July 11, 2023 • 54 mins
Books are being banned from schools and public libraries at alarming rates, and stories from LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC authors are disproportionately being pulled from shelves. How do book bans harm learning and access to information? What do these challenges say about the American educational system? Deborah Caldwell-Stone, Director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and George M. Johnson, author of the widely challenged book “All Boys Aren’t Blue'' join host Roy Wood Jr. to break down where these book bans are coming from, the political ideology behind them, and how these banned books can help young readers understand complex issues. #DailyShow #Podcast #BeyondTheScenes
Original air date: September 20, 2022
More on Banned Books Week: bannedbooksweek.org
Get involved: https://uniteagainstbookbans.org/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast
that goes a little deeper into topics and segments that
originally aired on the show. This is what this podcast is,
all right, Like, you go grocery shopping, right, and you
done got all the groceries you need, and you're putting
everything up there on the little conveyor belt, and then
you look around and you see a national inquir talking
about the royal family, and then you see some candy,
(00:27):
and then you see some breath mints. You realize you're breafstain,
and then next thing you know, you got all these
extra snacks and snickers and butterfingers and tobalarons and you
just throw it all in the cart. That's what this
podcast is, the extra thing you didn't know you need,
but it made you that much more enjoyable. Today we're
talking about book bands, especially bands and challenges on books
for children and young adults in schools and local libraries.
(00:48):
Here with me to discuss this today and to discuss
band books week, we have Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of
the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. Deborah, Hello to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
You, glad to be here, Roy, Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
And we also have George M. Johnson, author of All
Boys Aren't Blue, a memoir manifesto that has appeared on
too many banned and challenge book lists, and the honorary
chair for Banned Books Week. George, how you doing with
your band ass?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm good today. Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, So Deborah, I want to start with you.
I have a lot to ask you, George about your book.
But first, Deborah, let's just set up the whole issue
in a totality. Now, it seems like every other day
is something on social media or a news story or
about a school district trying to ban a book. Let's
just talk about what the actual baseline problem is and
(01:41):
what we're.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Seeing, Well, what we're seeing our public school boards and
public libraries removing books because someone in the community doesn't
like the ideas or the topics of the books, which
is absolutely contrary to the First Amendment and everyone's right
to use what they want to read in libraries. What's worse,
(02:03):
it seems to be an organized campaign by conservative advocacy
groups that want to limit our ability to think about
particular issues. And George's book is kind of a double whammy.
Because what's being targeted are books dealing with the lives
and experiences of LGBTQIA persons and the lives and experiences
(02:24):
of black persons and persons of color. There seems to
be a particular animus for this. We're seeing legislation, We're
seeing assaults on school board meetings, threats being directed at
librarians and educators. People afraid to go to their cars
after board meetings because of what's going on. We actually
(02:44):
just had a Drag Queen Bingo teen event canceled here
in the Chicago suburbs this week because of the rising
threats against it. So we're seeing a real wave of
censorship that's targeting really the lives and ex variances of
marginalized persons and opportunities for them to stand on the
(03:05):
public stage.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
From who, Deborah, Is this from the school boards? Is
this from their parents? Is this just some midterm issue
that's coming from a bunch of Republican zealiz like who
are making these calls to have the books banned.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, we're seeing groups like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education,
No Left Turn in Education, and there's other so called parents'
rights groups that are more local like purple for parents
in Indiana that make up lists of bad books. They
want to narrow the opportunities for reading and education for
young people in particular, and they go to school board meetings,
(03:42):
they go to library board meetings, use public comment to
focus on one paragraph or one image in a graphic
novel and try to claim that this is pornography or
this is bad for young people, harmful to students or minors,
and they demand the immediate removed of the book. They
even use false framing around the idea that this is pornography,
(04:06):
and school boards elected officials are responding to it in
part because I think it is a political wedge issue.
During the midterms, we saw that Glenn Youngkin was successful
and part in Virginia winning that gubernatorial seat because he
focused on a parent who is unhappy that her seventeen
year old Honors English student had to read Tony Morrison's Beloved.
(04:30):
She thought it wasn't reading for a seventeen year old
going to college, and so she made a commercial for
Governor Youngkin, and they noticed that. So we're seeing it
used across the country.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
As a parent, it's tough to catch everything. So when
my son showed me his reading assignment. My heart sunk.
It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine.
Glenn youngkin, he listens, he understands, parents matter. Join me
in voting for Glenn youngin.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
How do you all fight back with this? How does
the ALA fight back against this? Because if this is
a political issue and it's starting to come up, you know,
in terms of legislation right now, how are you all
able to support the local libraries and schools to push
back on this? You know, for now at least, what's
the most you can do for now to push back
on this issue.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
From our end, for the association, we do our best
to provide one on one assistance to librarians and educators
who are dealing with these book bands, assisting them with
the process of addressing the complaints from these groups and
individuals who are being who are activated by social media usually,
(05:45):
and then we have resources about best practices and things
like that. We have state chapters on the ground too
that are able to provide resources and support to individual libraries.
And we also do things like we have a merit
We have something called the Leroy c Merit Humanitarian Fund.
So if a librarian finds that their employment is being
(06:07):
harmed or affected, or they're experiencing discrimination because of their
defense of their students' right to read. We can provide
them with financial assistance that helps pay for an attorney
to advise them and things like that. But as a community,
of course, there's the ability for individuals to take note
of what's happening locally, to go to school board meetings,
(06:29):
to participate in their local elections, and to raise their
own voices against censorship. And that's incumbent on all of us.
So much of this happens because these groups show up
at these board meetings and they're the only voices in
the room. And if you don't have a lot of knowledge,
if you don't have a lot of experience with this,
it's very easy to think that you're dealing with the majority.
(06:52):
But we're not. We know that they're a vocal minority,
and everyone needs to be aware of this and participate
in local community acts activity with local elections, local board meetings,
both school board and library board meetings. We can even
talk a little bit about grassroots advocacy platform that we've
created for individuals and communities to use to fight book
(07:14):
censorship in their communities. It's called Unite Against book Bands
and it's at Unite against book Bands dot org. And
there you'll find a toolkit that can help you organize
yourself and your neighbors to be president at board meetings
and raise your voice. How to where you can find information,
(07:35):
talking points, letters to the editors, how to be aware
of what's going on in local elections, Questions to ask
candidates to find out where they stand on this issue.
And it's not just elections for boards, it's also elections
for mayors, county commissioners, because many boards are appointed and
you have to know where your elected officials stand on
(07:56):
this issue, and you want them to commit to preserving
your right to choose what you want to read for
yourself and your family.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I will say this about this issue. I ain't never
seen more people who ain't never read shit more concerned
about books. I'm sorry for.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Cussing, No, you're absolutely right. Often we find that individuals
haven't never read the book that they're challenging. We actually
have instances where individuals have kind of ripped a list
of bad books off of social media, and social media
is a great amplifier for these groups and their claims
about books. But they'll take that list to the local
(08:33):
library and demand that these books be censored. And then
it turns out the book wasn't on the shelf of
the library, and they didn't even know to check the
library's catalog to see if it's there. And it's very
clear that when people talk about books like All Boys
Aren't Blue, they have no idea what's in it. They
only know the one paragraph they read on social media.
(08:56):
They don't have any acquaintance with the book at all.
But yet they're demanding that it be censored for the
entire community, whether it's the community of students in a
school district or the community as a whole.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Okay, so then to that point. So then, George, so
these book bands, most of it all falls under books
that are affecting or written for or speak to the
audience of BIPOC or LGBTQIA plus authors and consumers. And
so your book All Boys Aren't Blue, specifically, this book
is your approach to how your intersectionality at some of
(09:31):
these identities affected you and your upbringing and made you
who you are today. And so in the final chapter
you said, and I want to get this right and
correct me if I'm wrong you said.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
There were no books for me to read in order
to understand what I was going through as a kid.
There were no heroes or icons to look up to
and emulate. There were no road maps or guidelines for journey.
And again, because I know there wasn't and still isn't
much out there, I made it my original goal to
get this right end quote, So to start there, talk
a little bit more about that, and what do you
(10:03):
feel like was missing from your reading as a kid,
and why titles like yours should be a central reading
for young adults.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
I only have one quote that's tattooed on me, and
it's a Tony Morrison quote. If there's a book that
you want to read and it hasn't been written yet,
then you must write it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And so I was writing the book that I.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Always wish that I had when I was a teen
who was struggling with my identity and trying to just
figure out what it was I was going through and
if anybody else in the world was also having those
certain type of issues. Realistically, growing up, there just weren't
images on television and film, and especially no images and
(10:45):
books of us and if there were any images of us,
there were probably slurs being used or hurled towards us.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, and it's kind of interesting, right, Like I.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Don't remember a whole lot of the readings that I
had in high school, but you know, everybody remembers catching
the Rye and holding Callfield and how that story didn't
resonate with any of us as black students walking pigs. Right,
And if I'm not mistaken, it was the term savages
being used an invisible man, I'm almost certain, and that's
(11:18):
what they were referring to indigenous people as throughout the
entire book. And I that was what my upbringing was
in terms of books, right, books that even if they
did mention other identities outside of people who were white,
those identities were oftentimes demonized or being penalized for.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Being who they were.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
But even when I think about television and film, there
was really I alwauld say, like, I remember, like there
was like a gay character on a show called Spin
City with Michael J.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Fix.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I remember that one.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
And I was like, it was a black man who
I believe was like was one of the gay characters,
and so I was like.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I remember him. I remember Paul but.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Like outside of those two entities, that just wasn't much
for us to cling on to or latch onto. And
what that does when you don't have images of yourself
in the world, One, you don't know that you also
exist in the world. But two, it almost makes like
queer teens and black quarantines have to go through a
second adolescence throughout their adulthood because their original adolescents they
(12:23):
were just trying to protect themselves out of safety and
couldn't identify as who they were and had no roadmap
for it. And so we unfortunately make a lot of
mistakes well into our adulthood. We don't get to have
the same experiences around dating. It's like my little brother
started dating at thirteen. Well, if I'm gay and clearly
I'm at Catholic school, I can't date anybody, So I
(12:44):
actually don't start my dating experience till I'm well into
my twenties, right, So it just continues to put students
behind when they don't have source of materials that can
actually tell them who they are, what they are, what
some of the things that they may go three may
look like, and how to navigate the spaces and the
things that they are already encountering.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, when you really put it in that perspective, and
I'm like rewinding in my head. You know, if you're
looking at anybody in the LGBTQIA community in that era
of television eighties and nineties, it was definitely a punchline first.
Or if you were a positive character, then the character
was not written as openly gay. It was just assumed
(13:27):
or implied. Like I'm thinking like Meshaq Taylor from Designing Women,
where this person justmediately.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Are they gay? Are they not?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, it doesn't matter. They make the plot work. Let's
not worry about that character's backstory. He's here to support
the women in Like take me through the day you
found out your ass got banned. I almost feel like
we were in a different place as a country when
you first started writing this book versus when you released
(13:54):
it into the pit fires of CRT hell one. Did
you know when you were that it might appear on
band book listen to? What was what was your initial
feeling when you first found out that your book was
under attack by so many of these groups that Debrook
was talking about.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
I knew it was getting banned from the moment I
wrote it, and I told McMillan. I told my team
in Milan. I was like, well, what are we gonna
do when the books get when the book gets banned?
And they were like, why do you think your books
will get I was like, I am black and queer
and I am writing a memoir for young adults.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Like this is not going to just fly.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Like if I was white, And I always say like,
if I was white and queer and had this story
that was very similar to this, I would have probably
won every award. I would have been heralded on everything.
It would already been a movie, right, it would have
been a whole different thing. But it's like, when you're
black and queer and you write this particular story, It's like, oh,
how dare you, like, you know, tell us about ourselves?
(14:47):
How dare you even have the audacity to tell us
that you exist?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Right?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
The first notice I got of a book band was
actually I was on Twitter and somebody added me who
followed me and was like, Hey, this person in Kansas
City is running for schoo board and like the whole
like their whole platform is built around banning your book.
And so I went to Facebook and I saw what
the white guy was saying, and so I it's not
(15:13):
really a quote, sweet, but like on Facebook, you know how,
like you could take a post and and write a post.
So like I wrote above the post. I don't remember
what punchline I used, but I wrote a punchline because
if anybody who follows me on Twitter or anywhere knows
if I'm a drag and carry, I'll drag and carry.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And so I dragged him and then he.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Deleted the post. I thought that was it, honestly I did.
But I had an inkling to set up Google alerts,
and I was like, let me set up Google alerts
so I can keep track of this, because if it's
happening like this and like very small locales, I won't
catch it. I won't catch it. And so that was
like the end of September of last year. By November,
(15:51):
I think I had hit eight states, had already like
started to pull the book. But nobody nationally was covering
the story yet, because nobody knew that this was happening.
Because they were doing it so covertly in such small places,
nobody knew what was happening except for the American Library
Association and US as the authors who were getting to
Google alerts. So then I made a tweet like, hey, y'all,
(16:12):
just by the way, like my book is beenned in
the States, and it went viral. And so of course,
because I was a former journalist, I have a bunch
of journalists who followed me, and so they were all like, wait, George,
what are you talking about? And so that's when I
started to speak out against it. The moment I started
speaking out against it, it went. That tweet goes viral
on I think a Thursday or Friday. By that next Friday,
(16:34):
that's when the criminal complaint has filed against me in Florida,
and the criminal complay is found against me, one against me,
one against the book in Florida. And that's literally when
the banned book situation went from something very mild to
something very very serious, very very quickly.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Like when she did that, it just it just became
a battle field. And you just can't breeze past criminal complaint.
As they say on all the think you show. Let's
unpack that for a second, right, what crime were you
guilty of? You were led you to have.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Committed, George, Well, the books.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
The crime the book committed was because the book has
had its own charge. The crime that the book committed
was like under some like Pornography Act or pornography law
in Florida, that she was trying to.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
File it under the crime I committed.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I think she was trying to get me for like
intimidation and harassment because I continue to speak out about it,
and especially after she filed a crichpnical plane against my book,
I started to speak out about it, and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
She didn't like that.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But but realistically it was part of the playbook, like
because they weren't winning in every like everywhere that they
were trying to ban books, they weren't necessarily winning, right
like we were winning in some of those cases, and
the ACOU was winning. And so once it got to
that point where they realized that they weren't winning in
some of those places, they do what they do and
they try to go to criminals, you know, criminalization.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Route, and they're doing that across.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
The country country now, Like she was the first, and
I mean as soon as she did it, North Carolina
was next. Then I think it was one in South Carolina,
then it was one in i That's when the senator, no,
the governor of Iowa went on TV with my book
and read the most graphic part of the book on
TV and said she was going to pass a law
so that nobody could.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Give my book out.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
So that's when they literally that was their next part
of their plan was like, Okay, if we're not going
to win it, if following the rules won't allow us
to win. Because they were following the rules, and school boards,
even some conservative school boards, were like, no, we're not
getting rid of all the books. They went the criminal route,
and so now they're taking it up. We all know
(18:43):
what they're trying to do. They're trying to get it
to the Supreme Court. They're trying to challenge the nineteen
eighty two peak O case that gives students.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Rights to have their books. We're not stupid, like we
know that.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
First they started at local then they went just now
we're at state level, and eventually a federal lawsuit more
likely than that will probably be gives me in a book.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
In American Library.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Association, we've actually seen federal legislation introduced that would penalize
state funding for schools and literally require the states to
allow people to use I believe they're called five twelve
plans for tuition set asides for religious schools that they're
not allowed to use those plans for if there's an
(19:27):
allegation that the school the state is tolerating the presence
of books that are deemed to be inappropriate by these groups.
We don't think that legislation is going to go anywhere,
especially since well midterms are coming up. Who knows, and
they're being bolder as we saw yesterday. But you know,
(19:49):
we're seeing state legislation. Twenty seven states have adopted some
sort of CRT ban. We're seeing now don't say gay
bills in Florida literally taking in all the books out
of classrooms. They're so terrified. We now have a lawsuit
in Tennessee. A group of parents is suing to remove
(20:10):
curriculum that they believe is teaching white kids to hate
their race quote unquote, and so under the anti CRT
law in Tennessee, they've brought lawsuit. And among the books
that they're citing are Ruby Bridges autobiography that she wrote
for six year olds that uses historical photographs of her
(20:32):
integrating her school in New Orleans with all the adults
screaming at her and using profanities against her. And they
say that's too intense for a six year old and
it makes them feel bad about their race. They actually
attacked a biography of Martin Luther King that shows images
of crossing the bridge in Selma and the resulting police
(20:54):
attack on the protesters as saying that's inappropriate for K
through twelve still students to have access to and so well,
we'll have to see what happens with this lawsuit, but
we're seeing a systematic attack using all kinds of channels
to limit and narrow what we can think about to
what a very small group of people think is appropriate.
(21:18):
This nineteen fifty two vision of a white society where
there aren't troublesome people who are gay or black, or
queer or transgender.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, all adjudicated at the state and local level by
officials that are appointed by people and elections that we
deem unnecessary and unimportant. Absolutely, after the break, I want
to get a little bit more into this side of
the legality of it, but also I want to talk
about what we as parent can be doing to talk
(21:51):
to our children about their reading choices and how to
do this the right way in spite of what might
be happening in the schools. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back, Debora. I want to start with
you again and just expanding a little bit on what
George have been talking about about this allegation that this
book is teaching the children the situality and it ain't
(22:13):
time for the kid to be learning about the sixth
and all that stuff, and they're grooming the children. What
is happening in these conversations that is alleging sexual grooming?
Like you gotta wasn't there a book in Texas about farting?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What was that book? That my butt is so noisy?
Noisy but it's something nice.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But well, and that was vulgarity. You know, that's just
too vulgar. I mean, we we all know that that's
the sweet spot for the third third grade boys, right,
you know, if you want them to get them read,
there's Captain underpants. I need a new butt. You know
what was it? Harry the Farting Dog? You know? And
and it's a great gateway for those six, seven eight
(22:58):
year old boys who are a little slower pick up reading.
And you want to generate a love of books and
reading in them, and you give them these essentially joke books.
But we actually know that there was a principle. I
believe it was in Alabama who was fired for reading
I Need a New Butt to a class of kids.
He read it in the late afternoon as a treat
(23:19):
because they'd done so well all day for him, and
as a result he was fired for you know, uh,
doing vulgar things with the kids. But that's separate from
what I think is a far more toxic conversation that's
going on. These groups like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, whatever,
(23:40):
are creating a false and toxic framing around materials that
deal with gender identity, sexual orientation, and even sex ad
you know, and they're arguing that these books are scene
for minors to read, seen for the display for miners,
or are you know whoever writes them or whoever provides them,
(24:02):
or pandering obscenity di minors, And that's absolutely false. What
the constant you know, the Supreme Court has told us
what is protected speech in this case, and sex is
a protected subject, gender identity, sexual orientation, all these things
that you know, if it has educational value, it has
scientific value, artistic value, literature, that's all protected by the
(24:23):
First Amendment. But they're trying to shift the needle on
this conversation. They're trying to reframe this in a way
that gives them the tools they need to censor all
of this material and use the courts and use the
law to do it. So we've seen situations like the
one in Florida where the person who actually brought the
charges in that case was a school board member who
(24:45):
had been recently elected from one of these parents' rights groups,
had run for a vacant seat to fill out a term,
and she won, and she was so unhappy with the
fact that the board was taking its time in reviewing
George's book and comparing it to whether it had been
acquired according to policy and met educational needs, that that's
when she went to the sheriff's office to file the
(25:07):
charges of sanity. Now, fortunately the prosecutor and the sheriff's
department in Florida rejected all the charges. They said, this
book is an obscene and if you want a decision
on this book, well it's the school board that properly
makes it according to their policies. But we've also seen
this happen in states like Wyoming. A group I don't
(25:28):
know if you're familiar with mass resistance, but there are
anti LGBTQ hate groups and they have a local chapter
in Wyoming, and they actually filed criminal charges against the
library staff and the public library and Jillette, Wyoming and
again the library staff and the books just for having
books and books that were meant to be where does
(25:49):
where do babies come from? This is what's happening to
your body during puberty books? And then a few books
like George's that are intended for young adults who I
did as gay or queer and who want to understand
what they're going through or you learn something from others
experiences so they can navigate their identity successfully and set
(26:12):
up successful relationships as a teen and an adult. In
this case, this book is Gay by Juno Dawson was
one of the targets of these charges, and these librarians
lived in fear for three weeks that somebody was going
to come and put them in handcuffs and put them
in jail for simply providing books to the young adults
that asked for those books in their community public servants. Fortunately,
(26:35):
again the prosecutor rejected all those charges, said no, no
crime has been committed.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Here.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
These books aren't obscene, and the library did what was
supposed to do in providing these books. But we're seeing
more and more of this narrative pushed on boards on communities.
And if you don't have a lot of knowledge about
the First Amendment, if you don't have a lot of
experience with this kind of litigation, it's easy to be
(27:00):
swayed by these arguments because we don't have a lot
of good civic education anymore. That's just my opinion. But
you know, we don't teach civics anymore. We don't teach
don't teach government anymore, you know. And they play on
the signorance, and they play on parents' fears.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You know, George, what a what are other band authors
saying and doing? We know what you're doing, and you
know you're taking up a torch to fight, and you
have you you almost like in a way to me,
it's almost like, and I know scarface is not the
best analogy, but I envision you. You were just an author,
(27:38):
You're just trying to sell your book and mind your
damn business. And then you looked up at the video
camera and you saw all of them right wing groups
coming and storming your book compound you like, oh, you
want to play rough, well, then let hey, you want
to go to war, let's go to war. Let's let's
have a fight about this. But in talking with other
authors about this issue, what are you seeing from them
in terms of how they're reacting, what they are doing
(28:01):
to strategize against this type of bullshit?
Speaker 5 (28:04):
Well, you know, it's it's tough. It's tough for various
nuanced reasons for authors. So one, most authors are not,
like media trained in the way to address these type
of things in a way like I have a whole
background as a journalist, So when I'm doing these interviews,
(28:26):
someone's always going to try I gotcha question, Like They're
always going to try like, well, should any books be banned?
Like or they always try and ask like a question
like around that right, like around other like.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
To kind of like flip it on his head.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
But I always know how to like CounterPunch, and I
always know how to like counter a story. Not like
all authors aren't trained to do that, And so you
have many of them who fear that they'll get caught
up and say something that they shouldn't say or say
the wrong thing, and then it just spiles out of control.
You also have some publishers who, you know, we just
have to be honest and transparent. I'nfortunate that when I
(29:01):
made the decision that I was going to fight this
like the way that I wanted to fight it, that
my publisher was like, let's go for it, like we
have your back. That's not everybody's situation. There are many
publishers who were like, we're not touching this. We don't
will release a statement as a as an entity that
says we're against this, but outside of that, we really
(29:21):
don't want our authors in that type of fire. We
don't want our authors in that type of heat. We
don't want to have that type of thing happening.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And so you don't have many authors who who speak out.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
I would say there's a group of us though, who
are unapologetically speaking out, like the Tiffany Jackson's, like the
Nick Stones, like the Angie Thomas's, myself, Ashley Hope, Perez,
Leah Johnson, like there are some of us who are
who are not afraid to speak out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
But it's tough.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Does an author, especially a new author, who has written
something that is in the crosshairs of being banned. Do
they run the risk of jeopardizing their career as an
author by choosing to fight and going against the will
and wishes of their publisher, who, hey, just be quiet
and we'll just see what we can and we'll do
a couple of activations and you know, and well, you know,
(30:14):
this book has the ability to simmer over a couple
and then they'll turn around and use the lack of
sales to justify not running with you again. So like
there is there a bit of that to some degree
with some of the authors that are dealing with this.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Absolutely of one percent, there's a lot of that too,
right like because publishing it, you know, there are a
lot of imprints, there are a lot of places. But
it's just like any other industry. It's just like any
other industry. And a person can be or a publisher
or multiple publishers can be turned off by the fact
that you're so vocal, can be turned off by the
(30:50):
fact and I mean like there are even times, like
we're in contracts that I do we have to put
a clause in it that I'm allowed to still speak
out against certain things because a lot of times there
are actual clauses in the contracts that prevent people from
from talking about certain subjects or talking in certain ways
without the approval of their their publishing house. And that's
(31:11):
not necessarily like a bad thing. That's more of a
protection thing to make sure that you know, authors aren't
just saying whatever they want to say wherever they want
to say it. But I also think because we're in
an unprecedented moment, a lot of people just aren't sure
how to react to it. I think some people aren't
sure if this is like a situation that's just going
to pass once the midterms are done, you know, because
(31:32):
they always try to find something new, and so we're
not sure. I don't think it's going to pass, but
we're still not sure, right because it was like, remember
it was antifa, when it was the last time you
heard anybody say antifa, They don't say it anymore, right,
it was black lives matter. The only time now that
you ever hear them say black lives matter is because
now they are arresting those capital rioters, right, And so
(31:52):
that's the only time you ever hear anybody say this
is because they're trying to juxtapose it.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
But outside of that, they don't say it anymore.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
And so now we're like, oh, your next thing is
the book bands and education, and so we're like, where
is this going? Right, Like, let's say the midterms, there
isn't some big red wave and they keep the condems
to actually keep the house in the Senate. I'm not
sure if they're going to keep fighting for this right,
but if they do flip a chamber or flip both
chambers or whatever, then this may continue to be their fight.
(32:21):
I think the issue of book bands, curriculum, education would
have probably been one of the top issues had the
Roe V Wave situation I haven't instilled the thunder of
everything and kind of shifted the whole midterm. But I
do think that this is still a very very important issue,
and that's why I continue to choose to fight it,
(32:42):
because it's not just about taking my book out of
a library or taking our books out of certain libraries,
like our books are saving lives.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
We have the emails, we have.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
The direct messages, we have all of that that these
students and that these teams send us that let us
know that literally, like the these kids were on the
brink and somebody handed them our book and it changed
the trajectory of their entire life. And so that's why
we fight so hard. We can't let that. We just
can't let it happen.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Absolutely, Deborah, where does the line stop then, because we
could go books, we could go audio books, we could
go eat books. This has the whole potential cross over
into the digital world and the internet. What's to stop
a school from saying, all, right, now that we got
all these books banned, what's up with these newspapers, Let's
start blocking all the ie.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
They're already doing that. You know, they've already enacted bans
into reading anything from the New York Times dealing with
the sixteen nineteen project. That's law in seventeen states law.
Now whether that stands up to the legal challenges right now,
I have to give a little boost to ACLU. They're
challenging CRT Bells laws in New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Florida
(33:57):
and don't say gay in Florida, So props to them.
We'll see where that how that falls out. But I'm
terrified given the appointments to the judiciary over the last
four years. But we'll set that aside. But we're already
seeing it. We saw a whole public library district in
Texas pulled the plug on their entire ebook platform because
(34:17):
they didn't like the fact that Georgie's book and Genderqueer
by Marca Bobby were part of the e book collection
and to kill the entire ebook access for two books,
all the books, all the books, all the books, all
the books. And well, what's worse is that they they're
(34:38):
a rural community and they have a lot of elderly
and disabled folks in the community that relied on digital
ebook access. This elderly woman says, Who's how am I
going to read my weekly romance? I can't get out,
I don't drive, I use large print on the screen.
And now they've taken that all away. And they the
(34:59):
board didn't care. The elected officials didn't care. They were
more concerned about the small group in the community that
was claiming that books like Georgie's were pornography and harmful
to minors. And they bought that and they actually replaced
the library board with the actual sensors in that community.
Now that's being challenged in a lawsuit, but that's going
(35:21):
to be a long remedy for that. It'll be years
before that is resolved. If at all you know, it
shouldn't be that we have to go to court to
preserve our civil liberties, our right to read, and our
right to have equal access to a community resource like
the books in the library and have the resource reflect
everyone's lives in the community. And it's just really terrible.
(35:43):
But I don't you know, digital has made it worse.
It's not only taking away digital access, it's the ability
to track what people are reading and viewing on the screen.
And we're seeing that happen to K through twelve students.
You effectively have no privacy if you have a school
issued laptop or chromebook, and you know they've actually turned
(36:06):
on cameras after school hours. And there was one young
person in Pennsylvania who actually was arrested for drug use
because he had some kind of hard candy on his
desk that was shaped like a capsule, and the IT
department in his high school turned it into the police.
You know that, you know, again eventually resolved. But why
(36:27):
are we tolerating this situation, Why are we taking away
young people's rights to privacy, to their right to read.
It's just it's beyond imagining right now.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
To that point about selection and agency. George so I
have a six year old now. We try to let
this boy choose what he want to eat, and for
the most part he's eyed. He like, if you ask
him for what you want for breakfast, he will choose
from an array of breakfast options. He won't just say
I want cupcakes. We try to monitor the educational tablet time.
(37:02):
And so there's this app called Epic Epic Reading, and
Epic Reading lets you swipe through whatever book you want
to find. And he's old enough to spell, so he
can search by topic. His thing is Ninja's If as
long as you're reading, I don't care. He's some book
called cat Ninja. He is obsessed with cat Ninja. And
so I feel like, as a parent, I've kind of
(37:23):
transitioned from something that my parents were in, which was
very much you're gonna read this, or you had a
sign reading. You know, I'm from Alabama, Birmingham Public schools,
where here's one slavery book and the Hobbit, here's another
slavery book and Babel like those. That was kind of
the oscillation of things. But like when we talk about agency,
(37:44):
so in your book, you know, you talked about you know,
a child wearing a basketball headband for instance. And like,
if we use wardrobe as an example, you said quote
rather than saying you are wearing this, I hope more
adults will ask what would you like to wear and
then have a conversation about these choices. So if we
(38:04):
apply that same concept to reading, what conversations can a
con parent to be having if they're raising a BIPOP
or LGBTQI, a plus child. What are they missing out
on by not having those conversations and making sure that
kids are getting reading materials that speak specifically to their
child's experiences.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Yeah, I mean the real thing to missing out on
is that there's this they're just assuming that their child
is okay, and they're assuming that their child is like
just just navigating life okay because their child hasn't said
anything to them.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
It's it's interesting right because like, and I've talked about
it with even like with my family.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Before because they're all up and through the book.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
But it's just interesting because it was like, well, everybody
knew I was queer, but nobody ever said it. And
so I'm navigating my life with the bare minimum of
resources that I have, but I have these guardians around
me who are protecting me and who are doing all
(39:05):
of the right things in their mind, but the one
thing that they couldn't bring themselves to do was just
ask me the question or sit down and talk with
me about it. Because there's a real fear, for some
reason that has been built in this country that parents
and kids should not be having adult conversations, even though
(39:25):
parents are trying to prepare their children for adulthood. And
realistically that's what's being missed, right, And so I liken
it to the fact that we will send kids to college,
but we will never teach them how to do their
own taxes. And then at twenty one they leave college,
(39:47):
they get their first job, they have no idea what
a one exemption is or two exemption is a zero exemption,
And so you're like, we're literally just sending them out
into the world ill equipped the whole notion that, oh,
this the topic of sex is too heavy for my
fourteen to eighteen year old, because be clear, my book
is four fourteen to eighteen year olds. So then you're like, okay, well,
(40:08):
if the topic of sex is too heavy for your
eighteen year old, then you send your eighteen year old
to college with no framework around sex.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
What exactly do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 5 (40:20):
And how do we know that we are lacking in
teaching fourteen to eighteen year olds about sex because we
can look at the rates of sexual assault, sexual misconduct,
and rape on college campuses across the United States and
how rampant it is, and a lot of that is
because we are not teaching sex education before we send
(40:41):
them off into the world with raging hormones that we
never talked them about, and then they're making four decisions.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Just base level no means, no reading body language, just
how not to raise an asshole, right, And.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
So that's what we're missing out on, and that's what
a lot of parents are missing out on because parents
are keep saying I should have the right to teach
this heavy topic in my home, and we're like, I
don't disagree with that, but you're also not teaching that
heavy topic in your home. So you can't have it
both ways, Like you can't have it where you're like,
I don't think the schools should be teaching them this
(41:16):
or this or they should be getting this at school,
because that should be my in home decision that we
make as a parent. But then it's like, okay, but
then your child comes home and you're still not teaching
them that, and you're still not talking to them about that,
and you're still not giving them access to it. So
where exactly do you think they learn it from? And
even in the section in the book that they're attacking
(41:37):
the most, they're flipping what I said. What I said
was most teenagers learn about sex through pornography. It is
what it is. They sneak and watch it. I was
a teenager who sneaked off and watched it. My friends
were teenagers who sneaked off and watched it, and so
they when we're going through puberty, we're literally just pulling
from any resource that we can that we can access
(41:59):
because we keep getting denied the actual resources that we
really need. So instead it's like, oh, well, I'm going
to take George's book away from you. It doesn't stop
your teens yearning to still know the information. But what
it does is it means that they're going to now
go down dangerous paths to get it, and that's all
we're trying to prevent. We just want to be able
(42:20):
to say here's the road map, instead of almost like
like a what what are those things you used to
call when you used to have to search and find
stuff scavenger hunt. Right, It's like, rather than you having
to go on a scavenger hunt for the information, we
just want to give them the information. But instead they
think that when we introduce these heavy topics, or that
(42:43):
when the students get a book and they read the book,
they think we're introducing these heavy topics to them. And
what we're trying to tell them is, no, your teens
are already going through this. They're already dealing with sexual assault,
they're already dealing with and they're having these conversations, but
y'all think we're introducing them to them, and they're literally saying,
I know, we want the books that we can learn
about what we're already experiencing.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's that fantasy. If they don't read about if
the books aren't there to tell you about it, then
it's the parents can pretend it's not happening. And we
know that that's not it. You know, banning the book
isn't going to take away the fact that kids are
dealing with these issues on a regular basis and or
that they're experiencing it. And you know what would you
rather have a librarian or an educator making choices about
(43:28):
and curating good content that addresses these issues in a
responsible fashion, that gives good information, accurate information, or you know,
out on the internet looking at pornography. I often say,
you know, we're banning books, but let's look at that
phone that's unrestricted, unfiltered phone in the back pocket of
every young person you know.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Okay, be clear.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I definitely want to try and spin this into something positive,
because if it's one thing Americans love, it's stuff that's
banned and for and that you have limited access to.
Low key banned books Week might be the thing that
they didn't want to happen that's gonna happen. I want
to unpack that a little bit with you, George, and
also I want to figure out ways devor that we
(44:13):
the people can join the fight to help change this.
We're talking band books. I'm beyond the scenes. We'll be
right back beyond the scenes. We're rounding third headed for home.
We're talking band books. Now, let's discuss Band Books Week,
which is this week. George, Now you are the honorary chair.
Run us through the week. What's what's on the agenda?
(44:36):
Of Is there a brunch included? I love a good brunch.
I do a brunch or a barbecue or block party, anything,
would it be okay?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
So this is the fortieth anniversary of Band Books Week,
and I'm really excited that I was chosen to lead it. Interesting,
I guess interestingly enough, like band books have always been
like a thing, it's just never been this big of
a think. So I think it's exciting because so many
people are like interested in, like, uh, talking to the
(45:06):
authors and hearing from us, and so we have virtual
events lined up. We have one with the Emancipator, which
I believe was I think that was was that Frederick
Douglas's original newspaper. I know they brought yes, so they
brought it back. They brought back the Emancipator. It's now
under the Boston Globe family. So we have an amazing
robust panel conversation with Sarah Kate, who's the president of
(45:31):
glad Leah Johnson will be there and several other authors
will be there. I'll be moderating that conversation. I'll also
be on Tameron Hall coming up soon to talk about
van Book. She's been an avid supporter of books and
against the book bands. We have you know, some virtual
like I said, several virtual events lined up this week
in person event and I believe in DC with doctor
(45:53):
Ebram x Kendy.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, so it's really really exciting.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
We have some Instagram live things going on, some Facebook
live things going on.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (46:05):
Yeah, we just wanted, you know, wanted to make sure
that people got to hear from the authors, that people understood,
you know, the importance of fighting against censorship and just
having a really good time being proud of being banned.
Like I'm proud of be banned. So I don't know
about anybody. I think everybody can tell by now, you know,
me being banned gott me on a New York Times
(46:27):
bestseller list. So it got a New York Times bestseller list,
and it got me in the top ten list.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Right.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
I think my book is right above Tony Morrison's and
so I always tell everybody like, that's probably the only
list I'm gonna ever make with Tony Morrison.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
So I'm going to take that as a bench of honor.
Speaker 5 (46:44):
But yeah, band Books, we we wanted to make sure
that we did something a little bit different this year
and really go hard at it and really almost re
re reput the messaging back out there because school just
started again, so of course they're starting again and sell
Bad Book Week is now our moment to really really
start again.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah, and really we have a whole calendar of things
going on both nationally and locally. If you go to
ban Booksweek dot org you'll be able to find the
calendar of all these events. There's a lot of in
person events going on at local libraries and schools and
community centers, but we're also doing things like a virtual
(47:25):
readout with authors and students who are part of the
Kids Right to Read project at NCAC, and a number
of all these events that you know, social media and
things like that. That'll be a real great thing. One
thing to remember about Bad Books Week, Tuesday at Bambooks
Week is National voter Registration Day, and so we're encouraged
(47:48):
we're taking that opportunity to encourage everyone to make sure
that they know whether they're registered to vote or not
if they're not to register to vote, and to educate
themselves about what's going on at elections at the local level.
And we're going to really build a whole series of
promotions and events around that fact and take advantage of
the coincidence.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, know who you're voting for. Don't just vote for
somebody because they got to. I'll be falling for them.
Nice pictures. Some of them politicians, you don't read the platform.
They'd be like ban everything, A damn. I know I
already checked yes on this person. But are there any
other resources that people like me? You know, let's talk
hope and optimism. What else can we look to? You know,
(48:31):
as we continue to see band books in the news, Well.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
You can understand that you can do something about this
as an individual, and you can get your networks, your
community groups to join you in this. And I mentioned
earlier Unite against book Bands and the resources that are
available on that website that anyone can use to organize
their friends, their church groups, their connections, their networks, to
(48:59):
be aware of what's going on locally, and to be
that louder voice in the room that speaks up in
favor of the right to read, the right to choose,
and the importance of making sure that your library reflects
everyone's lives and choices. And then there's other things that
individuals can do. You can well, we have a deer
(49:23):
band author's campaign we have, and actually we're going to
start a Deer Librarian's campaign this year encouraging people to
send postcards to librarians because they've been under particular attack
this season of censorship, and so we're just inviting people
to use these resources to look beyond the Band Books Week.
(49:48):
You know, for so long, Band Books Week has been
one week, and we talk about celebrating the freedom to read.
We celebrate the authors who've gone through banning, and celebrate
the right to make choices about our reading. But I
think this year we have to have bad books. Weeek
all year round. We have to have that awareness that
we have this promise that we can read anything we want,
(50:12):
we can think about anything we want under the First Amendment,
and we have to protect that. And the only way
to do that is becoming engaged locally. We have an
aphorism all library politics are local, all school politics are local.
We need to take that to heart and just take
on that duty to become engaged at the local level
(50:32):
and to raise our voices together to empower ourselves to
speak out.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Okay, last question. Debora calwell Stone, director of the American
Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and they are, Georg
Jim Johnson, author, former journalism, proud band author, give me
the two of you some of your favorite band but
(50:58):
other than all Boys Aren't Blue. Other than George, you
don't get to name your book George. Other than that,
what are some of your favorite band books? Just throw
out a couple titles for our listeners to go and
try and dig go.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I have to be honest. One of my more life
changing reads was the absolutely true Diary of Part Time
Indian by Sherman Alexei. I actually a family who lives
in the area of Washington State that he grew up
on the res in and I had no idea what
was going on beyond the country roads I was traveling
on to go visit family, and it was just an
(51:34):
eye opener. It was that door, that window into another
life and gaining an understanding of the struggle to have
an education. I so deeply appreciate that book and I
recommend it to anyone. And you know, I'm a recovering attorney,
so almost incumbent on me to throw out to Kill
a Mockingbird. Ale though it's kind of cliched and things,
(51:56):
you know, but you know, I find when I read
through list of bad books. You know, I have that
experience that I had with Absolutely True Diary. They turn
out to be life changing, eye opening, thought provoking, you
know books, And I recommend anyone the reading list of
this year's FAM Books Top ten BAM Books list, which
(52:17):
you can find on the ALA website at ALA dot
org as a reading list. Of course, George's book is
on that list, but.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
I have the list hanging up. It's right here to
the right of me, hanging on the wall. Yeah, long Boy.
Definitely Ton Morrison's The Bluest Eye, which I'm still like,
I don't get it. I'm shocked, Like half is that
being challenged all these years. I think Beloved is also challenged.
(52:48):
And I think I'm specifically going to talk about Beloved
because I remember when the movie Beloved came out and
a lot of us struggled with it and we were like,
I don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
I don't get it.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
And then one of my friends, her name is doctor
Jim Jackson, she reframed Beloved and she was like, the
problem is y'all aren't reading Beloved.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
As a black horror story.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
And she was like, if you go into the mindset
of like how Jordan Peel is doing black like these
black horror. She was like, read Beloved, but read it
from the mind standpoint that this is a horror and
it blew my mind. One, it blew my mind, and
once again Tony Morrison was well ahead of her time.
But two, I think everybody should go back and reread
(53:30):
Beloved from the mindset of I'm not looking at this
as like a little love story or a tragedy, but
I'm looking at this as a horror.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Because that's it, truly.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
If you read it, it will teach you how to
build upon if you want to be a horror writer,
or you know, it just has so much texture to it.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
So yeah, okay, well that's all the time we have
for today. George, thank you to you, Deborah, thank you
to you as well. Hopefully by now we have taken
you all beyond this scenes. We'll see you next week.
Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts,
(54:11):
the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast
that goes a little deeper into topics and segments that
originally aired on the show. This is what this podcast is,
all right, Like, you go grocery shopping, right, and you
done got all the groceries you need, and you're putting
everything up there on the little conveyor belt, and then
you look around and you see a national inquir talking
about the royal family, and then you see some candy,
(00:27):
and then you see some breath mints. You realize you're breafstain,
and then next thing you know, you got all these
extra snacks and snickers and butterfingers and tobalarons and you
just throw it all in the cart. That's what this
podcast is, the extra thing you didn't know you need,
but it made you that much more enjoyable. Today we're
talking about book bands, especially bands and challenges on books
for children and young adults in schools and local libraries.
(00:48):
Here with me to discuss this today and to discuss
band books week, we have Deborah Caldwell Stone, director of
the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. Deborah, Hello to.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
You, glad to be here, Roy, Thanks for inviting me.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
And we also have George M. Johnson, author of All
Boys Aren't Blue, a memoir manifesto that has appeared on
too many banned and challenge book lists, and the honorary
chair for Banned Books Week. George, how you doing with
your band ass?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
I'm good today. Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
All right, So Deborah, I want to start with you.
I have a lot to ask you, George about your book.
But first, Deborah, let's just set up the whole issue
in a totality. Now, it seems like every other day
is something on social media or a news story or
about a school district trying to ban a book. Let's
just talk about what the actual baseline problem is and
(01:41):
what we're.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Seeing, Well, what we're seeing our public school boards and
public libraries removing books because someone in the community doesn't
like the ideas or the topics of the books, which
is absolutely contrary to the First Amendment and everyone's right
to use what they want to read in libraries. What's worse,
(02:03):
it seems to be an organized campaign by conservative advocacy
groups that want to limit our ability to think about
particular issues. And George's book is kind of a double whammy.
Because what's being targeted are books dealing with the lives
and experiences of LGBTQIA persons and the lives and experiences
(02:24):
of black persons and persons of color. There seems to
be a particular animus for this. We're seeing legislation, We're
seeing assaults on school board meetings, threats being directed at
librarians and educators. People afraid to go to their cars
after board meetings because of what's going on. We actually
(02:44):
just had a Drag Queen Bingo teen event canceled here
in the Chicago suburbs this week because of the rising
threats against it. So we're seeing a real wave of
censorship that's targeting really the lives and ex variances of
marginalized persons and opportunities for them to stand on the
(03:05):
public stage.
Speaker 1 (03:06):
From who, Deborah, Is this from the school boards? Is
this from their parents? Is this just some midterm issue
that's coming from a bunch of Republican zealiz like who
are making these calls to have the books banned.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
Well, we're seeing groups like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education,
No Left Turn in Education, and there's other so called parents'
rights groups that are more local like purple for parents
in Indiana that make up lists of bad books. They
want to narrow the opportunities for reading and education for
young people in particular, and they go to school board meetings,
(03:42):
they go to library board meetings, use public comment to
focus on one paragraph or one image in a graphic
novel and try to claim that this is pornography or
this is bad for young people, harmful to students or minors,
and they demand the immediate removed of the book. They
even use false framing around the idea that this is pornography,
(04:06):
and school boards elected officials are responding to it in
part because I think it is a political wedge issue.
During the midterms, we saw that Glenn Youngkin was successful
and part in Virginia winning that gubernatorial seat because he
focused on a parent who is unhappy that her seventeen
year old Honors English student had to read Tony Morrison's Beloved.
(04:30):
She thought it wasn't reading for a seventeen year old
going to college, and so she made a commercial for
Governor Youngkin, and they noticed that. So we're seeing it
used across the country.
Speaker 4 (04:42):
As a parent, it's tough to catch everything. So when
my son showed me his reading assignment. My heart sunk.
It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine.
Glenn youngkin, he listens, he understands, parents matter. Join me
in voting for Glenn youngin.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
How do you all fight back with this? How does
the ALA fight back against this? Because if this is
a political issue and it's starting to come up, you know,
in terms of legislation right now, how are you all
able to support the local libraries and schools to push
back on this? You know, for now at least, what's
the most you can do for now to push back
on this issue.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
From our end, for the association, we do our best
to provide one on one assistance to librarians and educators
who are dealing with these book bands, assisting them with
the process of addressing the complaints from these groups and
individuals who are being who are activated by social media usually,
(05:45):
and then we have resources about best practices and things
like that. We have state chapters on the ground too
that are able to provide resources and support to individual libraries.
And we also do things like we have a merit
We have something called the Leroy c Merit Humanitarian Fund.
So if a librarian finds that their employment is being
(06:07):
harmed or affected, or they're experiencing discrimination because of their
defense of their students' right to read. We can provide
them with financial assistance that helps pay for an attorney
to advise them and things like that. But as a community,
of course, there's the ability for individuals to take note
of what's happening locally, to go to school board meetings,
(06:29):
to participate in their local elections, and to raise their
own voices against censorship. And that's incumbent on all of us.
So much of this happens because these groups show up
at these board meetings and they're the only voices in
the room. And if you don't have a lot of knowledge,
if you don't have a lot of experience with this,
it's very easy to think that you're dealing with the majority.
(06:52):
But we're not. We know that they're a vocal minority,
and everyone needs to be aware of this and participate
in local community acts activity with local elections, local board meetings,
both school board and library board meetings. We can even
talk a little bit about grassroots advocacy platform that we've
created for individuals and communities to use to fight book
(07:14):
censorship in their communities. It's called Unite Against book Bands
and it's at Unite against book Bands dot org. And
there you'll find a toolkit that can help you organize
yourself and your neighbors to be president at board meetings
and raise your voice. How to where you can find information,
(07:35):
talking points, letters to the editors, how to be aware
of what's going on in local elections, Questions to ask
candidates to find out where they stand on this issue.
And it's not just elections for boards, it's also elections
for mayors, county commissioners, because many boards are appointed and
you have to know where your elected officials stand on
(07:56):
this issue, and you want them to commit to preserving
your right to choose what you want to read for
yourself and your family.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
I will say this about this issue. I ain't never
seen more people who ain't never read shit more concerned
about books. I'm sorry for.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Cussing, No, you're absolutely right. Often we find that individuals
haven't never read the book that they're challenging. We actually
have instances where individuals have kind of ripped a list
of bad books off of social media, and social media
is a great amplifier for these groups and their claims
about books. But they'll take that list to the local
(08:33):
library and demand that these books be censored. And then
it turns out the book wasn't on the shelf of
the library, and they didn't even know to check the
library's catalog to see if it's there. And it's very
clear that when people talk about books like All Boys
Aren't Blue, they have no idea what's in it. They
only know the one paragraph they read on social media.
(08:56):
They don't have any acquaintance with the book at all.
But yet they're demanding that it be censored for the
entire community, whether it's the community of students in a
school district or the community as a whole.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
Okay, so then to that point. So then, George, so
these book bands, most of it all falls under books
that are affecting or written for or speak to the
audience of BIPOC or LGBTQIA plus authors and consumers. And
so your book All Boys Aren't Blue, specifically, this book
is your approach to how your intersectionality at some of
(09:31):
these identities affected you and your upbringing and made you
who you are today. And so in the final chapter
you said, and I want to get this right and
correct me if I'm wrong you said.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
There were no books for me to read in order
to understand what I was going through as a kid.
There were no heroes or icons to look up to
and emulate. There were no road maps or guidelines for journey.
And again, because I know there wasn't and still isn't
much out there, I made it my original goal to
get this right end quote, So to start there, talk
a little bit more about that, and what do you
(10:03):
feel like was missing from your reading as a kid,
and why titles like yours should be a central reading
for young adults.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
I only have one quote that's tattooed on me, and
it's a Tony Morrison quote. If there's a book that
you want to read and it hasn't been written yet,
then you must write it.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And so I was writing the book that I.
Speaker 5 (10:21):
Always wish that I had when I was a teen
who was struggling with my identity and trying to just
figure out what it was I was going through and
if anybody else in the world was also having those
certain type of issues. Realistically, growing up, there just weren't
images on television and film, and especially no images and
(10:45):
books of us and if there were any images of us,
there were probably slurs being used or hurled towards us.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
Yeah, and it's kind of interesting, right, Like I.
Speaker 5 (10:56):
Don't remember a whole lot of the readings that I
had in high school, but you know, everybody remembers catching
the Rye and holding Callfield and how that story didn't
resonate with any of us as black students walking pigs. Right,
And if I'm not mistaken, it was the term savages
being used an invisible man, I'm almost certain, and that's
(11:18):
what they were referring to indigenous people as throughout the
entire book. And I that was what my upbringing was
in terms of books, right, books that even if they
did mention other identities outside of people who were white,
those identities were oftentimes demonized or being penalized for.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
Being who they were.
Speaker 5 (11:39):
But even when I think about television and film, there
was really I alwauld say, like, I remember, like there
was like a gay character on a show called Spin
City with Michael J.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Fix.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
I remember that one.
Speaker 5 (11:52):
And I was like, it was a black man who
I believe was like was one of the gay characters,
and so I was like.
Speaker 3 (11:58):
I remember him. I remember Paul but.
Speaker 5 (12:00):
Like outside of those two entities, that just wasn't much
for us to cling on to or latch onto. And
what that does when you don't have images of yourself
in the world, One, you don't know that you also
exist in the world. But two, it almost makes like
queer teens and black quarantines have to go through a
second adolescence throughout their adulthood because their original adolescents they
(12:23):
were just trying to protect themselves out of safety and
couldn't identify as who they were and had no roadmap
for it. And so we unfortunately make a lot of
mistakes well into our adulthood. We don't get to have
the same experiences around dating. It's like my little brother
started dating at thirteen. Well, if I'm gay and clearly
I'm at Catholic school, I can't date anybody, So I
(12:44):
actually don't start my dating experience till I'm well into
my twenties, right, So it just continues to put students
behind when they don't have source of materials that can
actually tell them who they are, what they are, what
some of the things that they may go three may
look like, and how to navigate the spaces and the
things that they are already encountering.
Speaker 1 (13:06):
Yeah, when you really put it in that perspective, and
I'm like rewinding in my head. You know, if you're
looking at anybody in the LGBTQIA community in that era
of television eighties and nineties, it was definitely a punchline first.
Or if you were a positive character, then the character
was not written as openly gay. It was just assumed
(13:27):
or implied. Like I'm thinking like Meshaq Taylor from Designing Women,
where this person justmediately.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Are they gay? Are they not?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Well, it doesn't matter. They make the plot work. Let's
not worry about that character's backstory. He's here to support
the women in Like take me through the day you
found out your ass got banned. I almost feel like
we were in a different place as a country when
you first started writing this book versus when you released
(13:54):
it into the pit fires of CRT hell one. Did
you know when you were that it might appear on
band book listen to? What was what was your initial
feeling when you first found out that your book was
under attack by so many of these groups that Debrook
was talking about.
Speaker 5 (14:10):
I knew it was getting banned from the moment I
wrote it, and I told McMillan. I told my team
in Milan. I was like, well, what are we gonna
do when the books get when the book gets banned?
And they were like, why do you think your books
will get I was like, I am black and queer
and I am writing a memoir for young adults.
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Like this is not going to just fly.
Speaker 5 (14:25):
Like if I was white, And I always say like,
if I was white and queer and had this story
that was very similar to this, I would have probably
won every award. I would have been heralded on everything.
It would already been a movie, right, it would have
been a whole different thing. But it's like, when you're
black and queer and you write this particular story, It's like, oh,
how dare you, like, you know, tell us about ourselves?
(14:47):
How dare you even have the audacity to tell us
that you exist?
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Right?
Speaker 5 (14:51):
The first notice I got of a book band was
actually I was on Twitter and somebody added me who
followed me and was like, Hey, this person in Kansas
City is running for schoo board and like the whole
like their whole platform is built around banning your book.
And so I went to Facebook and I saw what
the white guy was saying, and so I it's not
(15:13):
really a quote, sweet, but like on Facebook, you know how,
like you could take a post and and write a post.
So like I wrote above the post. I don't remember
what punchline I used, but I wrote a punchline because
if anybody who follows me on Twitter or anywhere knows
if I'm a drag and carry, I'll drag and carry.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
And so I dragged him and then he.
Speaker 5 (15:28):
Deleted the post. I thought that was it, honestly I did.
But I had an inkling to set up Google alerts,
and I was like, let me set up Google alerts
so I can keep track of this, because if it's
happening like this and like very small locales, I won't
catch it. I won't catch it. And so that was
like the end of September of last year. By November,
(15:51):
I think I had hit eight states, had already like
started to pull the book. But nobody nationally was covering
the story yet, because nobody knew that this was happening.
Because they were doing it so covertly in such small places,
nobody knew what was happening except for the American Library
Association and US as the authors who were getting to
Google alerts. So then I made a tweet like, hey, y'all,
(16:12):
just by the way, like my book is beenned in
the States, and it went viral. And so of course,
because I was a former journalist, I have a bunch
of journalists who followed me, and so they were all like, wait, George,
what are you talking about? And so that's when I
started to speak out against it. The moment I started
speaking out against it, it went. That tweet goes viral
on I think a Thursday or Friday. By that next Friday,
(16:34):
that's when the criminal complaint has filed against me in Florida,
and the criminal complay is found against me, one against me,
one against the book in Florida. And that's literally when
the banned book situation went from something very mild to
something very very serious, very very quickly.
Speaker 1 (16:51):
Like when she did that, it just it just became
a battle field. And you just can't breeze past criminal complaint.
As they say on all the think you show. Let's
unpack that for a second, right, what crime were you
guilty of? You were led you to have.
Speaker 3 (17:10):
Committed, George, Well, the books.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
The crime the book committed was because the book has
had its own charge. The crime that the book committed
was like under some like Pornography Act or pornography law
in Florida, that she was trying to.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
File it under the crime I committed.
Speaker 5 (17:27):
I think she was trying to get me for like
intimidation and harassment because I continue to speak out about it,
and especially after she filed a crichpnical plane against my book,
I started to speak out about it, and.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
She didn't like that.
Speaker 5 (17:40):
But but realistically it was part of the playbook, like
because they weren't winning in every like everywhere that they
were trying to ban books, they weren't necessarily winning, right
like we were winning in some of those cases, and
the ACOU was winning. And so once it got to
that point where they realized that they weren't winning in
some of those places, they do what they do and
they try to go to criminals, you know, criminalization.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Route, and they're doing that across.
Speaker 5 (18:03):
The country country now, Like she was the first, and
I mean as soon as she did it, North Carolina
was next. Then I think it was one in South Carolina,
then it was one in i That's when the senator, no,
the governor of Iowa went on TV with my book
and read the most graphic part of the book on
TV and said she was going to pass a law
so that nobody could.
Speaker 3 (18:21):
Give my book out.
Speaker 5 (18:23):
So that's when they literally that was their next part
of their plan was like, Okay, if we're not going
to win it, if following the rules won't allow us
to win. Because they were following the rules, and school boards,
even some conservative school boards, were like, no, we're not
getting rid of all the books. They went the criminal route,
and so now they're taking it up. We all know
(18:43):
what they're trying to do. They're trying to get it
to the Supreme Court. They're trying to challenge the nineteen
eighty two peak O case that gives students.
Speaker 3 (18:49):
Rights to have their books. We're not stupid, like we
know that.
Speaker 5 (18:53):
First they started at local then they went just now
we're at state level, and eventually a federal lawsuit more
likely than that will probably be gives me in a book.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
In American Library.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Association, we've actually seen federal legislation introduced that would penalize
state funding for schools and literally require the states to
allow people to use I believe they're called five twelve
plans for tuition set asides for religious schools that they're
not allowed to use those plans for if there's an
(19:27):
allegation that the school the state is tolerating the presence
of books that are deemed to be inappropriate by these groups.
We don't think that legislation is going to go anywhere,
especially since well midterms are coming up. Who knows, and
they're being bolder as we saw yesterday. But you know,
(19:49):
we're seeing state legislation. Twenty seven states have adopted some
sort of CRT ban. We're seeing now don't say gay
bills in Florida literally taking in all the books out
of classrooms. They're so terrified. We now have a lawsuit
in Tennessee. A group of parents is suing to remove
(20:10):
curriculum that they believe is teaching white kids to hate
their race quote unquote, and so under the anti CRT
law in Tennessee, they've brought lawsuit. And among the books
that they're citing are Ruby Bridges autobiography that she wrote
for six year olds that uses historical photographs of her
(20:32):
integrating her school in New Orleans with all the adults
screaming at her and using profanities against her. And they
say that's too intense for a six year old and
it makes them feel bad about their race. They actually
attacked a biography of Martin Luther King that shows images
of crossing the bridge in Selma and the resulting police
(20:54):
attack on the protesters as saying that's inappropriate for K
through twelve still students to have access to and so well,
we'll have to see what happens with this lawsuit, but
we're seeing a systematic attack using all kinds of channels
to limit and narrow what we can think about to
what a very small group of people think is appropriate.
(21:18):
This nineteen fifty two vision of a white society where
there aren't troublesome people who are gay or black, or
queer or transgender.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
Yeah, all adjudicated at the state and local level by
officials that are appointed by people and elections that we
deem unnecessary and unimportant. Absolutely, after the break, I want
to get a little bit more into this side of
the legality of it, but also I want to talk
about what we as parent can be doing to talk
(21:51):
to our children about their reading choices and how to
do this the right way in spite of what might
be happening in the schools. This is beyond the scenes.
We'll be right back, Debora. I want to start with
you again and just expanding a little bit on what
George have been talking about about this allegation that this
book is teaching the children the situality and it ain't
(22:13):
time for the kid to be learning about the sixth
and all that stuff, and they're grooming the children. What
is happening in these conversations that is alleging sexual grooming?
Like you gotta wasn't there a book in Texas about farting?
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (22:31):
What was that book? That my butt is so noisy?
Noisy but it's something nice.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
But well, and that was vulgarity. You know, that's just
too vulgar. I mean, we we all know that that's
the sweet spot for the third third grade boys, right,
you know, if you want them to get them read,
there's Captain underpants. I need a new butt. You know
what was it? Harry the Farting Dog? You know? And
and it's a great gateway for those six, seven eight
(22:58):
year old boys who are a little slower pick up reading.
And you want to generate a love of books and
reading in them, and you give them these essentially joke books.
But we actually know that there was a principle. I
believe it was in Alabama who was fired for reading
I Need a New Butt to a class of kids.
He read it in the late afternoon as a treat
(23:19):
because they'd done so well all day for him, and
as a result he was fired for you know, uh,
doing vulgar things with the kids. But that's separate from
what I think is a far more toxic conversation that's
going on. These groups like Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education, whatever,
(23:40):
are creating a false and toxic framing around materials that
deal with gender identity, sexual orientation, and even sex ad
you know, and they're arguing that these books are scene
for minors to read, seen for the display for miners,
or are you know whoever writes them or whoever provides them,
(24:02):
or pandering obscenity di minors, And that's absolutely false. What
the constant you know, the Supreme Court has told us
what is protected speech in this case, and sex is
a protected subject, gender identity, sexual orientation, all these things
that you know, if it has educational value, it has
scientific value, artistic value, literature, that's all protected by the
(24:23):
First Amendment. But they're trying to shift the needle on
this conversation. They're trying to reframe this in a way
that gives them the tools they need to censor all
of this material and use the courts and use the
law to do it. So we've seen situations like the
one in Florida where the person who actually brought the
charges in that case was a school board member who
(24:45):
had been recently elected from one of these parents' rights groups,
had run for a vacant seat to fill out a term,
and she won, and she was so unhappy with the
fact that the board was taking its time in reviewing
George's book and comparing it to whether it had been
acquired according to policy and met educational needs, that that's
when she went to the sheriff's office to file the
(25:07):
charges of sanity. Now, fortunately the prosecutor and the sheriff's
department in Florida rejected all the charges. They said, this
book is an obscene and if you want a decision
on this book, well it's the school board that properly
makes it according to their policies. But we've also seen
this happen in states like Wyoming. A group I don't
(25:28):
know if you're familiar with mass resistance, but there are
anti LGBTQ hate groups and they have a local chapter
in Wyoming, and they actually filed criminal charges against the
library staff and the public library and Jillette, Wyoming and
again the library staff and the books just for having
books and books that were meant to be where does
(25:49):
where do babies come from? This is what's happening to
your body during puberty books? And then a few books
like George's that are intended for young adults who I
did as gay or queer and who want to understand
what they're going through or you learn something from others
experiences so they can navigate their identity successfully and set
(26:12):
up successful relationships as a teen and an adult. In
this case, this book is Gay by Juno Dawson was
one of the targets of these charges, and these librarians
lived in fear for three weeks that somebody was going
to come and put them in handcuffs and put them
in jail for simply providing books to the young adults
that asked for those books in their community public servants. Fortunately,
(26:35):
again the prosecutor rejected all those charges, said no, no
crime has been committed.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Here.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
These books aren't obscene, and the library did what was
supposed to do in providing these books. But we're seeing
more and more of this narrative pushed on boards on communities.
And if you don't have a lot of knowledge about
the First Amendment, if you don't have a lot of
experience with this kind of litigation, it's easy to be
(27:00):
swayed by these arguments because we don't have a lot
of good civic education anymore. That's just my opinion. But
you know, we don't teach civics anymore. We don't teach
don't teach government anymore, you know. And they play on
the signorance, and they play on parents' fears.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
You know, George, what a what are other band authors
saying and doing? We know what you're doing, and you
know you're taking up a torch to fight, and you
have you you almost like in a way to me,
it's almost like, and I know scarface is not the
best analogy, but I envision you. You were just an author,
(27:38):
You're just trying to sell your book and mind your
damn business. And then you looked up at the video
camera and you saw all of them right wing groups
coming and storming your book compound you like, oh, you
want to play rough, well, then let hey, you want
to go to war, let's go to war. Let's let's
have a fight about this. But in talking with other
authors about this issue, what are you seeing from them
in terms of how they're reacting, what they are doing
(28:01):
to strategize against this type of bullshit?
Speaker 5 (28:04):
Well, you know, it's it's tough. It's tough for various
nuanced reasons for authors. So one, most authors are not,
like media trained in the way to address these type
of things in a way like I have a whole
background as a journalist, So when I'm doing these interviews,
(28:26):
someone's always going to try I gotcha question, Like They're
always going to try like, well, should any books be banned?
Like or they always try and ask like a question
like around that right, like around other like.
Speaker 3 (28:38):
To kind of like flip it on his head.
Speaker 5 (28:39):
But I always know how to like CounterPunch, and I
always know how to like counter a story. Not like
all authors aren't trained to do that, And so you
have many of them who fear that they'll get caught
up and say something that they shouldn't say or say
the wrong thing, and then it just spiles out of control.
You also have some publishers who, you know, we just
have to be honest and transparent. I'nfortunate that when I
(29:01):
made the decision that I was going to fight this
like the way that I wanted to fight it, that
my publisher was like, let's go for it, like we
have your back. That's not everybody's situation. There are many
publishers who were like, we're not touching this. We don't
will release a statement as a as an entity that
says we're against this, but outside of that, we really
(29:21):
don't want our authors in that type of fire. We
don't want our authors in that type of heat. We
don't want to have that type of thing happening.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
And so you don't have many authors who who speak out.
Speaker 5 (29:33):
I would say there's a group of us though, who
are unapologetically speaking out, like the Tiffany Jackson's, like the
Nick Stones, like the Angie Thomas's, myself, Ashley Hope, Perez,
Leah Johnson, like there are some of us who are
who are not afraid to speak out.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
But it's tough.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
Does an author, especially a new author, who has written
something that is in the crosshairs of being banned. Do
they run the risk of jeopardizing their career as an
author by choosing to fight and going against the will
and wishes of their publisher, who, hey, just be quiet
and we'll just see what we can and we'll do
a couple of activations and you know, and well, you know,
(30:14):
this book has the ability to simmer over a couple
and then they'll turn around and use the lack of
sales to justify not running with you again. So like
there is there a bit of that to some degree
with some of the authors that are dealing with this.
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Absolutely of one percent, there's a lot of that too,
right like because publishing it, you know, there are a
lot of imprints, there are a lot of places. But
it's just like any other industry. It's just like any
other industry. And a person can be or a publisher
or multiple publishers can be turned off by the fact
that you're so vocal, can be turned off by the
(30:50):
fact and I mean like there are even times, like
we're in contracts that I do we have to put
a clause in it that I'm allowed to still speak
out against certain things because a lot of times there
are actual clauses in the contracts that prevent people from
from talking about certain subjects or talking in certain ways
without the approval of their their publishing house. And that's
(31:11):
not necessarily like a bad thing. That's more of a
protection thing to make sure that you know, authors aren't
just saying whatever they want to say wherever they want
to say it. But I also think because we're in
an unprecedented moment, a lot of people just aren't sure
how to react to it. I think some people aren't
sure if this is like a situation that's just going
to pass once the midterms are done, you know, because
(31:32):
they always try to find something new, and so we're
not sure. I don't think it's going to pass, but
we're still not sure, right because it was like, remember
it was antifa, when it was the last time you
heard anybody say antifa, They don't say it anymore, right,
it was black lives matter. The only time now that
you ever hear them say black lives matter is because
now they are arresting those capital rioters, right, And so
(31:52):
that's the only time you ever hear anybody say this
is because they're trying to juxtapose it.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
But outside of that, they don't say it anymore.
Speaker 5 (31:58):
And so now we're like, oh, your next thing is
the book bands and education, and so we're like, where
is this going? Right, Like, let's say the midterms, there
isn't some big red wave and they keep the condems
to actually keep the house in the Senate. I'm not
sure if they're going to keep fighting for this right,
but if they do flip a chamber or flip both
chambers or whatever, then this may continue to be their fight.
(32:21):
I think the issue of book bands, curriculum, education would
have probably been one of the top issues had the
Roe V Wave situation I haven't instilled the thunder of
everything and kind of shifted the whole midterm. But I
do think that this is still a very very important issue,
and that's why I continue to choose to fight it,
(32:42):
because it's not just about taking my book out of
a library or taking our books out of certain libraries,
like our books are saving lives.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
We have the emails, we have.
Speaker 5 (32:50):
The direct messages, we have all of that that these
students and that these teams send us that let us
know that literally, like the these kids were on the
brink and somebody handed them our book and it changed
the trajectory of their entire life. And so that's why
we fight so hard. We can't let that. We just
can't let it happen.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
Absolutely, Deborah, where does the line stop then, because we
could go books, we could go audio books, we could
go eat books. This has the whole potential cross over
into the digital world and the internet. What's to stop
a school from saying, all, right, now that we got
all these books banned, what's up with these newspapers, Let's
start blocking all the ie.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
They're already doing that. You know, they've already enacted bans
into reading anything from the New York Times dealing with
the sixteen nineteen project. That's law in seventeen states law.
Now whether that stands up to the legal challenges right now,
I have to give a little boost to ACLU. They're
challenging CRT Bells laws in New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Florida
(33:57):
and don't say gay in Florida, So props to them.
We'll see where that how that falls out. But I'm
terrified given the appointments to the judiciary over the last
four years. But we'll set that aside. But we're already
seeing it. We saw a whole public library district in
Texas pulled the plug on their entire ebook platform because
(34:17):
they didn't like the fact that Georgie's book and Genderqueer
by Marca Bobby were part of the e book collection
and to kill the entire ebook access for two books,
all the books, all the books, all the books, all
the books. And well, what's worse is that they they're
(34:38):
a rural community and they have a lot of elderly
and disabled folks in the community that relied on digital
ebook access. This elderly woman says, Who's how am I
going to read my weekly romance? I can't get out,
I don't drive, I use large print on the screen.
And now they've taken that all away. And they the
(34:59):
board didn't care. The elected officials didn't care. They were
more concerned about the small group in the community that
was claiming that books like Georgie's were pornography and harmful
to minors. And they bought that and they actually replaced
the library board with the actual sensors in that community.
Now that's being challenged in a lawsuit, but that's going
(35:21):
to be a long remedy for that. It'll be years
before that is resolved. If at all you know, it
shouldn't be that we have to go to court to
preserve our civil liberties, our right to read, and our
right to have equal access to a community resource like
the books in the library and have the resource reflect
everyone's lives in the community. And it's just really terrible.
(35:43):
But I don't you know, digital has made it worse.
It's not only taking away digital access, it's the ability
to track what people are reading and viewing on the screen.
And we're seeing that happen to K through twelve students.
You effectively have no privacy if you have a school
issued laptop or chromebook, and you know they've actually turned
(36:06):
on cameras after school hours. And there was one young
person in Pennsylvania who actually was arrested for drug use
because he had some kind of hard candy on his
desk that was shaped like a capsule, and the IT
department in his high school turned it into the police.
You know that, you know, again eventually resolved. But why
(36:27):
are we tolerating this situation, Why are we taking away
young people's rights to privacy, to their right to read.
It's just it's beyond imagining right now.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
To that point about selection and agency. George so I
have a six year old now. We try to let
this boy choose what he want to eat, and for
the most part he's eyed. He like, if you ask
him for what you want for breakfast, he will choose
from an array of breakfast options. He won't just say
I want cupcakes. We try to monitor the educational tablet time.
(37:02):
And so there's this app called Epic Epic Reading, and
Epic Reading lets you swipe through whatever book you want
to find. And he's old enough to spell, so he
can search by topic. His thing is Ninja's If as
long as you're reading, I don't care. He's some book
called cat Ninja. He is obsessed with cat Ninja. And
so I feel like, as a parent, I've kind of
(37:23):
transitioned from something that my parents were in, which was
very much you're gonna read this, or you had a
sign reading. You know, I'm from Alabama, Birmingham Public schools,
where here's one slavery book and the Hobbit, here's another
slavery book and Babel like those. That was kind of
the oscillation of things. But like when we talk about agency,
(37:44):
so in your book, you know, you talked about you know,
a child wearing a basketball headband for instance. And like,
if we use wardrobe as an example, you said quote
rather than saying you are wearing this, I hope more
adults will ask what would you like to wear and
then have a conversation about these choices. So if we
(38:04):
apply that same concept to reading, what conversations can a
con parent to be having if they're raising a BIPOP
or LGBTQI, a plus child. What are they missing out
on by not having those conversations and making sure that
kids are getting reading materials that speak specifically to their
child's experiences.
Speaker 5 (38:23):
Yeah, I mean the real thing to missing out on
is that there's this they're just assuming that their child
is okay, and they're assuming that their child is like
just just navigating life okay because their child hasn't said
anything to them.
Speaker 3 (38:36):
And I think.
Speaker 5 (38:37):
It's it's interesting right because like, and I've talked about
it with even like with my family.
Speaker 3 (38:41):
Before because they're all up and through the book.
Speaker 5 (38:44):
But it's just interesting because it was like, well, everybody
knew I was queer, but nobody ever said it. And
so I'm navigating my life with the bare minimum of
resources that I have, but I have these guardians around
me who are protecting me and who are doing all
(39:05):
of the right things in their mind, but the one
thing that they couldn't bring themselves to do was just
ask me the question or sit down and talk with
me about it. Because there's a real fear, for some
reason that has been built in this country that parents
and kids should not be having adult conversations, even though
(39:25):
parents are trying to prepare their children for adulthood. And
realistically that's what's being missed, right, And so I liken
it to the fact that we will send kids to college,
but we will never teach them how to do their
own taxes. And then at twenty one they leave college,
(39:47):
they get their first job, they have no idea what
a one exemption is or two exemption is a zero exemption,
And so you're like, we're literally just sending them out
into the world ill equipped the whole notion that, oh,
this the topic of sex is too heavy for my
fourteen to eighteen year old, because be clear, my book
is four fourteen to eighteen year olds. So then you're like, okay, well,
(40:08):
if the topic of sex is too heavy for your
eighteen year old, then you send your eighteen year old
to college with no framework around sex.
Speaker 3 (40:17):
What exactly do you think is going to happen?
Speaker 5 (40:20):
And how do we know that we are lacking in
teaching fourteen to eighteen year olds about sex because we
can look at the rates of sexual assault, sexual misconduct,
and rape on college campuses across the United States and
how rampant it is, and a lot of that is
because we are not teaching sex education before we send
(40:41):
them off into the world with raging hormones that we
never talked them about, and then they're making four decisions.
Speaker 1 (40:49):
Just base level no means, no reading body language, just
how not to raise an asshole, right, And.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
So that's what we're missing out on, and that's what
a lot of parents are missing out on because parents
are keep saying I should have the right to teach
this heavy topic in my home, and we're like, I
don't disagree with that, but you're also not teaching that
heavy topic in your home. So you can't have it
both ways, Like you can't have it where you're like,
I don't think the schools should be teaching them this
(41:16):
or this or they should be getting this at school,
because that should be my in home decision that we
make as a parent. But then it's like, okay, but
then your child comes home and you're still not teaching
them that, and you're still not talking to them about that,
and you're still not giving them access to it. So
where exactly do you think they learn it from? And
even in the section in the book that they're attacking
(41:37):
the most, they're flipping what I said. What I said
was most teenagers learn about sex through pornography. It is
what it is. They sneak and watch it. I was
a teenager who sneaked off and watched it. My friends
were teenagers who sneaked off and watched it, and so
they when we're going through puberty, we're literally just pulling
from any resource that we can that we can access
(41:59):
because we keep getting denied the actual resources that we
really need. So instead it's like, oh, well, I'm going
to take George's book away from you. It doesn't stop
your teens yearning to still know the information. But what
it does is it means that they're going to now
go down dangerous paths to get it, and that's all
we're trying to prevent. We just want to be able
(42:20):
to say here's the road map, instead of almost like
like a what what are those things you used to
call when you used to have to search and find
stuff scavenger hunt. Right, It's like, rather than you having
to go on a scavenger hunt for the information, we
just want to give them the information. But instead they
think that when we introduce these heavy topics, or that
(42:43):
when the students get a book and they read the book,
they think we're introducing these heavy topics to them. And
what we're trying to tell them is, no, your teens
are already going through this. They're already dealing with sexual assault,
they're already dealing with and they're having these conversations, but
y'all think we're introducing them to them, and they're literally saying,
I know, we want the books that we can learn
about what we're already experiencing.
Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah, it's that fantasy. If they don't read about if
the books aren't there to tell you about it, then
it's the parents can pretend it's not happening. And we
know that that's not it. You know, banning the book
isn't going to take away the fact that kids are
dealing with these issues on a regular basis and or
that they're experiencing it. And you know what would you
rather have a librarian or an educator making choices about
(43:28):
and curating good content that addresses these issues in a
responsible fashion, that gives good information, accurate information, or you know,
out on the internet looking at pornography. I often say,
you know, we're banning books, but let's look at that
phone that's unrestricted, unfiltered phone in the back pocket of
every young person you know.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
Okay, be clear.
Speaker 1 (43:51):
I definitely want to try and spin this into something positive,
because if it's one thing Americans love, it's stuff that's
banned and for and that you have limited access to.
Low key banned books Week might be the thing that
they didn't want to happen that's gonna happen. I want
to unpack that a little bit with you, George, and
also I want to figure out ways devor that we
(44:13):
the people can join the fight to help change this.
We're talking band books. I'm beyond the scenes. We'll be
right back beyond the scenes. We're rounding third headed for home.
We're talking band books. Now, let's discuss Band Books Week,
which is this week. George, Now you are the honorary chair.
Run us through the week. What's what's on the agenda?
(44:36):
Of Is there a brunch included? I love a good brunch.
I do a brunch or a barbecue or block party, anything,
would it be okay?
Speaker 2 (44:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (44:45):
So this is the fortieth anniversary of Band Books Week,
and I'm really excited that I was chosen to lead it. Interesting,
I guess interestingly enough, like band books have always been
like a thing, it's just never been this big of
a think. So I think it's exciting because so many
people are like interested in, like, uh, talking to the
(45:06):
authors and hearing from us, and so we have virtual
events lined up. We have one with the Emancipator, which
I believe was I think that was was that Frederick
Douglas's original newspaper. I know they brought yes, so they
brought it back. They brought back the Emancipator. It's now
under the Boston Globe family. So we have an amazing
robust panel conversation with Sarah Kate, who's the president of
(45:31):
glad Leah Johnson will be there and several other authors
will be there. I'll be moderating that conversation. I'll also
be on Tameron Hall coming up soon to talk about
van Book. She's been an avid supporter of books and
against the book bands. We have you know, some virtual
like I said, several virtual events lined up this week
in person event and I believe in DC with doctor
(45:53):
Ebram x Kendy.
Speaker 3 (45:57):
Yeah, so it's really really exciting.
Speaker 5 (45:59):
We have some Instagram live things going on, some Facebook
live things going on.
Speaker 3 (46:05):
Uh.
Speaker 5 (46:05):
Yeah, we just wanted, you know, wanted to make sure
that people got to hear from the authors, that people understood,
you know, the importance of fighting against censorship and just
having a really good time being proud of being banned.
Like I'm proud of be banned. So I don't know
about anybody. I think everybody can tell by now, you know,
me being banned gott me on a New York Times
(46:27):
bestseller list. So it got a New York Times bestseller list,
and it got me in the top ten list.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Right.
Speaker 5 (46:33):
I think my book is right above Tony Morrison's and
so I always tell everybody like, that's probably the only
list I'm gonna ever make with Tony Morrison.
Speaker 3 (46:40):
So I'm going to take that as a bench of honor.
Speaker 5 (46:44):
But yeah, band Books, we we wanted to make sure
that we did something a little bit different this year
and really go hard at it and really almost re
re reput the messaging back out there because school just
started again, so of course they're starting again and sell
Bad Book Week is now our moment to really really
start again.
Speaker 2 (47:04):
Yeah, and really we have a whole calendar of things
going on both nationally and locally. If you go to
ban Booksweek dot org you'll be able to find the
calendar of all these events. There's a lot of in
person events going on at local libraries and schools and
community centers, but we're also doing things like a virtual
(47:25):
readout with authors and students who are part of the
Kids Right to Read project at NCAC, and a number
of all these events that you know, social media and
things like that. That'll be a real great thing. One
thing to remember about Bad Books Week, Tuesday at Bambooks
Week is National voter Registration Day, and so we're encouraged
(47:48):
we're taking that opportunity to encourage everyone to make sure
that they know whether they're registered to vote or not
if they're not to register to vote, and to educate
themselves about what's going on at elections at the local level.
And we're going to really build a whole series of
promotions and events around that fact and take advantage of
the coincidence.
Speaker 1 (48:09):
Yeah, know who you're voting for. Don't just vote for
somebody because they got to. I'll be falling for them.
Nice pictures. Some of them politicians, you don't read the platform.
They'd be like ban everything, A damn. I know I
already checked yes on this person. But are there any
other resources that people like me? You know, let's talk
hope and optimism. What else can we look to? You know,
(48:31):
as we continue to see band books in the news, Well.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
You can understand that you can do something about this
as an individual, and you can get your networks, your
community groups to join you in this. And I mentioned
earlier Unite against book Bands and the resources that are
available on that website that anyone can use to organize
their friends, their church groups, their connections, their networks, to
(48:59):
be aware of what's going on locally, and to be
that louder voice in the room that speaks up in
favor of the right to read, the right to choose,
and the importance of making sure that your library reflects
everyone's lives and choices. And then there's other things that
individuals can do. You can well, we have a deer
(49:23):
band author's campaign we have, and actually we're going to
start a Deer Librarian's campaign this year encouraging people to
send postcards to librarians because they've been under particular attack
this season of censorship, and so we're just inviting people
to use these resources to look beyond the Band Books Week.
(49:48):
You know, for so long, Band Books Week has been
one week, and we talk about celebrating the freedom to read.
We celebrate the authors who've gone through banning, and celebrate
the right to make choices about our reading. But I
think this year we have to have bad books. Weeek
all year round. We have to have that awareness that
we have this promise that we can read anything we want,
(50:12):
we can think about anything we want under the First Amendment,
and we have to protect that. And the only way
to do that is becoming engaged locally. We have an
aphorism all library politics are local, all school politics are local.
We need to take that to heart and just take
on that duty to become engaged at the local level
(50:32):
and to raise our voices together to empower ourselves to
speak out.
Speaker 1 (50:38):
Okay, last question. Debora calwell Stone, director of the American
Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom and they are, Georg
Jim Johnson, author, former journalism, proud band author, give me
the two of you some of your favorite band but
(50:58):
other than all Boys Aren't Blue. Other than George, you
don't get to name your book George. Other than that,
what are some of your favorite band books? Just throw
out a couple titles for our listeners to go and
try and dig go.
Speaker 2 (51:11):
I have to be honest. One of my more life
changing reads was the absolutely true Diary of Part Time
Indian by Sherman Alexei. I actually a family who lives
in the area of Washington State that he grew up
on the res in and I had no idea what
was going on beyond the country roads I was traveling
on to go visit family, and it was just an
(51:34):
eye opener. It was that door, that window into another
life and gaining an understanding of the struggle to have
an education. I so deeply appreciate that book and I
recommend it to anyone. And you know, I'm a recovering attorney,
so almost incumbent on me to throw out to Kill
a Mockingbird. Ale though it's kind of cliched and things,
(51:56):
you know, but you know, I find when I read
through list of bad books. You know, I have that
experience that I had with Absolutely True Diary. They turn
out to be life changing, eye opening, thought provoking, you
know books, And I recommend anyone the reading list of
this year's FAM Books Top ten BAM Books list, which
(52:17):
you can find on the ALA website at ALA dot
org as a reading list. Of course, George's book is
on that list, but.
Speaker 5 (52:27):
I have the list hanging up. It's right here to
the right of me, hanging on the wall. Yeah, long Boy.
Definitely Ton Morrison's The Bluest Eye, which I'm still like,
I don't get it. I'm shocked, Like half is that
being challenged all these years. I think Beloved is also challenged.
(52:48):
And I think I'm specifically going to talk about Beloved
because I remember when the movie Beloved came out and
a lot of us struggled with it and we were like,
I don't understand it.
Speaker 3 (52:59):
I don't get it.
Speaker 5 (53:00):
And then one of my friends, her name is doctor
Jim Jackson, she reframed Beloved and she was like, the
problem is y'all aren't reading Beloved.
Speaker 3 (53:08):
As a black horror story.
Speaker 5 (53:10):
And she was like, if you go into the mindset
of like how Jordan Peel is doing black like these
black horror. She was like, read Beloved, but read it
from the mind standpoint that this is a horror and
it blew my mind. One, it blew my mind, and
once again Tony Morrison was well ahead of her time.
But two, I think everybody should go back and reread
(53:30):
Beloved from the mindset of I'm not looking at this
as like a little love story or a tragedy, but
I'm looking at this as a horror.
Speaker 3 (53:38):
Because that's it, truly.
Speaker 5 (53:40):
If you read it, it will teach you how to
build upon if you want to be a horror writer,
or you know, it just has so much texture to it.
Speaker 1 (53:49):
So yeah, okay, well that's all the time we have
for today. George, thank you to you, Deborah, thank you
to you as well. Hopefully by now we have taken
you all beyond this scenes. We'll see you next week.
Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple Podcasts,
(54:11):
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