[Dean's World] Andrew Cory: Borders around Books

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Posted by Andrew Cory:
Borders around Books
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1143757681.shtml


   As an employee of Barnes and Noble, I believe that everyone should
   always boycott Borders and their affiliates (such as Waldenbooks). But
   that=E2s just company pride talking...

   I=E2ve been selling books for about 5 years now. Roughly once every
   month in a half, a customer asks for a copy of Mein Kampf. Every now
   and then the person requesting the book is a skinhead. As per company
   policy with any customer request, I smile and walk the customer to the
   section and put the book in their hands...

   Now, my Mother=E2s family fled to this continent to avoid being killed
   in Hitler=E2s mad rage of =E2racial=E2 purity. I have good and sufficient
   reasons for hating that book. Yet my job is to smile and put it in the
   hand of whoever requests it...

   See, a bookstore=E2s only stocking priority ought to be =E2will it sell=
=E2.
   Once the commercial judgment is replaced with editorial one, a company
   sets itself up as a censor. It begins to limit access to knowledge,
   and democracy itself is tarnished...

   Because ultimately, who knows what person reading the rantings of a
   ravaged mind will say =E2never again=E2 and begin to take up the cause of
   peace. The Native American populations were decimated precisely
   because they had never before experienced any but the most mild of
   disease. A small amount of social toxin can similarly act as an
   inoculant...

   I sympathize with the executives of Borders. Their desire to be safe
   in their own life is one that is all too human. Nonetheless as
   booksellers, we are the guardians of knowledge, the purveyors of human
   understanding. My life will be just as much on the line as theirs will
   be, I say that the risks are well worth the potential rewards...

   Boycott Borders? I don=E2t know. But shame on their executive=E2s
   cowardice. It makes us all the poorer...