Surge in book bans mimics Nazi book burnings.

by Emily Kay

Remember when you and your 6th-grade pals secretly rifled through algebra books for illicit information? Of course not, because you’re not a MAGAt moron, and your math tomes contained nothing but incredibly boring text that just had to do with…math.

Nor can we recall a time in the history of our increasingly fragile democracy when being a librarian was a dangerous profession. 

Then along came the Hitler-wannabe, twice-impeached, one-term loser that continues to incite its cult of white nationalist domestic terrorists to emulate the antisemitic, anti-gay, anti-Black, anti-intellectual actions of Germany’s evil dictator in so many ways — including the burning and banning of books.

The annual Banned Book Week is upon us (September 18-24) just as two new studies indicate that books already banned, along with those targeted for removal from school libraries, will reach an all-time high this year. The American Library Association (ALA) and PEN America released research over the weekend noting that the extreme right wing aims to yank from library shelves far more than books than it abolished in 2021. The ALA reported 1,597 book challenges in 2021, the highest number since such ban tracking started 20 years ago. (For more shocking numbers, click here.)

Not at all surprising are the reports’ findings that today’s Gestapo is most vigorously targeting tomes by or about people of color or LGBTQ+ persons. (Here is a list of the 10 most challenged books since 2000.)

Book bans are surging as “concerned” parents and Republican politicians battle educators and students over what kids should learn about racism, LGBTQ+ issues, gender identity, and our own American history. Several states have enacted or will pass laws requiring schools to allow parents to review, remove, or limit school text books.

About those math books. Floriduh’s fascist governor and probable 2024 presidential candidate has accused math book publishers of preposterously attempting to “indoctrinate” students by including such state-outlawed content as critical race theory and (OMG, NO!) social-emotional learning – which facilitates students’ educational development.

Not surprisingly, such efforts have incited acolytes of the vermin that infested the White House for four years to harass and threaten librarians. LIBRARIANS!

“There were comments about library staff, calling us groomers and pedophiles and saying we needed to be fired, we need to be jailed, we needed to be locked up, that all the books needed to be burned,” says Tonya Ryals, former assistant director of the Jonesboro (Ark.) Public Library. She quit in February after her library board supported a slew of restrictive and autocratic policies. “It got to a certain point where I thought, do I want to live here?” she says. “Is this something I can subject myself to?”

Right-minded folks are sounding the alarm about the harm such efforts will cause students and our very form of government.

“When you dictate what people can read, what people can choose from, that’s the mark of an authoritarian society, not a democratic society,’’ warns Deborah Caldwell-Stone, ALA director of the office for intellectual freedom.

Had enough? Here are just a few suggestions for what we can do to combat book bans, per the ALA and Book Ban Busters (BBB):

• Download BBB’s parent handbook. This organizational tool can help you combat far-right extremism in your kids’ schools.
• Report bans. Learn your library’s policy for reviewing challenged books and contact the Office of Intellectual Freedom, or BBB, if you know of challenges at your local library.
• Host a read-in. Stand up against the book bullies by hosting our own Banned Book Read-In. You may even join readers globally by filming yourself reading from your favorite banned book. The Banned Books Week YouTube channel features such videos.
• Donate banned books to your local library. 
• Proclaim Banned Books Week at your local library using ALA’s proclamation template.
• Check banned books out of the library. Then urge your book club to discuss such texts.

Visit ALA and BBB web sites for several additional ideas about actions you can take, during Banned Books Week and beyond, to thwart book banning in your community.