Authors, answer this call to arms

The attack on books from the Republican right wing intensified in public schools in Texas and other states in the latter half of 2021, but the new year brings an opportunity for an especially affected group — writers — to push back hard. Writers can lead the way to preserving fundamental rights of free speech, literary value and simple sanity.

How? By putting our own books on the front lines to show solidarity with the 850 or so writers who have been targeted in Texas for “review” over content involving race, sex, gender, white supremacy and other topics that could cause “distress” to students. If found sufficiently offensive, the books can be subject to removal.

In November, following calls by Gov. Greg Abbott and Rep. Matt Krause for school districts to have a look at their library shelves, the Texas Institute of Letters sent a letter, signed by at least 176 members, including me, protesting the review plan. Reaction was less than overwhelming. Some districts have resisted the politically inspired culling, while others, such as Keller ISD and North East ISD in San Antonio have invaded their own libraries with various states of enthusiasm.

My response was to send an email to the website of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, chaired by Krause.

I offered one of my own books, “American Voudou,” that delves into race, religion, sexuality, and a massive history of suppression of Black spirituality and existence, which would never survive a review.

But it’s lonely on the barricades. Texas authors, and those from any other states, could join as easily as filling out a form or advocating for intellectual freedom wherever they live. Writers generally love the good fight, and this is a doozy. It could start with one or two ready to walk the walk, but end up with many. In no time we’d have what the folk singer Arlo Guthrie said in “Alice’s Restaurant” could end up as a “movement.” Of course, Guthrie would never be allowed in an Abbottoirized school library catalog.

And this isn’t just about school districts’ learning environments. In harm’s way are students, parents and communities. Overview and banning already has crept into colleges, universities and businesses, and it certainly is capable of spreading to many other parts of our culture. Nor is it about revisiting the slavery-encrusted history of the Texas Revolution and the Alamo myth. It’s about anything that might offer a bit of enlightenment on the existence of racism, the cruelty against people’s sexual and gender identities, brutal attacks on women’s rights and vigorous anti-democratic assaults that often rely on ignorance to win over otherwise decent people.

Texas writers have been quite persistent in documenting and writing about all these failings, outrages, missteps and more. The trail runs from storytelling icons like Larry Mcmurtry, Sandra Cisneros and Rolando Hinojosa to newer voices such as award-winning Attica Locke. Hard-hitting nonfiction also carries its load, probing beneath the suffocating myths of Texan identity. In those depths lie the realities of broken lives, massive corruption, violent legal injustices and the slow, general collapse of what once made this state an imperfect gem but one with promise. Ignoring truths accomplishes nothing. Addressing them means everything.

Without books to read, share and discuss, especially among the young generations in our schools, we are on a downward spiral, manipulated into a dark and precarious future. If “future” will even be a word we are allowed to use.