Heb. #2 "Not Persuaded"

Nikki B.
Heb. #2

This heb. is supposed to be about which of these two articles (“Poising Children’s Culture: Comics and Their Critics, by Amy Nyberg and “Design for Delinquency,” by Fredric Wertham, M.D.) persuaded me more to believe their argument about the effects of comic books. The truth is, I can’t write that heb. I simply wasn’t persuaded.
I could sit here and blandly tell whoever is reading this that according to the points given in “On Summary” by Michael Bernard-Donals and Jennifer R. Grifith, “Design for Delinquency” was more persuasive, but it didn’t work on me. Dr. Wertham, in order to be more persuasive, should have shown a greater direct correlation between the cases he presented and comic books. To me, his argument is nothing more than to say every teenager who owns a bandana is likely to be in a gang.
My own opinions more closely follow that of “Poisoning Children’s Culture: Comics and Their Critics,” but the truth of it is, it wasn’t that persuasive as an article. It is hard to persuade anyone when, unless your reading it for a class, it is so lack-luster that no one would actually read through the whole thing to get persuaded in the first place. So instead, I am going to explain why these articles did not persuade me and how they managed to find the wrong girl on the day.
An interesting thing to note is that of anyone in our English 100 class, I am probably the closest thing to Dr. Wertham’s target audience. I have a little brother who just turned seven this month and I am very much like a mother to him. My parents and I don’t completely censor violence from him or swearing, we simply teach him the difference between right and wrong. We took him to see Alien vs. Predator in the theatres and on his seventh birthday we almost bought him a BB gun, but we questioned if his arm was long enough to pump it. Some people may call that irresponsible parenting, but I think that you need to know your children.
If the comic books are really having this effect on these children, I would like to ask where the parents are. My brother would have been carefully supervised with the BB gun and he understands the concept of the movies being pretend. He isn’t going to kill anyone or torture animals. He is a typical, well-behaved, sweet, loving child. (and completely adorable, not that that is relevant)
I too, have been raised around guns. I spent every Saturday keeping score at the local sporting clays range, my dad hunts, I’ve helped with surgeries and autopsies of animals before the age of ten, I listened to music with lyrics not suited for my age and I watched rated R movies. I don’t think that I am desensitized to true pain and suffering, nor do I think that any of these factors would have the effect that Dr. Wertham describes if the person is in a state of good mental health.
It is ridiculous to insinuate that censorship is a good idea. Comics, although not my passion, are a reputable and artistic form of literature. Not even a little M. D. after a name is going to convince me of that.