PBSHere’s the thing: there are very few issues I will argue openly for. I try to stay very neutral and don’t do too much to fight the state of the world. Why spend energy on things unlikely to change, you know? I am not (by nature) an argumentative person. But one of the only exceptions to this rule is the topic of book banning. I will argue for my point of view on this topic, because while I said I’m not argumentative, I never said that I wasn’t stubborn. What is my point of view, you might ask? Well, if you missed the title of the article, I do not (in any way) support book banning. Simply put, it’s censorship and should be kept AWAY from education. And, perhaps more importantly, the power to ban books should not be placed into one person’s hands.
This is, of course, my opinion. I support the fact that everyone has different opinions–I just don’t agree with all of them. This is actually at the core of this argument–I support people having access to all books, but that doesn’t mean that I will read or agree with all of them in any way. It’s really not that hard to not read something you don’t want to read. In fact, it only takes one step: don’t read the book. And yes, some topics are hard to read or talk about, but that only makes them more important to learn about.
I’m watching what’s happening to the world as I write this article and I am horrified. I grew up in a house filled with books (literally filled–my basement has walls of bookshelves). I taught myself to read before I stepped foot into any school building. For a long time, one of the most well-known things about me was that I liked to read. I was a library aide all through middle school, and all of my elementary and middle school librarians knew me by name. If I was seen at any sort of function, I likely had a book with me (and I was probably reading it).
The point is: I love books. I value knowledge, and I believe all ideas should be accessible. From my point of view, these are not difficult opinions to get behind. People deserve to be heard–you don’t have to be the one who listens. Someone else might want to hear what they have to say. Someone else might need to hear what they have to say.
And how could a world of accessible information be bad? Even the ideas I personally don’t agree with should at least be able to see the light of day. It’s that whole “those that don’t learn history are doomed to repeat it” type of thought. And right now, it seems as though we’re reverting back to the dark ages. Day after day passes and resource after resource seems to disappear. It’s like one, big, horrible magic trick, except instead of a rabbit being pulled out of a hat, we’re erasing stories and history with the click of a few buttons and a couple signatures here and there. And the scariest thing is that all of these decisions have support. To those that don’t want to watch books vanish from shelves, this has gone from “snowball level threat” to “an avalanche is coming–good luck”.
Sometimes I feel like I no longer need the dystopian books I used to love so much. Why read something that feels more like a self-fulfilling prophecy than an escape? When I open up an old dystopian favorite, I almost start hyperventilating because it feels so inevitable. It reads like a window into the future instead of a work of fiction. And I wouldn’t be surprised if (in several decades) dystopian fiction will read like news stories. Is this extreme? Yes. Does a part of me believe it anyway? Also yes.
Every step taken to restrict access to books feels a step further into that dystopian future we seem to be hurtling towards. Maya Angelou has been taken off the shelf at the Military Academy (along with nearly 400 other books). Pine Richland just voted to remove a book from their curriculum because it dealt with the Tulsa Race Massacre. Historical and government resources are being erased as I write this (literally deleted from the face of the internet–do you know how hard it is to do that?). Our world of information is crumbling. It’s happening slowly, but it’s happening regardless. We are the witnesses, the perpetrators, and the only hope for preserving all of our history and stories–the good, the bad, and the ugly.
I wish I knew how to stop it. I wish I could write hope into the hearts of people who care about this as much as I do. But I can’t. We are watching those in power manipulate the narrative of history more than ever before. And I do not plan to wait until my kids have grown up without all the information that used to be available. I do not want to live in ignorance. I want to be aware. I want to know about what’s happening. I hope you want to know, too.
