Read the news? It paints an unpleasant picture of where we live. 

Texas isn’t only famous for its false history of The Alamo anymore. It’s no longer famous only for its inhumane treatment of border jumpers intent on saving their families from privation. And, it’s no longer only famous for the Texas Abortion “Trigger” law effective August 25, 2022. 

Texas has made itself infamous with those decisions. And, also for the rash of library closings (whew!), contentious school board meetings, and book banning sweeping across the Lone Star State, and the Nation. The evidence is clear.

Let’s take a closer look at that.

Source: Robot clad in Texas flag burns books, Bing Image Creator

Book Bans ARE a Local Threat

As
a long-time resident of San Antonio with family in local school
districts, I am appalled at the POSSIBILITY of a book bans barring
students from reading books on activism, on liberty, on sex, on seeing
people of color as the protagonists, or LGBTQ+. In the school district
where I live, I make sure to cast my vote AGAINST those who SUPPORT book
bans of any kind. 

Books have been the targets of bans in America for more than a century. Maus
is not the first, or the last, casualty of an ideology that, in the
name of protecting children, leaves them ignorant of the world as it
often is…books employ difficult, sometimes upsetting imagery to tell complicated stories. That approach has made them some of the most frequently challenged, or outright banned, books in America’s schools; it also makes them perfect examples of what literature is supposed to do (Source: The Atlantic).

This
past weekend, I was shocked to read a social media post alleging a
local school district campus principal (and District) of a book ban. He
quoted the high school principal’s email with a screenshot of email. He
also alleged, “Books were…removed from curriculum.” Whether they were
or not, it should have some transparency and more scrutiny.

In
schools today, tough issues are often covered up to avoid the necessary
civil dialogue and verbal conflict (that may result) that is essential
to American democracy. Librarians and teachers are hung out to dry, as
their administrators are forced to walk a tightrope fraught with
political peril.

I urge anyone with knowledge about book bans in
K-16 schools to speak up and let the sunlight in. As the saying goes, it
makes for the best disinfectant.

A Chill on Freedom and Inquiry

When
one considers the book removals happening in Texas, and possibly in
local San Antonio districts, Suzanne Nossel’s words come to mind:

“This
censorious movement is turning our public schools into political
battlegrounds, driving wedges within communities, forcing teachers and
librarians from their jobs, and casting a chill over the spirit of open inquiry and intellectual freedom that underpin a flourishing democracy,” Suzanne Nossel, PEN America’s chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Again,
as an educator, English/Language Arts teacher, I find book bans
unAmerican, anti-Liberty, and to go against the division of Church and
State. 

I have nothing but sympathy for in the trenches educators
who have to explain to students why books are suddenly off the menu. And
little sympathy for those who may choose to cover up that struggle to
stay out of the news or avoid the appearance of favoring one side or
another.

Those who oppose book banning emphasize that the First Amendment protects students’ rights to receive and express ideas. The Supreme Court in Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982) ruled 5-4 that public schools can bar books that are “pervasively vulgar” or not right for the curriculum, but they cannot remove books “simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those books.”

The Court’s decision was, however, narrow, applying only to the removal of books from school library shelves (source)

If
book banning IS taking place, then it needs to be shouted from the
mountain tops, no matter the views of campus or district administrators
trying to avoid the fight.

Book Bans in Texas and America

PEN America’s report highlights the following:

…the
large majority of book bans underway today are not spontaneous, organic
expressions of citizen concern. Rather, they reflect the work of a
growing number of advocacy organizations that have made demanding
censorship of certain books and ideas in schools part of their mission.

The report authors go on to say:

• 674 banned book titles (41 percent) explicitly address LGBTQ+ themes or have protagonists or prominent secondary characters who are LGBTQ+ (this includes a specific subset of titles for transgender characters or stories—145 titles, or 9 percent);
• 659 banned book titles (40 percent) contain protagonists or prominent secondary characters of color;
• 338 banned book titles (21 percent) directly address issues of race and racism;
• 357 banned book titles (22 percent) contain sexual content
  of varying kinds, including novels with some level of description of
  sexual experiences of teenagers, stories about teen pregnancy, sexual
  assault and abortion as well as informational books about puberty, sex,
  or relationships;
• 161 banned book titles (10 percent) have themes related to rights and activism;
• 141 banned book titles (9 percent) are either biography, autobiography, or memoir; and
• 64
  banned book titles (4 percent) include characters and stories that
  reflect religious minorities, such as Jewish, Muslim and other faith
  traditions.

As a resident of San Antonio, Texas, an educator, I am shocked to read these facts. 

As
an American citizen exercising my First Amendment right to express my
shock and opinions, I hope that more schools get scrutinized for the
decisions they make.

My opinion is
that educators, students, and parents must mobilize politically. They
must send a message that says, “No, this we won’t become book censors to
satisfy fanatics who use one perspective in a religious text to ban
other texts.”

Did You Know?

Book bans by state in this diagram below. Note that Texas has 751-1000. Not a place where book bans can be taken lightly.

Image Source: Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Ban Books – PEN America

ACTIONS DEFINE US

Texas
is moving towards more restricted speech and actions. There is a
definite effort to constrain and censor what people can read and write.
Consider this report from local news outlet, KSAT12, citingthis report from PEN America:

Image Source: Bing Image Creator

Texas
banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other
state in the nation, targeting titles centering on race, racism,
abortion and LGBTQ representation and issues, according to a new
analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free
speech.

The report released on Monday found that school administrators in Texas have banned 801 books across 22 school districts, and 174 titles were banned at least twice between July 2021 through June 2022.

PEN America defines a ban as any action taken against a book based on its content after challenges from parents or lawmakers.

That’s
a big problem. While I am not a fan of the current Supreme Court, or
its long history of oppression, I am of the OPINION that Justice
Brandeis’ remark about sunlight is particularly 

FIGHTING BOOK BANS

In other places, there are others finding ways around book bans. Consider Pennsylvania news:

Right-wingers
who thought they’d scored a victory by canceling the middle school
program only ensured that more young folks in Berks County would
actually read Two Degrees — a tale of teens dramatically fighting catastrophes brought on by climate change.

They
were helped by the progressive grassroots organization Red Wine &
Blue, which raised money to buy 200 copies to give away to Kutztown
youth. Gratz, who’d long planned to come to Kutztown University for its
annual conference on children’s literature, arranged to hold both
afternoon and evening book signings to meet as many young fans as
possible. (source: The Philadelphia Inquirer)

The text of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
is worth revisiting, as a reminder of what may come if we fail to
safeguard schools from radical right-wing parents who seek to keep the
next generation ignorant:

IT WAS A PLEASURE TO BURN.

It
was a special pleasure to see things eaten, to see things blackened and
changed.  With the brass nozzle in his fists, with this great python
spitting its venomous kerosene upon the world, the blood pounded in his
head, and his hands were the hands of some amazing conductor playing all
the symphonies of blazing and burning to bring down the tatters and
charcoal ruins of history. 

With
his symbolic helmet numbered 451 on his stolid head, and his eyes all
orange flame with the thought of what came next, he flicked the igniter
and the house jumped up in a gorging fire that burned the evening sky
red and yellow and black. 

He strode in a swarm of fireflies.

“Protect our children’s freedom to learn & #LetAmericaRead.
Banning books is not a way to educate; it is a way to oppress – and
none of us want to go backwards, we want to go forward together.”
@sashaalexander. Learn more at Let America Read.

***

Update: This
blog
entry was updated to remove specific mention of the San Antonio area
school district mentioned in a social media post. More information was
brought to my attention as background information that clarified the
story. Given new information, I decided to remove those portions. That
aside, I refer any parties who disliked the previous version of this
blog entry to my Disclaimer and my faithful readers to the canary in the coal mine section of the disclaimer.