As the Right Censors Public Libraries, Families Are Forming Banned Book Clubs

[appalachiablue]

- Banned book reading groups are popping up throughout the country.
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- Truthout, Feb. 1, 2022.

In October 2021, Texas Rep. Matt Krause, Republican chair of the House General Investigation Committee, sent a letter to state education authorities asking them if their school libraries stocked any of the 850 “divisive” books on a list he’d compiled. Concerned about threats to intellectual freedom, a small group of librarians reached out to one another to discuss how best to respond.

“We felt we needed to speak out, support the right to read, and uplift librarians who might be feeling pressured to remove books from their shelves,” Carolyn Foote, a retired Texas librarian and spokesperson for @FReadomfighters told Truthout. They quickly created the #Freadomfighters hashtag and mounted a Twitter storm, urging parents, teachers, students, librarians and concerned Texans to tweet their legislators with pictures of books that help children and teens navigate race, racism, gender, gender identity and sexuality. In one day alone, 13,000 tweets were sent.

The massive outpouring was “unbelievable,” Foote says, but was also proof that many Texas residents were eager to push back against right-wing efforts to control and suppress literature for children and teens. Many Texans saw Krause’s list as a wake-up call and expressed shock that it included such a wide range of books: John Irving’s Cider House Rules, William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Alex Gino’s George, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, Louise A. Spilsbury’s Avoiding Bullies? Skills to Outsmart and Stop Them, and Jazz Jennings and Jessica Herthel’s I Am Jazz.

These books, and approximately 845 others, State Representative Krause wrote in his letter, were concerning to him because they “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” While the missive did not explicitly direct districts to remove the books, it asked school superintendents to report how much they’d spent to purchase the offending texts. Implicit, critics charge, was that these expenditures represented a misuse of tax dollars. Texas, of course, is not the only place where children’s reading materials are being scrutinized or where right-wing groups are attempting to restrict what children can access...

More, https://truthout.org/articles/as-the-right-censors-public-libraries-families-are-forming-banned-book-clubs/

[C_U_L8R]

1. Have they banned Fahrenheit 451 yet?

[Paladin]

2. So glad to hear of this.

And fuck Matt Krause, and all his fascist supporters.