San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
List request opens door to book bans
In the classic novel, “Fahrenheit 451,” “firemen” turn books into ashes. Genius goes up in flames, the books disappearing into the ether, never to enlighten minds young and old.
The firemen incinerate the books because, benighted though they are, they know one thing: Words are more powerful than any weapon in their arsenals.
“It was a pleasure to burn,” one of the characters says.
“Fahrenheit 451” is science fiction, but sometimes literature mimics reality, and sometimes reality mimics literature.
Welcome to Texas in 2021.
State Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth, is not a fireman, just a little-known politician running in a crowded attorney general primary, but he is veering perilously close to a strategy totalitarian governments employ; he has opened an investigation into the books that school districts offer in their libraries, including novels about race and explorations of sexuality.
Krause, chairman of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, provided superintendents with a 16-page list of books deemed inappropriate, including modern classics such as “The Handmaid's Tale,” “The Confessions of Nat Turner” and “Between the World and Me.”
Several school districts, waiting for details, removed some of the books, according to reports.
“What will Rep. Krause propose next?” Ovidia Molina, president of the Texas State Teachers Association, asked rhetorically. “Burning books he and a handful of parents find objectionable?”
Molina called the tactic “political overreach,” but it is worse than that. It is a political stunt and a chilling attempt to straitjacket young minds, limiting what they digest and comprehend. Wall off a library, even a small part of it, and you wall off the world.
In his letter, Krause asked superintendents to identify content that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish or any other form of psychological distress.” Think about that. Krause may not realize it, but literature is the closest thing we have to real life.
“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced,” wrote James Baldwin, whose books have been challenged.
The investigation follows recent legislation that restricts how teachers can discuss racism and other “controversial” subjects in the classroom — House Bill 3979, the so-called “critical race theory bill.”
That bill has swung the door open to larger challenges to books from diverse writers and thinkers.
“We've been observing a growing number of challenges to books about racial injustice, Black American history, and the lived experience of Black, Indigenous and persons of color,” Deborah CaldwellStone, director of the Office for Intellectual Freedom with the American Library Association, told reporters.
From Homer to Ta-Nehisi Coates, great writers have striven to prick our conscience, upset our notions of how the world works. This is what education should be all about. We do not learn by living in a world free of strife and worries; we learn by studying the world, both good and bad — and by embracing the good and rejecting the bad. We learn by reading and digesting ideas and perspectives, not always for agreement.
Even the “Winnie the Pooh” tales can cause discomfort and distress. Guilt and anguish are not emotions we should shun, especially in the context of literature. Who could read “Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl,” a book branded since its publication in 1947, without experiencing heartache?
Krause requested a response to his letter by Nov. 12, but it remains unclear how the investigation will proceed — or what will result from its findings. This battle may be fierce and protracted.
We don't think the request merits a response other than rejection.