A few weeks ago I blogged about book banning. (See Book Banning is Democracy Banning! June 19, 2023.) I planned to blog about “How do you decide what to read next?” on July 14, but my computer had other ideas. I’m saving that post for August because I felt compelled to take a different approach today.
Book challenges and book banning
I didn’t plan to bash anyone in this post; however, I keep reading about more and more cases of book challenges and book banning across the United States and how various state legislatures (Arkansas, to name one) are passing laws that are putting our society on the slippery slope of censorship.
Fortunately, on Saturday, in response to a lawsuit filed by libraries, librarians, bookstore, and publishing companies, a federal judge temporarily blocked portions of Act 372 in Arkansas, which would criminalize librarians who knowingly let a minor see objectionable sexual content.
Senate Bill 90 in North Carolina is tame by comparison to Arkansas’s Act 372, which had been scheduled to become law tomorrow. NC Senate Bill 90 is still under review and, if signed into law, will add new constraints on public libraries and public school libraries, and will add additional hoops through which librarians, school superintendents, and local school boards must jump. As if their jobs weren’t challenging enough!
Warren County, Virginia and the Houston Independent School District in Texas have been in the news recently, too, on this topic.
This terrifies me! This is the United States of America, and a vocal narrow-minded group of people are yanking local and state governing bodies around as if they have rings in their noses.
Book by book…
Book by book, library by library, school system by school system, the whittling away of our right to read is eating away the foundations on which our country was founded. If not for public education in the United States, how many of our citizens would know how to read?
Public education is under attack by many state legislatures, including the one here in North Carolina. Vouchers to give parents money to send their children to private school? Give me a break! Why would a state legislature give money for private education when one of its responsibilities is to fund and support public education?
The ignorant few will soon decide what we can read and cannot read. Politicians are usurping the roll of professional librarians in deciding which books can go on library shelves.
Pay attention! What’s happening in your state and in your county? The state legislature in North Carolina has a history of voting in the dead of the night. You just never know what you’re going to wake up to in the morning.
This leads me to the question I ask in the blog post title today: Who decides what you can and cannot read?
There’s a connection between today’s question and the current trend toward banning books in the United States.
Do you want politicians deciding what you can and cannot read? Do you want local politicians deciding what your child can or cannot read?
Since my last blog post
I didn’t intend to take a three-week break from blogging this month, but my computer had other ideas. I won’t bore you with the details. I’ll just say, it was unsettling and frustrating being unable to log into my WordPress account for 18 days.
I hope you missed me. I missed y’all!
Until my next blog post
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I hope you have a good book to read and time to read it. Read! Read! Read! And please support your local public library!
Make time for friends and relatives, even if you don’t agree with them about politics.
Remember the brave people of Ukraine.
Janet
Janet's Writing Blog 