Not too long ago I wrote about how Illinois banned banning books in libraries. If you want a refresher, check it out here. I stand by every word of this, but one of my friends brought up a news story that he found troubling, and it made him want to side with the book banners on this one thing.
He sent me a link to the news story, and I read about how an Ohio mayor threatened to charge teachers with child pornography if they didn't resign because of certain reading material in their classes. It turns out the mayor was referring to a book called 642 THINGS TO WRITE ABOUT by a collective of writers from San Francisco. And I kinda-sorta get why this is a big deal, but it's an apples to oranges argument when it comes to what I was talking about.
Here's what happened. These teachers got their students this book because those 642 things are writing prompts. They were using them as exercises to help their students learn how to write something longer than a Facebook post. They assigned innocuous writing prompts from this book.
However. Perhaps one of the students read more than the assignments. Or maybe a parent read the whole thing. Regardless, the teachers probably did not realize that one of the prompts in this book was to write a sex scene you wouldn't show your mother, and then to write one you would show her. Let's set aside for the moment that the students who were given these books were studying for a college course credit, which means in all likelihood they were 18. This book, which is *not* a textbook should not have been assigned to high schoolers. There is even a warning in the advertising that this book is for readers 18 and older.
Maybe it should be more like 21 or older because one of the prompts in there is to drink a beer and write about how it feels. I can see why parents are upset about this kind of thing. It was kind of stupid to not vet the book before assigning certain passages from it. But remember, *this is not a textbook for children.* I usually adhere to the John Waters rule that if someone is old enough to ask about something, they are probably old enough to read about it, but that's probably not something a high school should do.
But to accuse the teachers of being "groomers" is absurd. This was a stupid mistake. Groomers, by the way, is a useless phrase. Parents, teachers, clergy, political authorities, the police, EVERYONE is grooming someone to be something. By writing this, I would be considered a groomer to all of my readers. It's meaningless bullshit meant to make a stupid error sound like an insidious plot.
I'm not siding with the book banners by saying this book shouldn't have been at that school. I wouldn't put The Anarchist Cookbook in a school library, just like I wouldn't put a Rape of Nanking picture book there, either. In a regular library? Sure. But calling these teachers groomers and child pornographers is batshit fucking insane.
Another thing that's kind of crazy is the rewriting of children's books due to things that might have been OK 30 or 40 years ago but aren't now. Like what Roald Dahl's work is going through now. It's not really all that new. When I was a kid we were stuck with revised versions of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn with all the n-words taken out. I'm not good with that because it changes the author's intent. No one on this fucking planet would ever accuse Mark Twain of being racist. He was giving racists a beatdown in his books, and watering that down is not cool. It eliminates the scourge of racism Twain was fighting. Instead of giving kids neutered versions, maybe don't have them read the books at all. Let them discover these books as adults. Besides, how many kids today would identify with Tom or Huck? I mean, really. Neither of them has a cell phone or the internet. I'll bet any kid given these books as reading material today would find it a real slog.
But that's not what the book banners are really after. Almost all of the books challenged by them are written by or about people of color, women and LGBTQ+ people. Sometimes all three. This isn't really about age-appropriateness. This is about ensuring that the youth grow up today hating the wrong people. Instead of going after corporations and politicians, the corporations and politicians want the youth to go after those who have been historically marginalized so that they can never be truly accepted and treated like the humans they actually are.
So I reiterate: FUCK BOOK BANNERS.
Let's end this on a let's all get along kind of vibe. Everyone agrees JFK was a great president, right? Perhaps the privilege of being assassinated ensured that he would always be remembered as a great president no matter which side of the political spectrum you're on. So I'll let him have the final word on this.
