The Truth About Banned Books (And Why It Matters)

Book banning isn't a thing of the past. The impulse to restrict what people can read, think, and question is as old as history itself. And just because you disagree with a book doesn't mean someone else shouldn't be allowed to read it. Got a banned book at home? Send it our way 👉 Address: 912 Main St. Bastrop, TX 78602 Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ4ljMIRh6k Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 1:19Speaker 01

  Book banning. Book bans. Book banning. Book bans.

• 1:22Speaker 02

  Banning books.

• 1:23Speaker 01

  Hundreds of books banned from schools.

• 1:25Speaker 03

  And we're actually learning that it's happening more often here in Texas than any other state in the nation.

• 1:29Speaker 00

  I don't just mean the people who are in fact banning books. But if you've ever seen a post or an article about the topic, or you've seen it come up on social media, you'll notice that the comment section are swarmed with people just straight up lying about what's happening. I've seen this since we opened our banned book library here on Main Street in historic Bastrop, Texas. It's a lending library. People can take a book, leave a book. The whole point is in response to the book bans that have happened all over Texas, including in this very county, all over the United States and all over the world. We wanted to strike back by making those books free and accessible and by presenting people a chance to highlight their favorite book that's been banned or challenged or questioned.

• 2:12Speaker 00

  But I've noticed in the comments, a lot of people speaking a lot of nonsense about the stuff. So I wanted to take a second to address some of those things.

• 2:23Speaker 00

  My favorite comment is the people who say something like, look, there's a difference between banning books and taking books out of libraries. Or people go, you're oversimplifying. These books haven't been banned in the sense that people can't read or own them. They've just been removed from school libraries and classrooms. They've been taken out of curriculum. You know, we refuse to use taxpayer money to buy them. It's like, sir, you're describing book banning. I don't know how to say this to you any other way. You're like, oh, I don't believe in censorship. I just think people shouldn't be allowed to say or hear certain things. That's what censorship is. Book banning is not just throwing them in the street and lighting them on fire.

• 3:05Speaker 00

  It's not just, oh, you'll go to jail if you'll read this. When we talk about book banning, we're talking about anyone trying to restrict the public's access from books, trying to make it impossible for taxpayer money to support certain titles, trying to put pressure on authors or teachers or librarians or retailers from carrying or supporting certain titles because you disagree with it for religious reasons, because you disagree with it for political correctness reasons, because you disagree with it ideologically, because you disagree with its content, whatever the reason is, right? Book banning is when we're trying to prevent people's access to books.

• 3:48Speaker 00

  Now this leads to the next and probably the most common pushback you see when people try to raise this issue of book banning. They go, oh yeah, it's banned, even though you can still buy it on Amazon. Apparently the argument here is if the book is commercially available or literally available anywhere else, it's not banned. Okay. If a specific school district bans a book, it is banned there for those people. And it's reasonable that people in that school district, but all over the country and all over the world would have a problem with this. Right? I think it's stupid that the USSR banned and suppressed Tolstoy's A Calendar of Wisdom for its religious content.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Right? Because it had Christian themes in it just as much as I would have a problem with Christians banning a book in the United States. Both those books we could speak of as being banned. But here's my real problem with this argument, and I've used this analogy before. In the South, leading up into the Civil War, there were certain books that were banned. Uncle Tom's Cabin, for instance. It was a criminal offense in some cases to read that book or to even talk about that book. Now, was it still widely available in Boston or California? Yeah, but it's still a big problem that it's banned there. So this excuse that because the book is available somewhere, it's not a problem that it's banned elsewhere. This is a ridiculous argument that I cannot imagine anyone advancing in good faith.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  Which leads me to another common criticism. They go, look, book banings were a thing of the past. Right? When the church would ban books or governments would ban books. But what's happening today is a minor issue and not a big deal. I think it is a big deal, but that's also what we're talking about. When we're talking about banned books, we're talking about how historically for hundreds, thousands of years, governments, churches, institutions have banned books and tried to prevent people's access to them. And those are the books that we're talking about, that we're celebrating, that we're trying to put in people's hands. Right? Catholic Church has banned books, but also historically, one of the most banned books is the Bible.

• 5:54Speaker 00

  It's important when we're talking about banned books that we're specifically not just talking about books that are banned right now, that maybe you actually do think are inappropriate or dangerous in some way. But it's important, this is an inclusive issue. We're talking about Galileo's books being banned. We're talking about Marcus Aurelius appearing on a church list. We're talking about all sorts of scientific texts and religious texts and philosophical texts. We're talking about books being considered obscene in the 1950s that no one would consider obscene today. We're talking about how some books were considered dangerous in, when they came out and now are considered dangerous because they're anachronistic, right? Huckleberry Finn being a great example of this. It challenged racial ideas when it came out.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  And then today, some people think it's inappropriate because it uses the N word and that could offend people. Right? When we're talking about banned books, when we have a banned book library, or when we celebrate banned book month, we're talking about all books that have ever been banned, right? And by talking about them, we're trying to bring awareness to what a problematic and timeless impulse this is. Look, just because you can't go to jail for reading a book, it's not made illegal by federal law, doesn't mean there aren't book bans. There are thousands of books that have been banned. Look, this book right here, right? This is a children's book, a hilarious children's book called I Need A New Butt,

• 7:22Speaker 00

  which my kids love. Spoiler alert, the guy needs a new butt because his has a crack in it. It's a hilarious addition here. It farts. A school principal read this to his students here in Texas. And you know what happened? It's a hilarious book. It says butt a lot. So the kid started saying butt. And some parents complained and then the superintendent fired that principal. Okay. Did Congress pass a law that said no one can read this book? Did the Texas state legislature pass a law that said no one could read this book? No, that didn't happen. But any reasonable person would say if you are firing teachers or principals or harassing librarians until they quit, simply for talking about or making certain books available,

• 8:04Speaker 00

  that is a form of book banning and censorship that has no place in a free country. Okay. So it's just dishonest to say that there is no book banning happening in the U.S., that this isn't serious, that the stakes aren't high. And it's definitely dishonest to say, oh, this is only happening for sexually explicit books. This is only happening for an incredibly small number of controversial books. Actually, no, it's happening for completely innocent, completely appropriate books. Also, this impulse that to protect kids from sexually explicit books, it might be well intentioned, but it causes all sorts of problems. But people that are banning books are really just trying to protect children from these books that are pornographic.

• 8:46Speaker 00

  What about these totally insane gay sex books? That those should have been banned. Look, do I think it's revealing that your problem is with books that have gay sex in it, not books that have sex in it? Yeah, you're probably tipping your hand a little bit. Look, would I hand each one of these books to my kids? Probably not. If they came home and they're reading it, would I smack it out of their hands and tell them never to look at or speak of something like again? No, I would have a conversation with my children about what's in this book, which by the way, is what books are about. The real problem with these bans, however well intentioned they start, is they tend to make a lot of mistakes. Right? They paint with a broad brush. I'll give you an example.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  Here in Texas, there was some controversy about this book called Long Boy, which I actually haven't read. I have no interest in reading. I probably wouldn't read it to my kids. But apparently it's like a gay coming of age book. There's some sexually explicit things in it, or so I have heard. Okay. But this woman gets up and she demands that her school get rid of this book, Long Boy. It's totally inappropriate, right? She's ranting and raving about it. Well, it turns out the librarian gets up and explains, they don't carry that book. They carry a different book that's about mom. Bowing laws, okay? So again, the impulse, however well intentioned, is inherently problematic and it tends to lead to dangerous places. Look, when I was a kid, I went to the library. I remember getting what I thought was a Western.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  I loved Louis Lamour books, which by the way, have some adult themes in them. And suddenly, you know, I'm reading some frickin' bodice ripper lady Western and I was like, what is this? And you know what I did? I talked to my parents about it and they said, hey, probably don't check any more of those out. And that was the end of that, right? I thought the problem was that kids these days were sensitive little snowflakes and we didn't like that. Now, these same people are saying this future fighter pilot or admiral or Navy SEAL can't handle Maya Angelou's memoir. We don't trust them with these adult themes in these books. It's ridiculous. You know, they banned Rupee Core's Milk and Honey, one of the bestselling poetry books of all time. So millions of copies, number one on the New York Times list,

• 10:57Speaker 00

  popular with people who, for being honest, weren't reading a lot of poetry before. Instead of celebrating that, instead of saying that's a good thing, people were mad that there are some sexual themes in these poems. But the sexual themes are there because she's writing about her Me Too experiences. Like, there's a difference between pornography and sex ed, just like there's a difference between graphic sexual themes and having to talk about graphic sexual things that have happened historically or to an individual. And in fact, like sexual assault activists and people in women's shelters and all sorts of groups said, hey, this book helps with the healing. It helps with understanding. It helps with de-stigmatizing, something that otherwise people

• 11:42Speaker 00

  are dealing with in private or with shame. I actually had no idea that this was one of the banned books. And I reached out to Rupee. Her publisher was nice enough to send dozens of copies of the book to the banned book library. Because something like 15 different school districts have banned this book and then another half dozen or so banned one for other books. Like, this is real and it is hap- We were looking to spruce up our, our front porch. The weather's finally getting better. We wanted to spend some time hanging out outside with the kids. So we got these awesome hammocks and we actually got them from today's sponsor, Wayfair. If you drove by our, our house, you'd see us out there with our kids reading. We've got this new kitten all hanging out in the hammocks. It's been awesome. And that's because on Wayfair, you'll find quality materials that stand up to real life.

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• 13:45Speaker 00

  Another great example, there's a wonderful book called Forget the Alamo, which is a look at the history of Texas and the myths of the Alamo from a different perspective, which is written by three friends of mine here in Austin. And they were going to do a session about that book at a history museum here in the Capitol. And the Lieutenant Governor of Texas, a guy who has railed about cancel culture, steps in and gets it canceled because he doesn't like the ideas in the book. Now, again, did the authors go to jail for writing this book? No. Is it illegal in the state of Texas for it to be taught in schools? No. But when an elected politician is stepping in to prevent access

• 14:26Speaker 00

  to a book or ideas in a book, when they are punitively going after authors and writers that they disagree with and don't like, that's a problem. And I don't think it's a stretch to call that book banning. And if you want to call it something else, what you're really doing is splitting hairs. So you don't have to face the reality of this problem. Okay, the other one we get with the banned library all the time. They go, what about Camp of the Saints? I'm sure you have Donald Trump's Art of the Deal there. They'll name some conservative book that may actually have been banned at various points, which I don't think is a good thing. And they'll somehow try to undermine the existence of our banned book library because we may or may not have it. It's not a good faith argument because they haven't actually been here to see if we have it.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  But fundamentally, what they're saying when they say this is, I don't understand how a lending library works. I have personally, out of my pocket, paid for hundreds of books to go in this library. I spent thousands of dollars. I feel strongly about like this one, or this one, or this one. But the idea is it's donation based. If you think that's a book we should have in this banned book library, put it here. I'm not censoring these titles. That would be kind of ridiculous, no? But what you are also saying when you're saying this is, book banning does exist and you don't like it when it happens to books that you think people should read. So in a way, we agree, right? I don't think we should be banning books, okay?

• 15:55Speaker 00

  If there is a book that you have read that you think is important, that is banned, send it to the library. That's what it's for. Just send it to Attention Banned Books, 912 Main Street. We'll put it there. Okay, one of the other arguments you'll see a lot is, look at this dumb passage in this book, or look at this extreme passage in this book, or this book is advancing some woke ideology or whatever. This is what we saw when the US Naval Academy removed at the direct order of the Department of Defense and the President of the United States, over 400 books from its library. Now, some of those books were really good and really important. Maya Angelou was on that list. There were books about the Holocaust. There were books about black service members in the Navy over the years. Those were there and that was an abomination that they were being removed.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  Now, there were other ones that just looking at the title, my impulse was similar to other people's. That doesn't sound like a very good book. It sounds like social science gobbledygook, quite frankly. But libraries carry hundreds of thousands of books, especially academic ones, right? So scholars can have access to them. Students can have access to them. So taxpayers can have access to them. They are not in the business of picking winners and losers. They are in the knowledge business. I will fully concede lots of books that have appeared on banned book lists over the years are incorrect, are stupid,

• 17:19Speaker 00

  in some cases incredibly offensive and toxic and even dangerous. I mean, look, Mein Kampf is one of the worst books ever written. Now, book banning is itself an evil. It is also, I would say in many cases, a direct violation of everything that a free society holds dear. So just because a book is bad, doesn't mean it should be banned. And it certainly shouldn't be banned by an angry mob or at a city council meeting, or a school board meeting, or because a lot of people tweeted about it on the internet. That is a bad process, which leads to bad policy and leads to bad outcomes. I can fully say as an author, most books are shitty.

• 18:04Speaker 00

  Most books are bad. Most books are not worth reading. But that is very different than saying that should be suppressed by government fiat or by a mob. One of the things you'll hear people say is they'll go, oh, these aren't banned books. These are some of the most famous, well-written books in history, right? Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, Fahrenheit 431, 1984. Yes, it is laughable how many classic books have been on banned book lists over the years. And I don't just mean when they came out and then when they were controversial. I mean, like, right now. By the way, some of the efforts, mostly by Republicans, to restrict and change academic standards, if applied equally, would also make the Bible inappropriate

• 18:49Speaker 00

  and inaccessible to kids. So people just fundamentally don't understand how extreme this has gotten and what the implications of it would be and are when we allow it to take effect. Another version of this is they'll go, people should be able to read whatever they want in their private life. My problem is when we're using government money to support books or ideas that I don't agree with. Okay, but you understand that you personally, just you, or you, a minority of people, don't have veto power over what the rest of us do with taxpayer money. You understand that the purpose of a library is to spend the people's money on books that people are going to like.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Not all people, but everyone should be able to find something that they like. Like, libraries are socialism. I don't know how to tell you this. Like, the point of a library is to spend the people's money on art and ideas and information. And then it's there to be accessible because it is a public good. We didn't say, hey, what do you think people should be allowed to have and not have? In fact, we have laws, we have this thing called the First Amendment that says the government doesn't get to prevent people from accessing those things, doesn't get to apply it inequally or selectively. The last one I want to address is this idea that all this talk about book banning is much ado about nothing.

• 20:14Speaker 00

  It's hysteria, it's a moral panic. Only a very, very small percentage of schools or people or places are engaged in this. Don't worry about it, it's not a big deal. First off, it actually is much bigger than people think. As we were talking about, thousands of titles across thousands of schools, thousands of instances, again, not just now, but over the centuries, this has been a problem. When we talk about book banning, we're not just talking about this moment. We're talking about a historical trend that has historically always led to a bad place. There's a famous quote that says, wherever they burn books, you can be sure eventually they will burn people. When we're talking about book banning, if you need people to concede

• 20:59Speaker 00

  that it's not widespread, it's only happening in a handful of instances, great, then we're early to it. Let's nip it in the bud before it becomes more pernicious, before this becomes common practice, right? Before it ends where historically it always ends. Look, there's lots to say about banned books. It's good that the topic is controversial. It's good that it is creating debate. That's what books are about. People should be talking about them. They should elicit strong opinions. This is all wonderful. What I would do is challenge you not to find ways to rationalize this or dismiss it, or pretend that it doesn't exist. I would challenge you to face what's actually happening here,

• 21:44Speaker 00

  to not deny it, and to go read some of these books. Look at some of the titles that are on these lists and read and engage with them and encourage your children and the people in your community to do the same thing.

• 22:06Speaker 02

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