To Ban or Not to Ban?

Reprise for Banned Books Week

Image by Robert Anasch @diesektion

To ban, or not to ban? That is the question.

The to-be-or-not-to-be question posed by Hamlet was similarly binary: live, or die? There’s no possibility of middle ground, no hope for a “Yes, and . . .” solution.

And if the question really is binary –
ban books or don’t? - I choose the latter.

Every single time.

For me, the problem is that - like so many things - the question is nonbinary.

(Yep, that was a not-so-subtle call to embrace the concept of gender nonbinary, because that is us.)

I’ve seen many memes opposing book-banning (including the two shared below), and though I often find myself nodding in agreement, most are snarky, and describe the issue in terms of absolutes. I’ve never yet seen the problem that could be solved by sarcasm, and, more importantly, I don’t believe this is an absolute, an either/or issue.

Social media lends itself to simple solutions, divisive rhetoric, and most of all, binary language: you’re either for us or against us . . .

 . . . which makes it challenging to write about complex concepts on social media. But as a lifelong bibliophile, I feel compelled to try.

However, while I recognize an untenable proposition when I see one, I don’t have any answers.

All I can do is share my experiences, and hope these musings support the ongoing conversation about what truly is best for our communities.

So here goes.

I was reading voraciously by the time I went to kindergarten, and I occasionally read something that was decidedly not age-appropriate. (The scene in the movie “Captain Fantastic” where the little girl reads The Joy of Sex was practically autobiographical for me, including her reaction: They do what???)

But I wouldn’t change one iota – or one page – of that personal history, even if I could.

One example among many: one of my all time favorite books is T. H. White’s The Once and Future King. This version of the King Arthur story is “an extended political allegory” against fascism and for pacifism.* In one chapter, White describes people “basted over slow fires, or sprinkled with molten lead, or impaled, or left to die with their eyes gouged out, or else they were crawling along the roads on hands and knees, because they had been hamstrung.”

I first read the book when I was eight, and looked up the original meaning of the word “hamstrung.” I was horrified. To this day, I avoid using the word “hamstrung.”

In other words, I have firsthand experience reading something as a child that left a scar on my psyche.

My experience is insignificant compared to others. Author Viet Thanh Nguyen shares in a New York Times guest essay: “When I was 12 or 13 years old, I was not prepared for the racism, the brutality or the sexual assault in Larry Heinemann’s 1974 novel, ‘Close Quarters.’ “**

And he freely acknowledges, “Books can indeed be dangerous.”

The thing is, counterbalanced against the scars a powerful book can leave are the revelations a book can bring. Sometimes the same book that left the scars.

As Nguyen goes on to say: “ . . . I was driven to become a writer because of the complex power of stories. They are not inert tools of pedagogy. They are mind-changing, world-changing.”

Another personal example: from The Once and Future King I learned that most bullying and cruelty stems from ignorance and, perversely, a desire to be seen and loved. And I learned that choices make a hero, not fate.

Image by Lino Ogenio @ogeniofilms

Nguyen’s essay concludes:

“But those who seek to ban books are wrong no matter how dangerous books can be. Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is really what is at stake: the struggle over what a child, a reader and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question.”

That word - “dangerous” - is what gives me pause. Isn’t that our job, as parents, as teachers, to steer vulnerable children away from danger, to keep them safe?

Yes, and . . .

Maybe we’re misunderstanding what it means to be safe.

Lengthy aside: I have no sympathy for - and this post isn’t about - banning books that delve into the experience of being Black, Latinx, Native American, gay, trans, other-abled, male, female, young, old . . . . Our world is a rainbow of colors, shapes, sizes, sexual orientations, gender identities, and abilities, and there is no merit to wanting to “protect” children from protagonists who simply look or feel differently.

But the issue of delaying exposure to cruelty is more complex. Would I have wanted to shield my younger self from ever knowing what “hamstrung” meant? Does Viet Thanh Nguyen ever wish he could have protected his twelve-year-old self from exposure to racism, brutality, and sexual assault, maybe even just for a few years?

And yet: racism, brutality, and sexual assault exist. And I wonder, how can we ever hope to address a problem that we don’t acknowledge exists, that we’ve sanitized from our bookshelves and libraries lest someone be upset? We’re supposed to be upset about these things, so we can re-commit to stopping them. And educating children about the issues is an important step in that journey.

Just as importantly, reading about others’ experiences - even terrible experiences - engenders empathy, which is in short supply in our world.

On the list of banned books, there’s a cornucopia of simply amazing literature, much of which delves into the ugliness - as well as the beauty - of life. ***

And . . . I understand the desire to shield kids from the ugliness. As a mother, grandmother, and former teacher, I long for children to be able to hold onto innocence for as long as possible.

But that, too, begs the question: what is “as long as possible”?

If the idea is that certain books should be off limits until kids are developmentally ready to handle the content, there would have to be a line in the sand, a before and after. Certainly individual parents may have a sense of what their individual children are ready for (though we parents can make mistakes!), but I can’t imagine how an objective boundary could be established. Do we assume middle school students can’t handle certain literature, but the day they turn fourteen and go to high school that magically changes? (Or as much of the book-banning proposals seem to posit, do we assume they can’t handle the truth right up until they turn eighteen?)

In pondering these questions, I am reminded that we live in a country where Black parents have to have “the talk” with their children at a very young age. As Kenya Young, Executive Producer of NPR’s Morning Edition, told Sam Sanders, host of It’s Been A Minute:

“I remember the kids asking to go to the park and the laundry list of what I had to tell them: ‘Don’t wear your hood. Don’t put your hands in your pocket. If you get stopped, don’t run. Put your hands up. Don’t make a lot of moves. Tell them your mother works for NPR.’” ****

How can we seriously contemplate banning books on the basis that their truths are too harsh for kids when Black children have to hear about the dangers of racism before they even set foot in school for the first time?

For me, it comes down to this: until we can protect children – all children – from actual trauma, we should not be so focused on protecting them from reading about trauma.

Another lengthy aside: There are books that have no redeeming value, not in educating the next generation, not even as entertainment. For example, some books are simply pornographic.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the occasional steamy romance, so long as the adults are consenting. That doesn’t mean I’d be thrilled to find a steamy romance with explicit content in an elementary school library.

Yet another aside: I do not understand the obsession with profanity, sex, and nudity among some book-banning proponents. (Did you know that Art Spiegelman’s Maus has been banned for “eight swear words and the depiction of a woman’s nude body . . . ”? To which I can only say: Huh. The whole genocide thing didn’t worry you, but you’re losing sleep over the idea that a child might see a drawing of a naked human body?) *****

Similarly, if it were up to me I would categorically reject books that don’t just explore the impact of violence and racism, they celebrate violence and racism.

But therein lies the rub (to quote Shakespeare again – and if you want to talk about writing that contains violence and greed and prejudice and dishonesty and every other vice known to humankind, look no further than the Bard himself): Who gets to decide what is literature, and what is harmful, or just plain garbage?

I wouldn’t have wanted my kids to find a white supremacist manifesto in their school library, and I hope my grandchildren won’t find Penthouse magazines in their school libraries. But I am appalled at the proposed removal of books by Sherman Alexie, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Angie Thomas, and other authors whose works absolutely should be part of every library.

Like everyone else, I’m pretty sure my opinion is the right one . . . But we can’t all be right. So who decides?

Another thorny question: what about literature that re-traumatizes kids who have already been exposed to cruelty? The excerpt below is from an article about a Washington county’s removal of Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird from its required reading list. Here’s what several thoughtful people had to say. ******

Kamiak High School Junior Esaw Adhana: “It's not just language [referring to the use of racial epithets in the book], but it’s also, like, the sort of white savior complex. . . . I think the lessons and ideas of racial injustice are super important, TKAM, at least how we teach it, is not the best sample. The way we teach it now is just really uncomfortable and almost invasive.”

WEA Director of the Center for Racial Social and Economic Justice Michael Pena: “How do we bring curriculum into those classes in ways that reflect the values of our diversity?”

University of Washington teaching professor and associate director of writing programs Michelle Liu: “I think it is still possible to teach this book to forge a conversation about, ‘How do we talk about racial and class and gender differences?’ But, I think it would need to be taught very different than how it has traditionally been taught as an example of ‘Atticus Finch is the greatest man on the face of this planet.’”

I think the comment by Professor Liu says it all. How do we talk about racial and class and gender differences?

We start by letting kids read the books exploring those tough ideas.

And then . . . we talk.

I began this long post by saying I don’t think this is a binary question, a to-be-or-not-to-be moment, for all the reasons shared in this post.

But if it comes down to it, if those really are the only choices available to us, I believe the best option, the only option, is to throw wide the doors to everything ever written.

And then? We invite all those young readers to have a conversation about what they’ve read, engendering in them a lifelong relationship with powerful books and ideas. To misquote Humphrey Bogart’s line at the end of Casablanca: “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.”

Citations

* The quote is Constance Grady’s description in a May 18, 2017 Vox article “Why The Once and Future King is still the best King Arthur story out there.” Read the article here.

** “My Young Mind Was Disturbed by a Book. It Changed My Life,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, 1/29/2022 New York Times. Full essay available here.

*** Here are a couple of articles listing some of the books that are being banned or subject to proposed bans: “16 books removed from Polk County school libraries after objection from conservative group,” by Staci DaSilva, 1/28/2022 News Channel 8, available here; “Book Banning Fever Heats Up In Red States,” by Jon Skolnik, 1/26/2022 Salon, available here.

(As an aside, I want to make a quick plug for the series A Kids Book About . . . a marvelous option - though definitely targeted toward younger kids. Not banned yet, as far as I know!)

**** Read the NPR Kenya Young interview here.

***** “Why a school board’s ban on ‘Maus’ may put the book in the hands of more readers,” by Rachel Treisman, 1/31/2022 NPR

****** “Washington school district votes to remove 'To Kill a Mockingbird' from required reading,” by Jackie Kent 1/29/2022 KOMO News. Note that this is NOT the same as banning a book from the library!