mdun3167@corp.supernews.com>, George
> Washington Hayduke lept out of the bushes shouting:
>
>
>>There _may_ be three things about the book that Christian extremists
>>might hate about it... No, four:
>
>
> You may have missed the one I would immediately suspect. Though I haven't
> read the book and can't say for sure this is involved, it would be my
> prime suspect.
>
> There is a strong undercurrent in the fundie mindset that no other culture
> or way of life--particularly native--can *ever* be shown sympathetically.
> You *must show it as some awful state of depravity, despair, devil
> worshipping, or other such things because it is, after all, "godless." And
> somewhere in there, some character has to be "saved" from their awful
> people (returning to them, of course, as a "missionary").
>
> Suggest this is racist or bigoted, they'll get *very upset...
>
> (I wonder why)
>
I think it's even easier then that Mark.

Show a religion, any religion other then the xtian religion in any positive way in the US, and you are begging for trouble.

Censorship knows no bounds, and is the tool of the theocrat. Silence all other voices, so your's has no competition, and then hammer the point home, loud and long.

Of course, the same holds true in Iran, or Saudi Arabia, show any religion there, other then Islam, in a kind light, and guess what you get? Of course, they are just a bit more extreme about it right now. Head lopping and tongue splittings and all that. But our own fundies are just as wicked in what they do to try and control what you see, hear, read, and say.

The only difference right now, is the fundies use the courts and boycotts. But there are some, that would just love to see us practice the Arab punishments as their own form of censorship. Granted, and fortunately, there are very few of them, but they are there, none the less.

-- There are none more ignorant and useless, than they that seek answers on their knees, with their eyes closed. ____________________________________________________________________ Rev. Karl E. Taylor ktayloraz@getnet.net

A.A #1143 PLONKED by Bob

Apostle of Dr. Lao EAC: Virgin Conversion Unit Director ____________________________________________________________________

<hr> From: "Mark K. Bilbo" <alt-atheism@org.webmaster>
Subject: Re: "Julie of the Wolves" attacked by Christians
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:51:02 -0500
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In our last episode <a3gd52-7mu1.ln1@dhcpdns2.ddsoho.com>, Rev. Karl E. Taylor lept out of the bushes shouting:

> Mark K. Bilbo wrote:
>> In our last episode <10o8231mdun3167@corp.supernews.com>, George
>> Washington Hayduke lept out of the bushes shouting:
>>
>>
>>>There _may_ be three things about the book that Christian extremists
>>>might hate about it... No, four:
>>
>>
>> You may have missed the one I would immediately suspect. Though I
>> haven't read the book and can't say for sure this is involved, it would
>> be my prime suspect.
>>
>> There is a strong undercurrent in the fundie mindset that no other
>> culture or way of life--particularly native--can *ever* be shown
>> sympathetically. You *must show it as some awful state of depravity,
>> despair, devil worshipping, or other such things because it is, after
>> all, "godless." And somewhere in there, some character has to be "saved"
>> from their awful people (returning to them, of course, as a
>> "missionary").
>>
>> Suggest this is racist or bigoted, they'll get *very upset...
>>
>> (I wonder why)
>>
> I think it's even easier then that Mark.
>
> Show a religion, any religion other then the xtian religion in any
> positive way in the US, and you are begging for trouble.
>
> Censorship knows no bounds, and is the tool of the theocrat. Silence all
> other voices, so your's has no competition, and then hammer the point
> home, loud and long.
>
> Of course, the same holds true in Iran, or Saudi Arabia, show any religion
> there, other then Islam, in a kind light, and guess what you get? Of
> course, they are just a bit more extreme about it right now. Head lopping
> and tongue splittings and all that. But our own fundies are just as
> wicked in what they do to try and control what you see, hear, read, and
> say.
>
> The only difference right now, is the fundies use the courts and boycotts.
> But there are some, that would just love to see us practice the Arab
> punishments as their own form of censorship. Granted, and fortunately,
> there are very few of them, but they are there, none the less.

Yes but the book does not apparently deal with religion. At least not from the (admittedly brief) description in George's post. You don't have to deal directly or at all with the subject of religion to arouse the ire of fundamentalists. *Particularly in any area involving American natives.

Now, I haven't read the book but I'm going on this from the description offered:

> She walks back toward the tundra and, not getting very far, admits to
> herself that the Eskimo way of life is no longer. In the end she turns
> around and heads back to her father and the westernized white man's life.

I'm betting--even not having read the book--how that's played.

The issue a lot of fundamentalists (not to mention a lot of US Americans in general) would react to is that any sympathetic portrayal of a native facing the reality of the genocide raises *very uncomfortable questions. But particularly for fundamentalists. Despite the rationalizations that those were "Not Real Christians," somewhere in those reptilian brains, they know *damn well something very bad happened here, the aftermath is still going on, and it damn well was perpetrated by Christians.

Suggesting that what was lost may have had value is to suggest they are the spiritual descendants of people who committed genocide. And that will not be tolerated. You don't have to go within ten miles of the issue of religion...

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