Banned Books Week: Alice Walker’s “The Color Purple”

Alice Walker’s The Color Purple has been one of the most and banned challenged books since its debut in 1982. As The Banned Books Project points out, there have been “different reasons for the book being banned, including religious objections, homosexuality, violence, African history, rape, incest, drug abuse, explicit language, and sexual scenes.” The bans and challenges to The Color Purple, as we know, have nothing to do with the actual content of the novel. These bans and challenges arise from the fear that The Color Purple and other works hold a mirror up to those who attempt to ban the book. That mirror reflects white supremacy back at the person standing in front of it, and the white person looking at themselves in the mirror fears what the reflections says about themselves.

In 2013, Brunswick County North Carolin Commissioner Pat Sykes attempted to remove The Color Purple from local schools. Sykes called Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, “Trash in, trash out,” and that “[t]o me, we should have standards for our kids.” Olivia Cole asks who Sykes means when she says, “we.” Sykes’ “we” does not refer to everyone; rather, it refers to those who uphold a system that is “both white and Christian at its core.” The Color Purple challenges this system, specifically in the ways that it addresses the impacts of white supremacy through Celie…