Reading Rights

 The following essay was first published in the Courier-Tribune in 2015 in a truncated form, before our local paper devolved into the pointless iteration of its former self that it is now. I have updated the essay to reinforce the central theme for the severity of the modern problem. For more on the local and national attempts to ban books, you can click on the links throughout the essay or go to ala.org.

Imagine the horror that you would feel if someone broke into your house, piled all your books into a wheelbarrow, dumped them in the front yard and set them ablaze. Now imagine that you have no legal recourse in the face of this persecution. You cannot call the police (they're the ones burning your books). You cannot seek remuneration for the damages. All you can do is look on in horror through your freshly kicked-in door as your beloved, possibly irreplaceable books burn. Knowing some of the books in my own collection, I might consider throwing myself on the pyre, if the censor's henchmen didn't do it for me.

This nightmare scenario may seem like the opening of a dystopian novel where an evil government seeks to subdue the people and their ideas. In fact it is just a slightly histrionic paraphrasing of actuality. Throughout history, groups and governments have sought to usurp the right of the people to own, read and share the ideas in books.

Likewise, throughout history, members of those oppressed groups have risen against totalitarianism and worked to keep those ideas alive and those books on our shelves. True, most of us rightly support the side that favors freedom of ideas.

Here in the United States, we might breathe a sigh of relief, realize the sun is still shining through the windows and that our beloved books are safely intact on our shelves. Those horrible book burning realities happen in other places and other times, but not here in America. We gratefully live in a land where our right to access those ideas is protected. It will help to strengthen our appreciation for those rights to think about those other places, yes, but we know that it is not a reality for us here at home.

Right?

We are rightly comforted that our right to read what we choose cannot be infringed. And, just a few short years ago, I might have said attempts to ban books were at low ebb. Though that right has constantly been challenged here at home, it is now a far more serious and significant threat.

Local and national groups all over the country have declared war on school librarians and their collections. There are several libraries in North Carolina that are, as you read this, wading through the banal mass challenges of so-called "patriotic" cadres that shred collections in order to eliminate LGBTQIA+ affirming literature or books that show certain parts of our national history in an unflattering (although entirely factual) light.

These attempts are not new. It used to begin innocuously. A young person might bring home a book and their parents are naturally curious about the content. In that book is a subject matter that the person finds reprehensible and that offends their personal sensibilities. If it stopped there; if that offended individual simply forbade their child from reading the book, or if they removed it from their own shelves, it would be enough. 

Now, groups financially strengthened by monetary injections from politically supportive billionaires and super pacs, reaffirm the offended person's right to complain, and then seek to audit entire collections to remove any other books they don't like. These generic, unironic ‘patriots’ then work to gain seats on their local school and library boards, town and county councils, and seats in the state general assembly, in order to prevent everyone else from reading or accessing those books, too. 

It is happening right now, even as you read this essay. People who say they have the best interest of children at heart are working to remove our right to free access because they are scared of books that show the world in a different light than they can tolerate. This fear is actively undermining our democracy and its foundational principles.

One of these groups, the un-ironically named extremist group "moms for liberty" (these groups do not have the capacity for irony) hosted North Carolina's Lieutenant Governor for a breakfast meeting. This mammal is running for the big chair in our state in 2024, much to the joy of a very wide range of evangelical, far right Christian Nationalists, a thought that ought to make any freethinker bilious.

Every year, the American Library Association sets aside a week in the early autumn to honor those books that have been banned or challenged over the years. The point of Banned Books Week is to look at both sides of the dialog while guarding the intellectual freedom we enjoy to read what we like. Librarians across the country are dedicated to providing freedom of access to books and ideas and with help from the American Library Association and our state library associations, we highlight those books that have had attempted bans or challenges and the reasons why.

In recent years, this educational program has taken on a more desperate, intentional tone. As splinter groups and factions coalesce into a kind of anti-history, anti-education, anti-literary junta that fully intends to rewrite history and prevent the rest of us from reading whatever we want, the threat to our liberty grows exponentially. It is happening now. It is gaining momentum now. Political pressure in states across the nation to ban books, to limit access, to stop appropriate programming and to defund and force libraries to “go private” is intensifying.

In our own community, we have had this important discussion regularly though it used to be necessary to discuss only once a year to keep it fresh in our minds and in the minds of our political leaders. The topic of banned and challenged books worked as a kind of apotropaic against the worst impulses of crypto-fascist cabals around our nation. Perhaps our work to keep this fresh in the public's eye wasn't enough. An annual visit to the list of banned books is no longer anywhere near enough. Every day must be Banned Books Day. Until the existential threat of book banning and political attacks on libraries (school, public and academic) slows or ends, we cannot afford to be hopeful that an annual celebration is enough.

In my somewhat limping attempts to review books, I let my audience know that if a book I suggest is offensive to them it is okay to put that book right back on the shelf. If a parent or guardian decides that the content of a certain book is inappropriate for their child, I fully support the right of that parent to decide on that topic for their family. We encourage people to explore new ideas, but we know well that some of those ideas might not agree with everyone. That's part of free access.

We do not work to prevent anyone from reading something simply because an individual or small group does not approve of it. That is antithetical to the national experiment which promotes free access and free inquiry as the underpinning of its democratic mechanisms.

Some people have approached me saying, with heartfelt concern, that it isn’t appropriate to have books about LGBTQIA+ lifestyles and information about gender, sex or racism in the Children’s Collection. “We don’t think little kids should have access to that,” they say with big, sad eyes. But the fact is, most librarians will not allow a child to check out without their parent there, and it is the right of the parent to choose for their child. As such, if the parent is active in their child’s reading choices, then that child will not be exposed to anything their parent or guardian disapproves of. “But,” they will say, “this new ‘woke’ literature is dangerous for the children, it has no place in the library to begin with”. 

The "for the children" argument is a fallacy. You don't have to like a book and you can choose to keep your children from reading it. To try to take a book from the hands of all children because you don't like it is ludicrously narcissistic. While this intention is the hallmark of the ideological movements working right now to take books off shelves, it is totally and by definition un-American. And make no mistake, they aren’t concerned for the children. The same groups that are funded to remove books from libraries “for the children” also keep lobbyists well paid to keep any legislation from passing limiting actual threats to children, like unfettered access to assault rifles. 

Though the discussion of banned books has, in the past, striven to understand both sides of the debate and educators and librarians have worked to promote the rights of both sides as well, we are now entering a new phase of the debate. It is well within the right of any group or individual to voice their objections to a book, just as it is well within the right of any group or individual to have access to that same book. We can no longer chalk up these protests and ban attempts to free speech. They are politically motivated and funded by political organizations. They are anti-democratic and their worldview is always bigoted, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and they consistently use evangelical and ecclesiastical ideology to back their desire to remove books from libraries. There is no coincidence that the newly named Christian Nationalist movement is pro-book banning.

 

To balance between and understand both sides used to be the most important task that librarians and freethinkers had. However, in today's much more dystopian reality, the intent to stay balanced must be overshadowed by the intent to keep the challenged books available despite attacks and attempted bans. Our work to educate can no longer be enough. The shelves of our school and public libraries have become the front line in a war of ideological struggle where one side is literally an emissary of the totalitarian nightmare regimes of the last century. The nemeses of all we hold dear are deluded into thinking that trying to remove history and sexual education books is the most patriotic thing they can do. Our work now is to prove them wrong and stop tolerating their challenges and, ideally, end their era of power. We can no longer find hope in the idea that, at heart, every American loves democracy. The fascist, totalitarian impulse is behind the scenes of these groups and at the heart of the anti-democratic movements, in general. We’re no longer just educators. We’re now working as a kind of highly educated and specialized guerilla force, trying to save the foundation of our nation’s right to free access, inclusivity, equity and open mindedness. Every right we hold dear is at stake and our enemy is well-funded, self-assured and so adept at the casuistry of the televangelist and extremist politician.

George Orwell said, "Those who control the past, control the future. Those who control the present, control the past." The 'those’' in this quote represent the enemies of the freedoms we depend on and love. It is time to decide and know what we are prepared to do to save our way of life. And, make no mistake, this is the fight of our lives. If the goons' groups have their way, we lose everything.

It is that simple.