Book banning, and the hypocrisy that fuels it, rears its ugly head in Ada once again | Opinion
Californians escaping blue state politics have descended on Idaho with their government overreach strategies to interfere in the decisions of libraries and school districts about the books on their shelves. Book banning was largely absent from the Treasure Valley local governments when I moved here in 2003. But now that California plates are showing up at stop lights in the Treasure Valley, book banning makes the local headlines.
The West Ada school district in Meridian just removed ten books from a longer list of 44 books considered for removal from its library shelves. West Ada librarians were invited to participate in the discussions of what books should be banned, but they declined, obviously troubled by the pontificating new majority commandeering local government decision-making.
The Nampa school district removed 22 books from its library last year. Here’s a case where a dystopian novel of the 50’s comes to life in the 21st century. “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury is a classic dystopian novel that depicts a society where books are banned and then burned. The Nampa Interim School Superintendent at the time said the banned books would be thrown in the garbage. (Apparently, they didn’t have a match.)
It’s a safe wager that these charlatans didn’t read the books cover to cover. They pick up titles in the right-wing media that gives them reassurance students aren’t exposed to sexual material or issues of race, the usual excuses these days for banning a book. (West Ada school district used the right-wing BookLooks.org to find its banned books.) Like their students aren’t technologically savvy enough in this digital world to find their own way to such material. In fact, banning a book may be the most effective tool for getting a book in the hands of students these high priests of our moral values claim to protect.
It was in a column last year that I sought to nail down the hypocrisy of the radical right in its efforts to criminalize the work of librarians while preaching about the dangers of government overreach, but a co-founder of Moms for Liberty and Sarasota, Florida school board member Bridget Ziegler wins the grand prize of hypocrisy. After taking over a Sarasota Florida school board and crowing about “woke” books, all in the name of moral rectitude, she was involved in a three-way sex scandal with another woman and Ziegler’s husband, Christian Ziegler, chair of the Florida Republican Party. (No, I did not make up his first name.)
Here’s where the going gets tough. Who lost more of the moral high ground, the Republican Party of Florida or Moms for Liberty, which issues lists of banned books and now may have to be on guard for books that include the kind of three-some sex scandals the co-founder of Moms for Liberty apparently enjoys?
It’s at this point where I must admit I feel like Rip Van Winkle awakened to a new and distorted reality not of his making. Some of the best books I’ve read are classics now banned by libraries and school boards across the country, but they were required reading for my senior English course in high school taught by Sister Delores, a Catholic nun, who probably could not have imagined that “The Catcher in the Rye” by J.D. Salinger, “1984” by George Orwell or “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley were books to be banned once the right wing sprang into action.
“Catcher in the Rye” is the story of a disillusioned teenager confronting an adult world not making much sense to him. It’s a great read for a high school English teacher to challenge her students on how to overcome what may appear as insurmountable odds in adjusting to that adult world, but profanity and sexual references are usually given as the reasons for banning it. Yet this most religious nun didn’t see it that way. Go figure and if you figure correctly, you just might conclude that the self-appointed guardians of morality today don’t have a clue how such a book might be used by a teacher in a classroom of kids moving into adulthood.
My high school days unfolded during the Cold War when the fear of communism and the “Reds” reaching our shores and depriving us of our freedoms were uppermost in the minds of many Americans. The novel by George Orwell, “1984,” was a stark reminder of the Red Scare’s end game: The totalitarian Big Brother of 1984 assumed total control over its citizens, even forbidding and criminalizing the protagonist Winston Smith’s sex life. It was banned for its mild sexual content. Today, “1984” still serves as a reminder of life under despotic rule and the loss of individual freedom that autocrats enforce.
Another favorite of book bans over the years was “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley, rated #3 on the American Library Association’s list of the most challenged books. It depicts an authoritarian ruling order that employs technology to reign over individual freedom, depriving citizens of their full humanity. Sound familiar? Huxley followed up with “Brave New World Revisited” in which he warns readers that his earlier novel had come to life in the ensuing years.
It doesn’t take an English major to realize that these banned books were way ahead of their time. They may have been required reading in my high school days, but they still serve today as a warning of what’s ahead for today’s democracies threatened by autocrats who lie, cheat, and steal to gain access to power and privilege.
In justifying the removal of a book from the shelves or reading lists, the book Nazis often base their concerns on the welfare of students whom they claim are too young or immature to handle certain material in the books they ban. Their strategy today seems to have shifted from books about autocracy and dictatorship to books about race and sexuality.
Banning books deprives students of the right to read and evaluate ideas, information and experiences that form the basis of our lives. If the tools of discovery and analysis we find in books are removed from them by indiscriminate bans, they will graduate sadly lacking in skills that allow citizens to distinguish between fact and fiction, a serious malady among many of today’s voters.
Most parents today still place faith in their children’s teachers and librarians to choose educational materials that provide a foundation of learning that is age-appropriate and that will serve them for the rest of their lives. But today, the self-righteous Pharisees who scour libraries for books to ban trust no one. They see a plot to corrupt their children behind every librarian and teacher. They expect the entire community to live by their values and they fit perfectly into the mold that has been carefully crafted by Donald Trump as he poisons the well from which we derive our faith and confidence in our local governments, in our schools and in authority figures in our community. Nothing is sacred and nothing is to be trusted by these moral zealots.
If there is a threat to our children’s future, it is the growing right-wing mania that sucks a community dry of the free expression of ideas and the tolerance to respect the opinions of others. Read on!
Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Readers Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.
