EDITORIAL: Too late to ban books -- the kids have cell phones

Dec. 27—Across the country, parents and activists have turned their attention to the latest boogeyman in the school culture wars. And the target of their ire looks familiar: books.

That's right. In an era when students consume all manner of media, from podcasts to video games to streaming movies, conservatives have been pushing a list of 850 books they consider objectionable.

On the list is everything from a graphic-novel reboot of the classic Shirley Jackson short story "The Lottery" to contemporary titles about LGBTQ issues, student legal rights and teen sex.

Texas state Rep. Matt Krause emailed the list to superintendents in his state, presumably so they would comb their library shelves for them. Meanwhile, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claims that school libraries are full of "pornography" and has demanded an investigation.

Parental and political hand-wringing over what students are reading is as old as public education. Censorship attempts are such an American tradition, in fact, that many libraries hold a "Banned Books Week" highlighting targeted titles.

Consider the books that have been "banned in Boston," which, thanks to its Puritan origins, was the bellwether of censorship for centuries. The list reads like the syllabus of a college literature course: Walt Whitman's "Leaves of Grass"; D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover"; Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"; and "Desire under the Elms" by New London's own Eugene O'Neill.

Politicians like Krause and Abbott seem determined to protect innocent eyes from salacious content. Some of what they object to is sexual; other titles have to do with race or politics.

Of course, the irony of this is that parents taking up the cause see books as the enemy. These same parents probably have purchased their children cell phones, which allow their teens to watch actual pornography.

The idea that children are sneaking books into the house because of forbidden language is as antiquated as the Puritan underpinnings of the censorship movement.

Maybe their parents and grandparents remember steamy passages of "Forever Amber" by Kathleen Winsor or the young adult novel "Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" by Judy Blume. Back in the 20th century, many tweens and teens did learn about sex and reproduction from novels.

But adolescents today are watching R-rated movies on their laptops — or worse. They are not naive about politics, race, or gender, either, and attempts to curate what they read only serve to give them a one-sided view of the world.

Whenever people in power try to control what the masses know, we all suffer. We need look no further than classic novels like "1984" by George Orwell and "Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury to imagine a society where knowledge is forbidden.

It is chilling, in fact, to review the list of 850, where words like "racism," "abortion," "Roe v. Wade," "gay and lesbian rights," and "birth control" come up in the titles over and over again. Read in the context of the new Texas anti-abortion law, it's as though the powers-that-be want to erase all past knowledge of Roe v. Wade, civil rights and feminism.

How much easier to control future voters when they are ignorant of their rights.

Some parents fall for these sky-is-falling pronouncements and become a tool of the powerful. But before they get whipped up into a censorship frenzy, they might want to consider what their children already have viewed on their phone screens.

Fortunately, educators are steadfast in their protection of the right to read. If police form a thin blue line between chaos and order, teachers and librarians must stand fast between ignorance and knowledge.

If we allow politicians to restrict our children's understanding of history, of their bodies and their rights, we are no better than the book burners of Bradbury's science fiction.

The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Tim Dwyer, Managing Editor Izaskun E. Larrañeta, staff writer Erica Moser and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.