Challenge kids with books that make them uncomfortable
Kenny Wiley says the push to deny works about LGBTQ folks, racism or sex education is dangerous.
“Note to Rev. Jesse Jackson: Sorry, Jesse. You’re wrong.”
So began the first chapter of the book I had just picked up in the Sam’s Club aisle at the impressionable age of 14 while shopping with my mom one summer. It was the summer of 2002. She raised her eyebrows upon noticing the title: “The O’Reilly Factor,” by former Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly, but didn’t say anything at first.
“Racism gets all the ink,” he writes, “but the heart of America’s somewhat unfair social setup is class, not race.”
My parents were tried and true Democrats, Black children of the late ’50s and 1960s who’d met at law school and filled our middle class home full of books for my two sisters and me. We lived in white neighborhoods in Spring and The Woodlands and, except for our progressive Unitarian Universalist church, spent much of our time around white moderates and conservatives. My teenage self had become skeptical of affirmative action and other efforts to address the effects of institutional racism.
“This sounds fascinating,” I said after reading one of O’Reilly’s sentences aloud.
“Well, son, read it, and then let’s talk about it,” she replied, not for the first time, as I tossed the book in the shopping cart.
I read a lot of conservative thought when I was in high school, mostly by Black writers. And even though my parents regarded Clarence Thomas as a dismal replacement for Thurgood Marshall on the Supreme Court, I could still talk to them about Thomas’ biography and his drastic pivot on affirmative action — from beneficiary to ardent opponent — over the course of his life.
My parents insisted only that my sisters and I engage deeply with our history, that we think critically about whatever we read. And while they were there to guide us in that process, they trusted us to reach our own conclusions and amble toward our own ideological destinations, however rambling the path.
That approach seemed wise back then, and it’s even more
impressive now, as I watch Texas elected officials, activists and some parents pressure schools to pull books and ban ideas that might make kids — or themselves, more likely — feel uncomfortable.
The current push to challenge books — because they center the experiences of LGBTQ folks, or talk honestly about racism, or help young people understand their bodies — is dangerous.
Nationwide, and in the Houston area, school board candidates won races by raising the specter of “critical race theory” and arguing that classroom discussions on race should be censored and prevented from stumbling upon the apparently threatening revelation that long-term racist policies in America had long-term institutional effects.
Texas state Rep. Matt Krause, Republican candidate for attorney general and chairman of the Texas House Committee on General Investigating, sent a letter to school districts asking them to report any books in their campus libraries that could, in the words of recent legislation, make students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.”
We don’t have to wonder whose discomfort Krause is concerned with in his exploits.
Discomfort, guilt, anguish and distress were all things I felt in high school as a Black teen in mostly white schools where classroom discussions weren’t often centered around my experiences, or those of Americans who looked like me. But I suspect Krause isn’t so worried for young folks who are in the same spot today.
I’d be every bit as opposed to a liberal push to remove conservative thought from our libraries. There’s room enough on our school shelves for George W. Bush’s “Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants,” anthologies of speeches by America’s foremost conservative women, and also for Barack Obama’s “Dreams from My Father” and James Baldwin’s “Giovanni’s Room.”
We need that aspiring lawyer hunched over a copy of Clarence Thomas’ “My Grandfather’s Son” in her high school library. We need our teachers to expertly walk high school students through Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” and Laura Esquivel’s “Like
Water for Chocolate.” We need our preteens laughing and thinking while sifting through Jerry Craft’s “New Kid.” We need our school libraries to carry books that acknowledge that LGBTQ folks exist and love and struggle.
Over time, I came to sharply disagree with Bill O’Reilly’s opening statement that America’s dividing line is about only class and not race. Why not both? I’m grateful that I had parents and teachers who encouraged me to sit with texts and read things that they themselves might struggle with or even outright find abhorrent. I learned I can push back against ideas and fight for what I think is right without demonizing those who disagree.
In 2008, as a University of Missouri student, I joined student demonstrations against changing the Missouri state constitution to ban affirmative action. Holding up a sign and chanting with fellow students that day wasn’t a knee-jerk reaction.
Because I’d read Shelby Steele and Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell, I showed up to that demonstration, and to discussions with friends and classmates, equipped with a fuller understanding of the issue — from Black conservatives’ objections to proponents on the left who persuaded me that considering race in some instances was useful in a society that still used race to stymie opportunity.
After one of the protests, I called my mom to fill her in on the day’s events. “Well, son, let’s talk about it,” she said, not for the last time.