Books are disappearing from library shelves: In the Republican state of Texas, Lisa Miller, a 67-year-old retiree, laments the disappearance of many books from the public library she frequents in rural Llano County. “The aisles were very narrow, but over time many books and shelves disappeared. So they moved the remaining rows of books apart. Since each shelf has an empty space, the librarians put a book on a display stand, cover-on, to fill the space. This way, the shelves appear three-quarters or half full, where they used to be filled with books only on their spines. No new books have been ordered for two and a half years. It is believed that in some cases they were removed from the shelves because of their contents, not because they had not been borrowed for a long time.”says Lisa Miller. With books disappearing from the shelves of this brick and stone library, the young retiree felt almost compelled to get involved in local politics, even though she was afraid of a controversial subject. Miller thinks she has an advantage: her age. “I’m 67. A small pension. I can survive without extra work. And maybe that’s our mission, as retirees. Because no one can touch us anymore. We don’t have children to support and we don’t depend on a job anymore.”
Texas Librarian Fired After Speak Out Against Book Censorship: Suzette Baker is the former head librarian for one of the branches in Llano County, Texas. In December, when her boss sent her a list of books to remove from the shelves, Suzette, who served in the military as a mechanic and thus risked her life to defend the ideals of the American Constitution, including the First Amendment on free speech, refused to comply with the censorship of books such as Ta-Nehisi Coates’ “Between the World and Me,” Ibram Kendi’s “How to Become an Anti-Racist,” and “The History of the Ku Klux Klan.” “These books were listed as pornographic”explains Suzette Baker, “while they don’t contain any scenes like that. Unless you have a thing for white sheets but I don’t want to criticize anyone’s inclinations. To each his own,” she says ironically. “But the subtitle of the book on the history of the Ku Klux Klan was ‘The Birth of an American Terrorist Group.’ And the censors didn’t want to hear about it. Or let others learn about it,” denounces Lisa Miller, alongside Suzette Baker. The supporters of censorship “foalt whitewash US history. And this book was about the Ku Klux Klan.
“Our library is nothing more than an empty shell,” laments Gretchen Hinkle. A heartbreak for this Texan who moved to Llano in 2019: “The very first community event I was invited to was a “super dinner” at the library. The staff had prepared a bunch of different soups for the guests. And I thought, this would be a great place to be, if that’s the kind of event that’s going to be held. But right now, our library is slowly dying. And sometimes, in a small town, it can be scary to speak out in support of the library. And that can have serious consequences. Here, some people depend on the powerful people of Llano County for their income, or on contracts that they have directly with the county. All it takes is to accuse someone of horrible, illegal things, like calling someone a “pedophile,” on the Internet. How do you overcome that? It has real-life consequences, socially, maybe financially, too. And of course, emotionally. You know that people are on your side in the fight against book censorship, but they can’t say it publicly. “I’m worried too.”
Thousands of censored books, such as those by Toni Morrison, Harper Lee, Aldous Huxley, Maia Kobabe
Florida, birthplace of the ultra-conservative group “Moms for Liberty”: Mothers who had first formed a group during the pandemic against wearing masks in schools then put all their strength into parental rights against books that they consider “inappropriate”, “offensive”, “pornographic”, because these books contain LGBTQIA+ characters, because they discuss women’s rights, racial issues. “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, Nobel Prize winner for Literature, is one of the most censored books in the United States. Also removed from the shelves of some public or school libraries are “To Kill a Mockingbird” by Harper Lee, “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, “Maus” by Art Spiegelman and “Gender Queer – Genre Queer” by Maia Kobabe. In 2023, the American Library Association listed 4,240 titles targeted for censorship, more than the previous two years combined. For its part, the association Pen America, which defends freedom of expression, listed nearly 6,000 book bans in one year in the United States.
Education councils, places of sometimes violent clashes over book censorship: In Brevard County, on the east coast of the Republican state of Florida, the pro-censorship group “Moms for Liberty” has managed to make itself heard by the board of education that manages the district’s public schools. It is in this space, whose members are designated in local elections, that the battle for or against censorship in school libraries is played out. The tension is palpable at the first public meeting of this school year: parents learned of the secret withdrawal of 105 books from the school district’s libraries. Among these parents and citizens who file to the lectern to speak, Greg Ross announces his colors, with his gray T-shirt on which it says “Ban biggots, not books”. He is outraged by the withdrawal of classics, sometimes, like “1984”, “Wuthering Heights”, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea”. But for him, as for others, “It’s no surprise, in Brevard County. We predicted that under this school board, book censorship would only increase and become more ridiculous. Here we are, with an internal process set up by this board to ban books, out of the public eye, without our input. It took an official request from an association to find this list of books. Which ones? Take the picture book “No, David.” Censored because of a drawing of a little boy’s butt getting into mischief. It was supposedly moved from elementary school to middle school. Well, I guess since we have no information on what happened to those books. Our neighbors in Indian River County even asked to cover up the drawing of the boy’s butt with pants. Here we are, in 2024,” denounces Greg Ross.
“Do you want to be on the same list as the Puritans, the slave owners, Hitler?”: In her address to the Board of Education, Brevard resident Rachelle Jolley made a point of providing historical background to demonstrate the dangers of book censorship. “The first book censorship in the United States predates the United States itself: the Puritans who had settled in the colonies banned a book and exiled its author, Thomas Morton. He had dared to describe the mistreatment of the First Nations, the Native Americans, who were there when the colonists arrived. His book was published in 1637. Proof that book censorship is not new. Books are a threat to narrow-minded people. They challenge the status quo. They threaten authority and dictators. When the slave owner who held Frederick Douglass discovered that his mistress was teaching Frederick to read, he told her, “If you let him read, he will get restless, he will not be content with his condition.” It was illegal for a whole group of people in this country to learn to read. And when they were able to do so, their ability to do so was restricted. readings. In Nazi Germany, many books were banned, deemed contrary to the German spirit. Joseph Goebbels even said “No to decadence and moral corruption, Yes to decency and morality, in the family and in the state”. And once these books were censored, they were burned, gone forever. As you see, From the outset, censoring books and controlling information and who can access it has nothing to do with protecting people. It’s about controlling them. So do you really want to be on the same list as the Puritans, the slave owners, Hitler, you, the Brevard Public School Board members?”Rachelle Jolley says, as a warning.
Opponents of book censorship have been harassed: After a tense exchange with the president of the Brevard council, for whom the removal of 105 books from Brevard school libraries is not censorship but disinformation, Jennifer Jenkins comes down from the podium, greeted by citizens opposed to censorship. This elected member of the board of education takes a few steps on the gray carpet of the room. A few breathing exercises. The one who will soon finish her term, this fall, still seems shaken by a new tense exchange she has just had with the president of the Brevard council. Jennifer Jenkins, who has always refused to censor a single book, is also tested by the violence of certain activists. “I’ve been through hell for the last four years. People have vandalized my property, sent me death threats. They’ve followed me around with private investigators, set up a website saying I’m having an affair. They’ve filed child welfare complaints saying I’m abusing my daughter. Sometimes I’d go to a school board meeting and there’d be 40 protesters outside with sheets that said in blood red letters, ‘Jennifer Jenkins, resign’… It’s traumatized me and my family. It all started with the Moms for Liberty group and the people who support them.”
More to come
