“We have been threatened. We have been cursed… How dare you people. You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about me. You have said I’ve sexualized your children. I’m grooming your children.”
Librarian Jean Reicher at a Western Michigan public library, during a public hearing
So many brutal autocracies began with rewarding “right thinkers” and punishing those who challenged the central party’s/religious’ vision. Forced conversion reared its ugly head in the Spanish Inquisition, the Spanish missions to indigenous peoples in the Americas, missionaries to Africa, the Salem witch trials… to more modern constructs that included “violent persuasion and/or extermination” from Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Kim il Sung, the Taliban, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Ayatollah Khamenei, etc., etc. These brutal movements all began with “culture wars.” In literate societies, they almost always embraced censoring, banning and/or burning books early in their repressive march… and never ending that process until they were removed from power. Some still have not. And some are just beginning.
Indeed, that historical record housed in books defines, changes, leads and challenges all societies. Words – expressing perspectives, hatred, philosophies, religions, science, drama, sexuality, courage, morality, humanity, who we are and were, political correctness, criticisms and enlightenment – can be terrifying. Many have died speaking and writing words. And while “the pen is mightier than the sword,” wars have been fought over philosophical writings. The bigger lesson for us all was iterated by philosopher George Santayana: “Those who do not study history are condemned to repeat its mistakes.”
It is no accident that the first ten amendments to our own Constitution – the Bill of Rights – began with the freedoms that have both confused (think: social media) and empowered the most basic tenets of our nation: free speech, a free press, free assembly and freedom of religion embodied in our First Amendment. The recent spate of “right thinking” (e.g., our way or else) political “culture wars” represent the antithesis of America’s most fundamental building blocks. The leader of this movement, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has developed a massive rightwing following, with many governor-sheep in tow. DeSantis knows exactly what he is going and exactly how culture wars have crushed freedom. He majored in history at Yale and has a Harvard law degree. It is a minority view… but it is a big minority that has captured the GOP.
As history has shown, particularly against a backdrop of our Bill of Rights, culture wars are unpatriotic, un-American, an assault against democracy and one of the most basic necessities of any autocracy. In contemporary America, the effort mirrors Hitler’s virulent antisemitism by hiding the most fundamental MAGA value – traditional White supremacy – cloaked in words like “anti-CRT,” “culture wars,” stop “woke,” parental control, so that these words might achieve a modicum of justification among those who know or should know the true meaning. White power trumps people of color and those who are “different” from evangelical norms.
I have blogged on this issue so many times, I truly do not want to repeat my list. And while my focus to date has been on the culture war leadership, rhetoric and impact at all levels of education, today my focus is on one of the most innocent and noble professions: librarians. It’s hard to picture librarians as conniving political operatives with predatory pedophiliac intentions – not the equivalent of 19th century schoolmarms saying “shhh!”
Noting that as “conservatives push to ban books, many in [the librarian] profession feel vilified and under siege,” Jeffrey Fleishman, writing for the January 31st Los Angeles Times, begins with a stinging antidote: “In her time as a Texas school librarian, Carolyn Foote watched the image of her profession veer from the stereotype of ‘shrinking violets behind spectacles’ cataloging titles to ‘pedophiles and groomers’ out to pollute the minds of the nation’s youth.
“‘Librarians came from a climate of being so appreciated to hearing this message that we’re reviled,’ said Foote, co-founder of #FReadom Fighters, an advocacy group for librarians that has nearly 15,000 Twitter followers. ‘It was an astonishing turn of events.’… A lot of librarians are asking themselves whether they want to remain in the profession, she added. ‘At least five people I know have retired early.’
“Once a comforting presence at story circle and book fairs, librarians have been condemned, bullied and drawn into battles over censorship as school and library boards face intensifying pressure from conservatives seeking to ban books exploring racial and LGBTQ themes. Those voices have grown stronger in red states since the pandemic , when parental groups opposed to mask mandates expanded their sights and became more involved in how and what their children were taught.
“Recent polls suggest most Americans are not in favor of banning books. But concentrated pressure by politically connected parental groups, said Peter Bromberg, a board member at EveryLibrary, a nonprofit library advisory group, ‘has librarians facing a great deal of stress. There are signs on people’s lawns calling librarians pedophiles.’ They face pressure from principals and administrators over book displays, and ‘neighbors talk about them being an arm of Satan.’”
We once believed that the First Amendment prevented government censorship over the expression of ideas, that there was a clear separation of church and state. But there is a clear MAGA movement, supported by recent Supreme Court rulings, that the effort to maintain this “separation” is eroding and that those conservative evangelicals who want the United States to be officially designated as a “Christian” nation (with some tolerance for other faiths) are beginning to get their way. Books may be scary, but they are democracy’s necessity. Librarians are nothing more than sacred custodians, not the devil’s disciples. Books express our commonality and help us understand our differences as well.
“Some librarians are fighting back; others have lost or left their jobs. The culture wars over books come at a time when about 27% of public libraries have reduced staff because of budget cuts and other reasons, according to a 2021 national survey. Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada, president of the American Library Assn., said librarians’ problems are compounded by attacks that are part of an effort ‘seeking to abolish diverse ideas and erode this country of freedom of expression. I see it as the dismantling of education.’” LA Times. But it is far more than that. If we cherish any notion of American democracy, this evangelical persecution must stop. Books are essential to democracy. Let freedom reign!
I’m Peter Dekom, and this is an “either/or” choice: democracy or an autocratic, White supremacy-led evangelical theocracy.
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