Has anyone else noticed the book banning?  It’s like an epidemic—not as physically harmful perhaps as the Coronavirus, but deadly serious nonetheless.
Emma Sarappo, of the Atlantic Monthly wrote “State Representative Matt Krause recently put more than 800 books on a watch list, many of them dealing with race and LGBTQ issues. Then an Oklahoma state senator filed a bill to ban books that address “sexual perversion,” among other things, from school libraries. The school board of McMinn County, Tennessee, just banned Maus, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize–winning graphic memoir about the Holocaust. Officials said that they didn’t object to teaching about genocide, but that the book’s profanity, nudity, violence, and depiction of suicide made it “too adult-oriented for use in our schools.”  (The Atlantic Feb 2 2022)   The New York Times has also reported book banning: “In Wyoming, a county prosecutor’s office considered charges against library employees for stocking books like “Sex Is a Funny Word” and “This Book Is Gay. In Oklahoma, a bill was introduced in the State Senate that would prohibit public school libraries from keeping books on hand that focus on sexual activity, sexual identity or gender identity.” (from Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S., By Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter,  Jan. 30, 2022)   Fear is a powerful emotion, leading to consequences known and mysterious. Either way, it is deeply troubling that the diversity of our society is making so many people nervous enough to resort to censorship. One cannot stop the progression of cultural changes, even if one doesn’t agree with them. I give the last words to a writer of a queer memoir that is being considered for censorship:

“The high school seniors affected by this action are on the cusp of adulthood, if not already there. Soon, they will go into the world. They will date and fall in love and begin relationships, good and bad. I understand that for a parent, it’s almost unthinkable to imagine that your child could experience such trauma. But preventing children from reading my book, or any book, won’t protect them. On the contrary, it may rob them of ways to understand the world they’ll encounter, or even the lives they’re already living. You can’t recognize what you’ve never been taught to see. You can’t put language to something for which you’ve been given no language.”
(Banning My Book Won’t Protect Your Child, By Carmen Maria Machado, NYT May 21, 21)