San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Ignorance the fuel setting the First Amendment aflame
What do “Mein Kampf,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” “Between the World and Me,” “Call Me by Your Name” and “50 Shades of Grey” have in common?
They represent controversial historical and literary works from both sides of the socialpolitical spectrum that fanatics wish to ban.
A recent surge of faux outrage over public school libraries has risen across the country. The First Amendment is the latest casualty in Texas.
Since the 2020 election, conservative media have operated at full throttle calculated by their newest trigger words — critical race theory. Although they can’t explain it, they know it’s bad. Parents — pulled into this rightwing maelstrom across the state — are demanding school boards limit critical race theory because they deem it “unpatriotic” or “targeting white America.”
This censorship mentality has seeped into the corridors of power, most recently with state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth. In shameless, McCarthy-esque fashion, Krause has initiated a hit list of 850 books in public school libraries — books I doubt Krause has read. The list includes but is not limited to books about race, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation and anything ambiguously related to critical race theory.
To be fair, liberals have practiced their own version of cancel culture with things they find racist or outdated.
As a former library assistant at William Taft High School, I have witnessed this threat to literature firsthand. Just last year, we received word from Northside ISD that English teachers were advised not to make it mandatory for high schoolers to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” because of its racist vocabulary, even though the point of Harper Lee’s book was to confront the racial bigotry in America at the time. The same with “Of Mice and Men” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Conservative administrators also didn’t want to see rainbows on library display cases.
I am reminded of my all-time favorite book, Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” The book centers around Guy Montag, a fireman living in a dystopian world. In his world, reading is illegal, and Montag is assigned to set fires, instead of extinguishing them, burning any book found on sight. His fictional world is dominated by feelings (happiness) instead of logic and reason, anesthetized through commercialism, advertisements and television.
After conversing with a curious young girl, Montag is intrigued and seeks to find answers in the books he has made a living out of reducing to ashes. His antagonist, fire chief Beatty, rationalizes their duty to set all books aflame because it gives people happiness and ease of mind. “Colored people don’t like ‘Little Black Sambo,’ ” Beatty quips. “Burn it. White people don’t feel good about ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Burn it. Someone’s written a book on tobacco and cancer of the lungs? The cigarette people are weeping? Burn the book. Serenity, Montag.
Peace, Montag. Take your fight … to the incinerator.”
Nearly 70 years later, Bradbury’s message still rings true. We are living in Guy Montag’s bizarro world, and the underlying message must never be forgotten, by conservatives or liberals — our First Amendment gives us the freedom to choose what we want to inform us; we should make the decisions on what we want to drive us, whether it is
the Bible, an LGBTQ+ book or any controversial literature.
Only then will we counter the true evil in the world — ignorance.