It’s about issues: Central Bucks Policy 109.2, Central Bucks Policy 321, not individuals.
We read an article recently that named one of the people behind the 60+ book challenges in CB.
We experienced a sense of dread.
Journalists must do their work. Perhaps that person asked to be named, was proud to be named. But we fear what may happen next.
Our community, like our nation, has not distinguished itself in recent months for the respectful tone of its debates. We fear that the named person will experience threats and epithets that will help nothing and instead do great harm. It will place all the focus on the individual. It’s not a one-sided phenomenon. But we question its benefit. We know it harms individuals. Does it help anyone’s cause? We doubt it.
Our focus needs to be on books: books on shelves for kids to read, and liberty: freedom to explore diverse ideas, perspectives, and topics.
Take as a case in point the banning (yes, they banned it from their elementary schools) of Amanda Gorman’s poem.
One single solitary parent complained.
In the complaint, the parent wrote that Gorman’s poem contained indirect “hate messages” and served to “cause confusion and indoctrinate students.”
Read the full text of the poem here.
No one parent should have this power. No one person should have this power. The school district should have thanked her for her concern and sent her on her way.
Where is the freedom for kids to read? Where is the freedom for each parent to decide for their own children what they can read? Why does one person have the power to silence a rising star for all the elementary students in that district?
Gorman’s poem, about the trauma of watching an attack on Washington after the presidential election, was challenged alongside four other books, “The ABCs of Black History,” “Cuban Kids,” “Countries in the News: Cuba” and “Love to Langston,” on the complaint of one parent, according to the Florida Freedom to Read Project, a nonprofit organization focused on defending students’ right to access information at school.
Notice anything those books have in common?
Yet any hounding of this person, and her natural outrage to being hounded, will distract from what matters: books on shelves for kids to read.
The proper question is: Does this book have the power to interest a kid? To illuminate the world for a kid? To pique curiosity in a kid? To answer the questions of a kid?
It’s irrelevant to ask if the book contains anything that might offend some child or family. There are few books, possibly none, that might offend nobody.
So we disagree with those who challenge the books in our libraries—but they are our neighbors.
We’re not the Tone Police, but we ask anyone tempted to pile on this person: do you believe that unloading your feelings will help change minds? Will it further the debate? Will it do any good, other than relieving your feelings? Maybe you could pound some playdoh or shout into a pillow instead.
Because by engaging in debate about books, not about people, we clarify the values of our community. And history tells us that book banning is always unpopular and never prevails and typically is the work of authoritarians.
To those who would usurp parents’ right to guide their own children’s reading: we disagree with you. We oppose your efforts.
And you are our neighbors. We also want to live peaceably with you. This is not personal. We ask that the challengers retract the remaining 60+ books for removal and instead restrict those books for your own child/ren and allow everyone else to decide for themselves.
We will work tirelessly for the right of every kid to see themselves and their stories reflected in good books and return CB to good educational standing.
It’s about the books and our kids. All the kids.