Book banning: the kickoff

It often starts with book banning, which often leads to book burning. Then comes discrimination, scapegoating, people being fired, people being criminally charged, violence against perceived offenders, mob rule, and ultimately, dictatorship. That’s the pattern seen all over the world for decade upon decade.

Here in Arizona, we are on the frontlines of our nation’s culture wars. Even though we have Democrats in most positions of power in the state, and two Democratic U.S. senators, the Arizona Legislature is narrowly controlled by extremist Republicans, as Republicans have a one-seat advantage in both the state Senate and the state House of Representatives. The state superintendent of schools, Tom Horne, is also a hardcore right-winger, with vengeance in mind.

This culture war is being staged in statehouses all over the country. Books are being banned, teachers are being targeted, ethnic and gender studies programs are being eliminated, cross-dressers and people with gender-identity issues are being targeted, and hotlines are being created to report teachers who might be teaching things certain parents might find inappropriate.

Yes, all these things are happening in Arizona, but they also are happening in Florida and many other states all over the country.

Book banning, of course, is a first step in the culture wars, and that malpractice is traveling around the country like a firestorm. In Arizona, Republicans in the state Senate are trying to pass a bill that would allow one parent to have a book pulled out of a school if that lone parent considers it inappropriate, even if the parent hasn’t read the book.

That bill is sponsored by a state senator with the unfortunate name of Justine Wadsack. (I think if we’re going to ban something for being lewd, we ought to start with that last name.) In another bill introduced to the Arizona Legislature, teachers could be charged with felonies and imprisoned if they expose their students to what is deemed, by some, as an objectionable book.

One of the books Wadsack – yeesh, forgive me – has focused on is “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” which Wadsack incorrectly calls, “The Diary of an Indian.” I taught this book, written by renowned Native American author Sherman Alexie, to university students, and they almost universally loved it.

Does it touch on some uncomfortable topics for some folks such as racism, alcoholism, poverty, suicide and sex? Yes, it does. Would I teach it kids below 10th grade? Probably not. The book is funny, touching and insightful, but it is harshly real. Would I teach it to students in grades 10 through 12? Absolutely, because it provides a lot of valuable insights that will make those students better and more accepting people. And the book deals with absolutely no issues those older students haven’t already confronted at school and in their lives beyond campus.

Wadsack says it is the job of teachers in K-12 to only teach reading, writing and math, not sexuality. I believe she is right about the main job of educators being the teaching of reading, writing in math in K-8. After that, it’s the job of educators to also teach students how to think … not what to think, but how to think. In doing so, a good teacher might assign, and discuss with students, “The Catcher in the Rye,” “Animal Farm,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and maybe “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Reading such books, and reading the Bible, too, might help many young people to not get swept up in all the racism, scapegoating, vengeance and mob rule becoming increasingly prevalent in our country.

It also might keep such folks from ever becoming the people who would ban, or burn, books.