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Friday, October 14, 2022 2:38:08 AM
Banning Books in Schools Is Bad for Democracy, and Your Kids Know It
"If Dems Fought an All-Out Culture War, They’d Win
SETTLING THE SCORE
Republicans are the ones attacking our cultures and freedoms, and it is time for Democrats to fight back aggressively."
Where have you gone, Reading Rainbow? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
By Charles P. PiercePublished: Sep 22, 2022
Guido Cavallini//Getty Images
Buried under all the other news over the past few days was a truly alarming report from PEN America about how banning books is back in style in schools all over America. The numbers alone are a good look .. https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/ .. into how quickly the sawdust seems to be leaking out of the nation’s ears.
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From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans .. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit*gid=660619424 .. lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles. The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether. Bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts represent 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students.
---
A map illustrating where the book bans are concentrated presents few surprises: all across the South and in Idaho—although Wisconsin and Michigan are disappointments. Texas, Florida, and (oddly) Pennsylvania lead the way.
And the report makes it quite clear that the forces driving the banning of the books are large and powerful:
---
PEN America has identified at least 50 groups involved in pushing for book bans across the country operating at the national, state or local levels. Of those 50 groups, eight have local or regional chapters that, between them, number at least 300 in total; some of these operate predominantly through social media. Most of these groups (including chapters) appear to have formed since 2021 (73 percent, or 262). These parent and community groups have played a role in at least half of the book bans enacted across the country during the 2021–22 school year. At least 20 percent of the book bans enacted in the 2021-22 school year could be directly linked to the actions of these groups, with many more likely influenced by them; in an additional approximately 30 percent of bans, there is some evidence of the groups’ likely influence, including the use of common language or tactics.
---
The report demonstrates that the current wave of book banning sprang up almost instantly in 2021, when dozens of formal and informal groups began raising hell at school board meetings and raving about “grooming” and “critical race theory.”
---
Of the national groups, Moms for Liberty, formed in 2021 .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/moms-for-liberty-parents-rights/2021/10/14/bf3d9ccc-286a-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html , has spread most broadly, with over 200 local chapters identified on their website .. https://www.momsforliberty.org/chapters/ . Other national groups with branches include US Parents Involved in Education (50 chapters), No Left Turn in Education (25), MassResistance (16), Parents’ Rights in Education (12), Mary in the Library (9), County Citizens Defending Freedom USA (5), and Power2Parent (5)…While some of these groups have existed for years, the overwhelming majority are of recent origin: more than 70 percent (including chapters) were formed since 2021.
---
The report also details the inside game being played by state legislatures in conjunction with these outside groups to stigmatize authors and subject matter. None of this, of course, is coincidental because very little that happens in our politics is coincidental anymore. And this stigmatization has resulted in preemptive—and cowardly—shadow-bans by nervous school districts.
---
Book challenges impede free expression rights, which must be the bedrock of public schools in an open, inclusive, and democratic society. These bans pose a dangerous precedent to those in and out of schools, intersecting with other movements to block or curtail the advances in civil rights for historically marginalized people. Against the backdrop of other efforts to roll back civil liberties and erode democratic norms .. https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2021/crisis-reform-call-strengthen-americas-battered-democracy , the dynamics surrounding school book bans are a canary in the coal mine for the future of American democracy, public education, and free expression. We should heed this warning.
---
The attacks on public school libraries (and public school curriculums and even public schools themselves) ultimately are attacks on imagination, because imagination inevitably leads to curiosity, and curiosity inevitably leads to people asking the question most fundamental to democracy—“What the hell are you people doing?”
The forces behind these attacks don’t want to answer that question. Not in public, anyway.
Related Story
All the Little Things You Lose in the Culture War
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40639734/vinton-iowa-library-closing/
Charles P. Pierce
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been
a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has his three children.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41311932/banned-books-schools-libraries/
"If Dems Fought an All-Out Culture War, They’d Win
SETTLING THE SCORE
Republicans are the ones attacking our cultures and freedoms, and it is time for Democrats to fight back aggressively."
Where have you gone, Reading Rainbow? A nation turns its lonely eyes to you.
By Charles P. PiercePublished: Sep 22, 2022
Guido Cavallini//Getty Images
Buried under all the other news over the past few days was a truly alarming report from PEN America about how banning books is back in style in schools all over America. The numbers alone are a good look .. https://pen.org/report/banned-usa-growing-movement-to-censor-books-in-schools/ .. into how quickly the sawdust seems to be leaking out of the nation’s ears.
---
From July 2021 to June 2022, PEN America’s Index of School Book Bans .. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hTs_PB7KuTMBtNMESFEGuK-0abzhNxVv4tgpI5-iKe8/edit*gid=660619424 .. lists 2,532 instances of individual books being banned, affecting 1,648 unique book titles. The 1,648 titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators, and 18 translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of 1,553 people altogether. Bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts represent 5,049 schools with a combined enrollment of nearly 4 million students.
---
A map illustrating where the book bans are concentrated presents few surprises: all across the South and in Idaho—although Wisconsin and Michigan are disappointments. Texas, Florida, and (oddly) Pennsylvania lead the way.
And the report makes it quite clear that the forces driving the banning of the books are large and powerful:
---
PEN America has identified at least 50 groups involved in pushing for book bans across the country operating at the national, state or local levels. Of those 50 groups, eight have local or regional chapters that, between them, number at least 300 in total; some of these operate predominantly through social media. Most of these groups (including chapters) appear to have formed since 2021 (73 percent, or 262). These parent and community groups have played a role in at least half of the book bans enacted across the country during the 2021–22 school year. At least 20 percent of the book bans enacted in the 2021-22 school year could be directly linked to the actions of these groups, with many more likely influenced by them; in an additional approximately 30 percent of bans, there is some evidence of the groups’ likely influence, including the use of common language or tactics.
---
The report demonstrates that the current wave of book banning sprang up almost instantly in 2021, when dozens of formal and informal groups began raising hell at school board meetings and raving about “grooming” and “critical race theory.”
---
Of the national groups, Moms for Liberty, formed in 2021 .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/moms-for-liberty-parents-rights/2021/10/14/bf3d9ccc-286a-11ec-8831-a31e7b3de188_story.html , has spread most broadly, with over 200 local chapters identified on their website .. https://www.momsforliberty.org/chapters/ . Other national groups with branches include US Parents Involved in Education (50 chapters), No Left Turn in Education (25), MassResistance (16), Parents’ Rights in Education (12), Mary in the Library (9), County Citizens Defending Freedom USA (5), and Power2Parent (5)…While some of these groups have existed for years, the overwhelming majority are of recent origin: more than 70 percent (including chapters) were formed since 2021.
---
The report also details the inside game being played by state legislatures in conjunction with these outside groups to stigmatize authors and subject matter. None of this, of course, is coincidental because very little that happens in our politics is coincidental anymore. And this stigmatization has resulted in preemptive—and cowardly—shadow-bans by nervous school districts.
---
Book challenges impede free expression rights, which must be the bedrock of public schools in an open, inclusive, and democratic society. These bans pose a dangerous precedent to those in and out of schools, intersecting with other movements to block or curtail the advances in civil rights for historically marginalized people. Against the backdrop of other efforts to roll back civil liberties and erode democratic norms .. https://freedomhouse.org/report/special-report/2021/crisis-reform-call-strengthen-americas-battered-democracy , the dynamics surrounding school book bans are a canary in the coal mine for the future of American democracy, public education, and free expression. We should heed this warning.
---
The attacks on public school libraries (and public school curriculums and even public schools themselves) ultimately are attacks on imagination, because imagination inevitably leads to curiosity, and curiosity inevitably leads to people asking the question most fundamental to democracy—“What the hell are you people doing?”
The forces behind these attacks don’t want to answer that question. Not in public, anyway.
Related Story
All the Little Things You Lose in the Culture War
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40639734/vinton-iowa-library-closing/
Charles P. Pierce
Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been
a working journalist since 1976. He lives near Boston and has his three children.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a41311932/banned-books-schools-libraries/
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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