Parents have enough to worry about. I mean, when do we ever get a break? School shootings, bullying, inflation—where does it end? Not to mention UFO balloons are apparently a thing now. My brain can only handle so much. At least we are tackling those issues like responsible adults. Ha, no we’re not. Nope, we ignored all of that and instead we are back to banning books.
Honestly, I thought this was left behind after 1945. Again, another joke because I know books have always been banned. Huckleberry Finn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret just to name a few. Some of the very books that define American literature. And now it’s been kicked into high gear.
Go ahead and take a look. The stats don’t lie. 41% of currently banned books deal with LGBTQ+ characters and themes. 40% deal are where our hero is a person of color. 21% deal with racism. Cut it any way you want to, those numbers should anger you as a parent.
One of the biggest mistakes that a parent can make is to not see the world that our children occupy. So many live in this make-believe place where everything is uncomplicated. That our children never struggle with their sexuality or their belonging. That there is no such thing as cruelty. That if we don’t talk about these things they don’t exist. This isn’t keeping their head in the sand. This is burying the whole world in ignorance. And it’s being done intentionally.
I would much prefer it if parents were honest. “I don’t feel comfortable talking to my children about sex. I’m an immature manchild.” Sure, that may seem harsh, and like I’m trying to pick a fight. Good, because I’m trying to pick a fight. As Braveheart said, I didn’t get dressed up for nothing.
These same groups of parents also want to believe that the experiences of people of color are not valid. They wrap it in righteous indignation right before they ban the book How to Be an Antiracist. They’ll use dog whistle words like “woke.” Dudes, just admit that you’re an idiot. Life goes a lot better once you embrace your stupidity. You probably should have read a book.
The next argument that many of these book banners will use is that “it’s for the children!” And in the same breath, they will do absolutely nothing about school shootings, climate change, inflation, mental health services for teens, etc etc etc. Seriously, I could go and on.
Book banning isn’t about our children. It’s about fear, straight and simple. The fear to recognize our country’s past and deal with it in the future. To see the lasting effects of our actions, and how it continues to affect people today. It’s about not recognizing the voices of those that have been hidden. It’s about hate.
Many of the books banned personalize that hate. It gives a face to it. It humanizes what many are afraid of, and in so doing, takes away that fear. But when you’re very identity is so closely tied to fear, it’s tough to let it go. So much so that people will refuse to see let our kids find themselves in literature. And in so doing, find their place in the world. LGBQT+ for teens is four times higher than other teens, which is already high. Now tell me again how this is about children. It’s not.
I read an essay once whose message was that one of the most important things I can do is to give people their voice. To not step into their circle and overpower the message with my own. To listen to the authentic experiences of others. No matter how you cut it, as a white dude from the Midwest, I will inherently bring my own biases. Do not speak for people, listen to them.
I desperately want my children to listen. It’s imperative to their future. To bury those voices different than ours is to ignore them. And once that happens, ignorance is sure to follow. It dehumanizes the very children others claim they want to help. Normally, I would swear here, but let’s pretend we all know the word I was going to use. It begins with bull.
Instead of dealing with problems head-on, once again, our nation pushes them off to empty platitudes and meaningless solutions. One of those solutions is to fine and imprison librarians and teachers for sharing a book someone doesn’t like. Yup, that’s a thing. Sending librarians to jail for giving a book. If that isn’t some dystopian nightmare fuel, I don’t know what is.
And apparently, many of these same people believe that the solution to school shootings is giving your kindergarten teacher a Glock. We can’t trust teachers with books, but we can with guns. Seriously, the satire pretty much writes itself at this point.
It’s the parent’s job to raise our kids. It’s our job to read ALONG with our kids. It’s my job as a father to have those difficult conversations about sex, race, and Taylor Swift. It’s not the job of self-righteous idiots to determine what is appropriate or not. That’s how you get abstinence sex ed classes, which is currently how we are treating reading. What’s next, teaching our kids that if you touch a book in the Jesus spot, you’ll get a literary STD? If someone has read that book before, does that make it unclean?
Stop banning books. Get out of the way and let us parents do our job. Let my son read about Jim and Huck floating down the river or Margaret having a period. The worst that can happen is that they begin to think for themselves, and hopefully tackle the rest of the problems our current generation refuses to deal with.
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This Post is republished on Medium.
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