National
Review Online
Wednesday,
July 19, 2023
At first
glance, the recent criticism that Barack Obama
leveled against
those in America who are supposedly “banning” books might sound reasonable — if
you overlook the characteristic Obama touches of generalities, obfuscations,
and euphemisms. “Some of the books that shaped my life — and the lives of so
many others,” Obama wrote in an open letter penned in support of the American
Library Association’s “United Against Book Bans” campaign, “are being
challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives.” “It’s no
coincidence,” he continued, “that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or
feature people of color, Indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+
community.” Among the authors that Obama singles out for special praise are
“Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin.”
And who
can disagree with that? Books do, indeed, shape lives. A broad range of ideas
and perspectives improves a free country. Mark Twain is a national treasure.
Actually banning books is a terrible thing. And yet, when one digs into the
controversies that have inspired Obama’s missive, one quickly discovers that it
is not so much that “ideas” and “perspectives” are being suppressed in America
as that age-inappropriate material is being removed from its schools and, in
some cases, from the children’s sections of public libraries. The book that is
most commonly described as having been “banned” — by which critics do not
actually mean “banned,” but rather “moved to a different
section within,
or removed
completely from,
public school libraries” — is Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, a
graphic work that, among other things, includes depictions of minors performing
oral sex, of male adults having penetrative sex, and of an adult man
masturbating a small boy’s penis. Others on the “banned” list are Let’s
Talk About It, which features graphic illustrations of masturbation; Flamer,
a book about young boys engaging in sexual acts at a summer camp; and This
Book Is Gay, a book that demonstrates “the ins and outs of gay sex.” So
explicit are these works that, in March of this year, Governor Ron DeSantis of
Florida held up the relevant pages for the cameras and forced every news
station covering his event to cut its
broadcasts in
a panic because federal law would sanction them for airing obscene content.
While
there is a fair argument about the threshold for a book to be removed from a
school library (e.g., objections from one parent should not be sufficient), it
is telling that Obama mentions none of the controversies surrounding sexually
explicit materials being on offer to children. This despite Gender Queer
having received the fervent endorsement of the American Library Association,
which, in 2020, presented the
work with an award that
is reserved for books that “have special appeal to young adults, ages 12
through 18.” It is telling, too, that, when the works in question are less
sexually graphic, the ALA sounds far less absolutist on the question of what is
and is not appropriate for young eyes, as well as on the question of what
constitutes “censorship” per se. In 2018, the ALA voted unanimously to strip
Laura Ingalls Wilder from its major children’s literature award on the grounds
that the author’s legacy “may no longer be consistent with the intention of the
award named for her.” This decision, the ALA was keen to insist, did not
represent an attempt to “censor, limit, or deter access,” but to ensure that
the organization’s “core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and
responsiveness” were observed.
Or, to
put it another way: In the eyes of the American Library Association, books that
show grown men masturbating teenage boys’ penises ought to be recommended to
twelve-year-olds while Little House on the Prairie ought to be
cast aside in the name of inclusion, respect, and responsiveness.
In a
free country such as the United States, it is the prerogative of the ALA to
adopt this stance — although we note that the ALA is not a purely private
organization. Many of its dues-paying members are taxpayer-funded public
libraries, whose concerted action is a form of governmental power. But it would
be nice if it were willing to extend the same courtesy to those who strenuously
disagree. Inevitably, questions such as these will involve a degree of
judgment. Thanks to the First Amendment, we are not debating here which books
will be unavailable in the United States, but which will make it into school
libraries and school curricula — and at what age they will be attainable.
Because public schools are just that — public — they must remain responsive to
the states, school boards, and parents who run them. Because neither time nor
space nor funds are unlimited, they will always exclude some books whenever
they choose to include others. Necessarily, San Francisco will have different
standards than Mississippi, conservative counties will set different rules than
progressive counties, and institutions run by advocates of colorblindness will
employ a different definition of “inclusiveness” than institutions that are
obsessed with identity. Sometimes, school boards will make overzealous
decisions. Occasionally, a genuinely good book will be tossed out with the
junk. Sporadically, mistakes will be made. That, though, is the price we pay
for democracy, the flawed system that is superior to all the others.
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