Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central. What Happens Roy Wood Jr. Next,
Speaker 1: you're about to hear a special presentation of the Daily
Speaker 1: Show podcast that I host called Beyond the Scenes. Now,
Speaker 1: all it is, it's very simple. If it's a topic
Speaker 1: that's already been on the Daily Show, we talk about
Speaker 1: it again and we go even deeper on the topic,
Speaker 1: and you know, see where we are now on the issue,
Speaker 1: get deeper into the origins of the problem. When we
Speaker 1: do that with Daily Show producers, writers, correspondents and expert
Speaker 1: guests who know a hell of a lot more about
Speaker 1: it than us to help us break it down. Heaven listen, Hey,
Speaker 1: welcome to Beyond the Scenes, the Daily Show podcast that
Speaker 1: goes a little deeper into topics and segments that originally
Speaker 1: aired on this show. That this is what this podcast is,
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Speaker 1: what this podcast is, the extra thing you didn't know
Speaker 1: you need, but it made your day that much more enjoyable.
Speaker 1: Today we're talking about book bands, especially bands and challenges
Speaker 1: on books for children and young adults and schools and
Speaker 1: local libraries. Here with me to discuss this today and
Speaker 1: to discuss Band Books Week, we have Debra Caldwell Stone,
Speaker 1: director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom. Debra,
Speaker 1: Hello to you, Glad to be here, Roy, thanks for
Speaker 1: inviting me. And we also have George M. Johnson, author
Speaker 1: of All Boys Aren't Blue, a memoir manifesto that has
Speaker 1: appeared on too many band and challenge book lists, and
Speaker 1: the honorary chair for Band Books Week. George, how you
Speaker 1: doing with your band asks? I'm good today, Thanks for asking.
Speaker 1: All right, So Debra want to start with you. I
Speaker 1: have a lot to ask you, George about your book,
Speaker 1: But first ever, let's just set up the whole issue
Speaker 1: in a totality. Now, it seems like every other day
Speaker 1: is something else social media or a news story or
Speaker 1: about a school district trying to ban a book. Let's
Speaker 1: just talk about what the actual baseline problem is and
Speaker 1: what we're seeing. Well, what we're seeing our public school
Speaker 1: boards and public libraries removing books because someone in the
Speaker 1: community doesn't like the ideas or the topics of the books,
Speaker 1: which is absolutely contrary to the First Amendment UM and
Speaker 1: Everyone's right to choose what they want to read in libraries.
Speaker 1: What's worse, it seems to be an organized campaign by
Speaker 1: conservative advocacy groups that want to limit our ability to
Speaker 1: think about particular issues um And and George is what
Speaker 1: is kind of a double whammy because what's being targeted
Speaker 1: our books dealing with the lives and experiences of lgbt
Speaker 1: q i A persons and the lives and experiences of
Speaker 1: black persons and persons of color. UM. There seems to
Speaker 1: be a particular animus for this. We're seeing legislation, We're
Speaker 1: seeing assaults on school board meetings, UH, threats being directed
Speaker 1: at librarians and educators. People afraid to go to their
Speaker 1: cars after board meetings because of what's going on. We
Speaker 1: actually just had a drag Queen Bingo teen event canceled
Speaker 1: here in the Chicago suburbs this week because of the
Speaker 1: rising threats against it. So we're seeing a real wave
Speaker 1: of censorship that's targeting really the lives and experiences of
Speaker 1: marginalized persons and opportunities for them to stand on the
Speaker 1: public stage. From who, Deborah, Is this from the school boards?
Speaker 1: Is this from their parents? Is it's just some mid
Speaker 1: term issue that's coming from a bunch of Republican zeal
Speaker 1: It's like, who are making these calls to have the
Speaker 1: books banned? Well, we're seeing groups like Moms for Liberty,
Speaker 1: Parents Defending Education and No Left Turn and Education uh.
Speaker 1: And there's other so called parents rights groups that are
Speaker 1: more local, like Purple for Parents in Indiana that uh
Speaker 1: make up lists of bad books. They want to narrow
Speaker 1: the opportunities for reading and education for young people in particular,
Speaker 1: um and they go to school board meetings, they go
Speaker 1: to library board meetings, use public comment to focus on
Speaker 1: one paragraph or one image in a graphic novel and
Speaker 1: try to claim that this is pornography or this is
Speaker 1: bad for young people, harmful to students or minors, um
Speaker 1: and they demand the immediate removal of the book. They
Speaker 1: even use false framing around the idea that this is pornography.
Speaker 1: UM and school boards elected officials are responding to it
Speaker 1: in part because I think it is a political wedge issue.
Speaker 1: During the mid terms, we saw that Glenn Young Cain
Speaker 1: was successful and part in Virginia and winning that gubernatorial
Speaker 1: seat because uh, he focused on a parent who was
Speaker 1: unhappy that her seventeen year old Honors English student had
Speaker 1: to read Tony Morrison's Beloved. She thought it wasn't fit
Speaker 1: reading for a seventheen year old going to college, and
Speaker 1: so she made a commercial for Governor Duncan and they
Speaker 1: noticed that. So we're seeing it used across the country.
Speaker 1: As a parent, it's tough to catch everything. So when
Speaker 1: my son showed me his reading assignment, my heart sunk.
Speaker 1: It was some of the most explicit material you can imagine.
Speaker 1: Glenn Young can he listens, He understands parents matter. Join
Speaker 1: me in voting for Glenn. How do you all fight
Speaker 1: back with this? How does the a l A fight
Speaker 1: back against this? Because if this is a political issue
Speaker 1: and it's starting to come up, you know in terms
Speaker 1: of legislation right now, how are you all able to
Speaker 1: support the local libraries and schools to push back on this,
Speaker 1: you know, for now at least, what's the most you
Speaker 1: can do for now to push back on this issue.
Speaker 1: From our end for the association, we do our best
Speaker 1: to provide one on one assistance to librarians and educators
Speaker 1: who are dealing with these book bands UM assisting them
Speaker 1: with the process of addressing the complaints from these groups
Speaker 1: and individuals who are being who are activated by social
Speaker 1: media usually UM and. Then we have resources about best
Speaker 1: practices and things like that. We have state chapters on
Speaker 1: the ground two that are able to provide resources and
Speaker 1: support to individual libraries UH and we also do things
Speaker 1: like we have a merit We have something called the
Speaker 1: Leroy c Merit Humanitarian Fund, So if a librarian finds
Speaker 1: that their employment is being harmed or affected, or they're
Speaker 1: experiencing discrimination because of their defense of their students right
Speaker 1: to read, we can provide them with financial assistance that
Speaker 1: UM helps pay for an attorney to advise them and
Speaker 1: things like that. But as a community, of course, there's
Speaker 1: the ability for individuals to take note of what's happening locally,
Speaker 1: to go to school board meetings, to participate in their
Speaker 1: local elections. UM AND and to raise their own voices
Speaker 1: against censorship, and that's incumbent on all of us so
Speaker 1: much as this happens, because these groups show up at
Speaker 1: these board meetings and they're the only voices in the room.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have a lot of knowledge, if
Speaker 1: you don't have a lot of experience with this, it's
Speaker 1: very easy to think that you're dealing with the the majority.
Speaker 1: But we're not. We know that there are vocal minority
Speaker 1: and everyone needs to be aware of this and participate
Speaker 1: in local community activity with local elections, local board meetings,
Speaker 1: both school board and library board meetings. UM. We can
Speaker 1: even talk a little bit about grassroots advocacy platform that
Speaker 1: we've created for individuals and communities to use to fight
Speaker 1: book censorship in their communities. UM. It's called Unite against
Speaker 1: book Bands and it's at Unite against book Bands dot
Speaker 1: org um and there you'll find a toolkit that can
Speaker 1: help you organize yourself and your neighbors to be president
Speaker 1: at board meetings and raise your voice. How to where
Speaker 1: you can find information, talking points, letters to the editors,
Speaker 1: how to be aware of what's going on in local elections,
Speaker 1: questions to ask candidates, to find out where they stand
Speaker 1: on this issue. And it's not just elections for boards,
Speaker 1: it's also elections for mayors, county commissioners, because many boards
Speaker 1: are appointed and you have to know where you're elected
Speaker 1: officials stand on this issue, and you want them to
Speaker 1: commit to preserving your right to choose what you want
Speaker 1: to read for yourself and your family. I will I
Speaker 1: will say this about this issue. I ain't never seen
Speaker 1: more people who ain never read ship more concerned about books.
Speaker 1: And I'm sorry for cousin. No, You're absolutely right. Often
Speaker 1: we find that individuals haven't never read the book that
Speaker 1: they're challenging. We actually have instances where individuals have kind
Speaker 1: of ripped a list of bad books off of social media. UM.
Speaker 1: And social media is a great amplifier for these groups
Speaker 1: and their claims about books. But they'll take that list
Speaker 1: to the local library and demand that these books be censored.
Speaker 1: And then it turns out the book wasn't on the
Speaker 1: shelf of the library. UM. And Uh, they didn't even
Speaker 1: know detect the library's catalog to see if it's there. UM.
Speaker 1: And it's very clear that when people talk about books
Speaker 1: like all Boys Aren't Blue, they have no idea what's
Speaker 1: in it. They only know the one paragraph they read
Speaker 1: on social media. They don't have any acquaintance with the
Speaker 1: book at all, but yet they demanding that it be
Speaker 1: censored for the entire community, whether it's the community of
Speaker 1: students in a school district or the community as a whole. Okay,
Speaker 1: so then to that point. So then, George, So these
Speaker 1: book bands there, most of it all falls under books
Speaker 1: that are affecting or written for or speak to the
Speaker 1: audience of BIPAC or l G B t q I
Speaker 1: A plus authors and consumers, and so a book All
Speaker 1: Boys Aren't Blue. Specifically, this this book is your approach
Speaker 1: to how your intersectionality at some of these identities affected
Speaker 1: you and your upbringing and made you who you are today.
Speaker 1: And so in the final chapter you said, I want
Speaker 1: to get this right and correct me if from wrong.
Speaker 1: You said, quote there were no books for me to
Speaker 1: read in order to understand what I was going through
Speaker 1: as a kid. There were no heroes or icons to
Speaker 1: look up to an emulation. There were no road maps
Speaker 1: or guidelines for journey. And again, because I know there
Speaker 1: wasn't and still isn't much out there, I made it
Speaker 1: my original goal to get this right. End quote. So
Speaker 1: let's just start there talk talk a little bit more
Speaker 1: about that, and what do you feel like was missing
Speaker 1: from your reading as a kid, and why titles like
Speaker 1: yours should be essential reading for young adults. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: only have one quote that stattooed on me, and it's
Speaker 1: a Tony Morrison quote. If there's a book that you
Speaker 1: want to read and hasn't been written yet, then you
Speaker 1: must write it. And so I was writing the book
Speaker 1: that I always um wish that I had when I
Speaker 1: was a team who was struggling with my identity and
Speaker 1: trying to um just figure out what it was I
Speaker 1: was going through and if anybody else in the world
Speaker 1: was also having those certain type of issues. UM. Realistically,
Speaker 1: growing up, there just weren't images on television and film,
Speaker 1: and especially no images and books of us And if
Speaker 1: there were any images of us, UM, there were probably
Speaker 1: slurs being used or hurled towards us UM. And it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of interesting, right, Like I don't remember a
Speaker 1: whole lot of the readings that I had in high school,
Speaker 1: but you know, everybody remembers catching the rye Um and
Speaker 1: holding Caufield and how that story didn't resonate with any
Speaker 1: of us as black stud right, And if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 1: it was the term savages being used an invisible man,
Speaker 1: I'm almost certain, and that's what they were referring to
Speaker 1: indigenous people as um throughout the entire book. And I
Speaker 1: that was what by upbringing was in terms of books, right,
Speaker 1: books that um. Even if they did mention um other
Speaker 1: identities outside of people who were white, those identities were
Speaker 1: oftentimes demon eyes or being penalized for being who they were.
Speaker 1: But even when I think about television and film, there
Speaker 1: was really I would say, like, I remember, like there
Speaker 1: was like a gay character on the show called spinn
Speaker 1: City with Michael j Five. Remember that one, And I
Speaker 1: was like, it was a black man who I believe
Speaker 1: was like it was one of the gay characters, and
Speaker 1: so I was like, I remember him, I remember RuPaul.
Speaker 1: But like, outside of those two entities, that just wasn't
Speaker 1: much for us to cling onto or latch onto. And
Speaker 1: what that does when you don't have images of yourself
Speaker 1: in the world. One you don't know that you also
Speaker 1: exist in the world. But two it almost makes UH
Speaker 1: like queer teens and black quarer teens have to go
Speaker 1: through a second adolescence. Um throughout their adulthood because their
Speaker 1: original adolescents they were just trying to protect themselves out
Speaker 1: of safety and couldn't identify as who they were UM
Speaker 1: and had no roadmap for it. And so we unfortunately
Speaker 1: make a lot of mistakes well into our adulthood. Uh,
Speaker 1: we don't get to have the same experiences around dating.
Speaker 1: It's like my little brother started dating in thirteen. Well,
Speaker 1: if I'm gay, and clearly I'm at Catholic school, I
Speaker 1: can't date anybody. So I actually don't start my dating
Speaker 1: experience that I'm well into my twenties, right, So it
Speaker 1: just continues to put UM students behind when they don't
Speaker 1: have source of materials that can actually tell them who
Speaker 1: they are, what they are, what some of the things
Speaker 1: that they may go through may look like, and how
Speaker 1: to navigate the spaces and the things that they are
Speaker 1: already encountering. Yeah, when you really put it in that perspective,
Speaker 1: and I'm like rewinding in my head. You know, if
Speaker 1: you're looking at anybody in the l g B t
Speaker 1: q I A community in that era of television eighties
Speaker 1: and nineties, it was definitely a punchline first, or if
Speaker 1: you were a positive character, then the character was not
Speaker 1: written as openly gay. It was just assumed or implied
Speaker 1: like I'm thinking like me Shack Taylor from Designing Women,
Speaker 1: where this person just early Are they gay? Are they not? Well,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. They make the plot work. Let's just
Speaker 1: let's not worry about that character's backstory. He's here to
Speaker 1: support the women in this Smith like, take me through
Speaker 1: the day you found out your Ask got banned. Almost
Speaker 1: feel like we were in a different place as a
Speaker 1: country when you first started writing this book versus when
Speaker 1: you released it into the pit fires of crt hell one.
Speaker 1: Did you know when you were writing this that it
Speaker 1: might appear on banned book? Listen to what was What
Speaker 1: was your initial feeling when you first found out that
Speaker 1: your book was under attack by so many of these
Speaker 1: groups that Devil was talking about. I knew it was
Speaker 1: getting banned from the moment I wrote it, and I
Speaker 1: told McMillan, I told my team and mel and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, what are we gonna do when the
Speaker 1: books get when the book gets banned, and they were like,
Speaker 1: why do you think your books? I was like, I
Speaker 1: am black and queer and I am writing a memoir
Speaker 1: are for young adults, like this is not going to
Speaker 1: just like if I was white, And I always say like,
Speaker 1: if I was white and queer and had this story
Speaker 1: that was very similar to this, um, I would have
Speaker 1: probably won every award. I would have been heralded on everything.
Speaker 1: It would have already been a movie, right, it would
Speaker 1: have been a whole different thing. But it's like when
Speaker 1: you're a black and queer and you write this particular story,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, how dare you, like, you know, tell
Speaker 1: us about ourselves, Like how dare you even have the
Speaker 1: audacity to tell us that you exist? Right? Um? The
Speaker 1: first notice I got of a book band was actually
Speaker 1: I was on Twitter and somebody added me who followed
Speaker 1: me and was like, hey, this person in Kansas City
Speaker 1: is running for school board and like the whole like
Speaker 1: their whole platform is built around band in your book.
Speaker 1: And so I went to Facebook and I saw the
Speaker 1: white guy was saying and so I it's not really
Speaker 1: a quote tweet, but like on Facebook, you know how
Speaker 1: like you could take a post and then write the post.
Speaker 1: So like I wrote above the post. I don't remember
Speaker 1: what punch line I used, but I wrote a punch
Speaker 1: line because if anybody who follows me onto it or
Speaker 1: anywhere knows if if I'm a dragon carry, I'll drag
Speaker 1: and carry. And so I dragged him and then it
Speaker 1: deleted the post. I thought that was it, honestly I did. Um,
Speaker 1: But I had an inkling to set up Google alerts,
Speaker 1: and I was like, let me set up Google alerts
Speaker 1: so I can keep track of this, because if it's
Speaker 1: happening like this and like very small locales, I won't
Speaker 1: catch it. I won't catch it. And so um, that
Speaker 1: was like the end of September of last year. Um,
Speaker 1: by November, I think I had hit eight states, had
Speaker 1: already like started to pull the book, but nobody nationally
Speaker 1: was covering the story yet because nobody knew that this
Speaker 1: was happening, because they were doing it so covertly in
Speaker 1: such small places, nobody knew what was happening except for
Speaker 1: the American Library Association and US as the authors who
Speaker 1: were getting the Google alerts. So then I made a
Speaker 1: tweet like hey y'all, just by the way, like my
Speaker 1: book is ban in the eight States, and it went viral.
Speaker 1: And so of course, because I was a former journalist,
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of journalists who followed me and
Speaker 1: so they were all like, wait, Jordan, what are you
Speaker 1: talk about? And so that's when I started to speak
Speaker 1: out against it. The moment I started speaking out against it,
Speaker 1: it went that's week goes viral on I think a
Speaker 1: Thursday or Friday. By that next Friday, that's when the
Speaker 1: criminal complaints filed against me in Florida, and and the
Speaker 1: criminal places against me, one against me, one against the
Speaker 1: book in Florida. And that's literally when the banded book
Speaker 1: situation went from something very mild to something very very serious,
Speaker 1: very very quickly. Like when she did that, it just
Speaker 1: it just became a bat. You just can't breathe past
Speaker 1: criminal complaint as they Let's unpack that for a second.
Speaker 1: What crime were you guilty of? You would live committed,
Speaker 1: George Well, the books. The crime the book committed was
Speaker 1: because the book has it had its own charge. The
Speaker 1: crime of the book committed was like under some like
Speaker 1: Pornography Act or pornography law in Florida that she was
Speaker 1: trying to file it under um the crime I committed.
Speaker 1: I think she was trying to get me for like
Speaker 1: intimidation and harassment because I continue to speak out about it,
Speaker 1: especially after she filed the cryptical playing against my book.
Speaker 1: Um I started to speak out about it, um and
Speaker 1: she didn't like that. But but realistically it was part
Speaker 1: of the playbook, like because they weren't winning in every
Speaker 1: like everywhere that they were trying to ban books, they
Speaker 1: weren't necessarily winning, right, like we were winning in some
Speaker 1: of those cases, and the a c LU was winning.
Speaker 1: And so once it got to that point where they
Speaker 1: realized that they weren't winning in some of those places,
Speaker 1: they do what they do and they try to go
Speaker 1: to criminal you know, criminalization round and then across the
Speaker 1: country country now, like she was the first, and I
Speaker 1: mean as soon as she did it, North Carolina was next.
Speaker 1: Then I think it was one in South Carolina. Then
Speaker 1: it was one of i That's when the Senator, no,
Speaker 1: the governor of Iowa went on TV with my book
Speaker 1: and read the most graphic part of the book on
Speaker 1: TV and says she was going to pass a law
Speaker 1: so that nobody could give my book out. So that's
Speaker 1: when they literally that was their next part of their
Speaker 1: plan was like, Okay, if we're not gonna win it,
Speaker 1: if following the rules won't allow us to win. Because
Speaker 1: they were following the rules and school boards, even some
Speaker 1: cold service school boards were like, no, we're not getting
Speaker 1: rid of all the books. Um, they went the criminal route,
Speaker 1: and so now they're they're they're taking it up. We
Speaker 1: all know what they're trying to do. They're trying to
Speaker 1: get it to the Supreme Court. They're trying to challenge
Speaker 1: the two peak O case that gives students rights to
Speaker 1: have their books. We're not stupid, like we know their
Speaker 1: first they started at local then they went just now
Speaker 1: that we're at state level and eventually a federal lawsuit
Speaker 1: more likely to that will probably givest me in the book.
Speaker 1: In the American Library Associations, we've actually seen federal legislation
Speaker 1: introduced that would penalize state funding for schools and require
Speaker 1: literally literally require the states to allow people to use
Speaker 1: I believe they're called five twelve plans for tuition set
Speaker 1: asides for religious schools that they're not allowed to use
Speaker 1: those plans for if there's an allegation that the school
Speaker 1: the state is tolerating the presence of books that are
Speaker 1: deemed to be inappropriate by these groups. We don't think
Speaker 1: that legislation is going to go anywhere, especially since uh, well,
Speaker 1: midterms are coming up who knows um, and they're being
Speaker 1: bolder as we saw yesterday. But um, you know we're
Speaker 1: seeing state legislation. Twenty seven states have adopted some sort
Speaker 1: of CRT band Um we're seeing now don't say gay bills.
Speaker 1: In Florida, they're literally taking and all the books out
Speaker 1: of classrooms. They're so terrified. We're now have a lawsuit
Speaker 1: in Tennessee. Group of parents is suing to remove curriculum
Speaker 1: that they believe is teaching white kids to hate their
Speaker 1: race quote unquote, and so under the anti CRT law
Speaker 1: in Tennessee, they've brought lawsuit and among the books that
Speaker 1: they're siding a Ruby Bridges autobiography that she wrote for
Speaker 1: six year olds that uses historical photographs of her uh
Speaker 1: integrating her school in New Orleans with all the adults
Speaker 1: screaming at her and using profanities against her. And and
Speaker 1: they say that's too intense for six year old and
Speaker 1: it makes them feel bad about their race. They actually
Speaker 1: attacked a biography of Martin Luther King that shows images
Speaker 1: of crossing the bridge in Selma and the resulting police
Speaker 1: attack on the protesters as saying that's inappropriate for k
Speaker 1: through twelve students to have access to and so we'll well,
Speaker 1: we'll have to see what happens with this lawsuit. But
Speaker 1: we're seeing a systematic attack using all kinds of channels
Speaker 1: to limit and narrow what we can think about to
Speaker 1: what a very small group of people think is appropriate. Um.
Speaker 1: This ninety two vision of a white society anywhere there
Speaker 1: aren't troublesome people who are gay or black, or queer
Speaker 1: or transgender. Yeah, all adjudicated at the state and local
Speaker 1: level by officials that are appointed by people in elections
Speaker 1: that we deem unnecessary and unimportant. Um. After the break,
Speaker 1: I want to get a little bit more into this
Speaker 1: side of the legality of it, but also I want
Speaker 1: to talk about what we as parents can be doing
Speaker 1: to talk to our children about their reading choices, and
Speaker 1: how to do this the right way in spite of
Speaker 1: what might be happening in the schools. This is beyond
Speaker 1: the scenes. We'll be right back, Debor. I want to
Speaker 1: start with you again and just expanding a little bit
Speaker 1: on what George have been talking about about this allegation
Speaker 1: that this book is teaching the children's situality and it
Speaker 1: ain't time for the kid to be learning about the
Speaker 1: sex and all of that stuff, and they're grooming the children.
Speaker 1: What is happening in these conversations that is alleging sexual grooming?
Speaker 1: Like you gotta e what't there a book in Texas
Speaker 1: about farting? Yes? What was that? Noisy? Noisy? But it's
Speaker 1: something nice but well, and that was vulgarity. You know,
Speaker 1: that's just too vulgar. I mean, we all know that
Speaker 1: that's the sweet spot for the third third grade boys, right,
Speaker 1: you know, if you want them to get them to read,
Speaker 1: there's Captain Underpants, I need a new butt. You know
Speaker 1: what was it? Harry the Farting Dog? You know? Um?
Speaker 1: And and it's a great gateway for those six seven
Speaker 1: eight year old boys who are a little slower to
Speaker 1: pick up reading. And you want to generate a love
Speaker 1: of books and reading in them, and you give them
Speaker 1: these essentially joke books. But we actually know that there
Speaker 1: was a principle. I believe it was in Alabama who
Speaker 1: was fired for reading um, I need a new Butt
Speaker 1: to a class of kids. He read it in the
Speaker 1: late afternoon as a treat because they've done so well
Speaker 1: all day for him, and as a result, he was
Speaker 1: fired for you know, uh, doing vulgar things with the kids.
Speaker 1: But that's separate from what I think is a far
Speaker 1: more toxic conversation that's going on. These groups like Moms
Speaker 1: for Liberty UM, UH, Parents Defending Education, whatever, UM are
Speaker 1: creating a false and uh toxic framing around materials that
Speaker 1: deal with gender identity, sexual orientation, and even sex ad
Speaker 1: you know, and they're arguing that these books are obscene
Speaker 1: for miners to read, scene for the display for miners
Speaker 1: or are you know, whoever writes them or whoever provides
Speaker 1: some are pandering obscenity to miners, And that's absolutely false
Speaker 1: with the constant. You know, the Supreme Court has told
Speaker 1: us what is protected speech in this case, and sex
Speaker 1: is a protected sub subject, gender identity, sexual orientation, all
Speaker 1: these things the you know, if it has educational value,
Speaker 1: it has scientific value, artistic value, literature, that's all protected
Speaker 1: by the First Amendment. But they're trying to shift the
Speaker 1: needle on this conversation. They're trying to reframe this in
Speaker 1: a way that gives them the tools they need to
Speaker 1: censor all of this material and uh and use the
Speaker 1: courts and use the law to do it. So we've
Speaker 1: seen situations like the one in Florida where the person
Speaker 1: who actually brought the charges in that case was a
Speaker 1: school board member who had been recently elected from one
Speaker 1: of these parents rights groups. UM had run for a
Speaker 1: vacancyat to fill a term, and she won, and she
Speaker 1: was so unhappy with the fact that the board was
Speaker 1: taking its time in reviewing George's book and and comparing
Speaker 1: it to whether it had been acquired according to policy
Speaker 1: and met educational needs that that's when she went to
Speaker 1: the sheriff's office to file the charges of vicinity. Now,
Speaker 1: fortunately the prosecutor and the sheriff's department in Florida rejected
Speaker 1: all the charges. They said, this book is an obscene
Speaker 1: and if you want a decision on this book, well
Speaker 1: it's the school board that properly makes it a core
Speaker 1: to their policies. But we've also seen this happen in
Speaker 1: states like Wyoming. A group UH, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familar with mass Resistance, but they're in anti lgbt
Speaker 1: Q hate groups and they have a local chapter in Wyoming,
Speaker 1: and they actually filed criminal charges against the library staff
Speaker 1: and the public library and Gillette UM Wyoming UH. And
Speaker 1: again the library staff just for having books and books
Speaker 1: that were meant to be where does baby? Where do
Speaker 1: babies come from? Uh? This is what's happening to your
Speaker 1: body during puberty books UM, and then a few books
Speaker 1: like Georges that are intended for young adults who identify
Speaker 1: as gay or queer UM and who want to understand
Speaker 1: what they're going through or you know, learn something from
Speaker 1: others experiences so they can navigate their identity successfully and
Speaker 1: set up successful relationships as a teen and an adult. UM.
Speaker 1: In this case, this book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Speaker 1: was one of the targets of these charges, and these
Speaker 1: librarians lived in fear for three weeks that somebody was
Speaker 1: going to come and put them in handcuffs and put
Speaker 1: them in jail for simply providing books to the young
Speaker 1: adults that asked for those books in their community public servants. UM. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: again the prosecutor rejected all those charges, said, no, no
Speaker 1: crime has been committed here. These books aren't obscene and
Speaker 1: and the library did what was supposed to do in
Speaker 1: providing these books. But we're seeing more and more of
Speaker 1: this narrative pushed on boards on communities and if you
Speaker 1: don't have a lot of knowledge about the First Amendment.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a lot of experience with this
Speaker 1: kind of litigation, Um, it's easy to be swayed by
Speaker 1: these arguments because we don't have a lot of good
Speaker 1: civic education anymore. That's just my opinion. But um, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't teach civics anymore. We don't teach They don't
Speaker 1: teach government anymore, you know. And they play on the
Speaker 1: signorance and they play on parents fears. You know, George,
Speaker 1: what are what are other band author saying and doing?
Speaker 1: We know what you're doing, and you know you're taking
Speaker 1: up a torch to fight and you have you You're
Speaker 1: almost like in a way to me, it's almost like,
Speaker 1: and I know scarface is not the best analogy, but
Speaker 1: I envision you. You were just an author. You're just
Speaker 1: trying to sell your book and mind your damn business.
Speaker 1: And then you looked at at the video camera and
Speaker 1: you saw all of them right wing groups coming and
Speaker 1: storming your book come found You're like, oh, you want
Speaker 1: to play rough, well, then let you want to go
Speaker 1: to war. Let's go to war. Let's let's have a
Speaker 1: fight about this. But in talking with other authors about
Speaker 1: this issue, what are you seeing from them in terms
Speaker 1: of how they're reacting and what they are doing to
Speaker 1: strategize against this type of bullshit? Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's tough. Um. It's tough for various nuanced reasons for authors.
Speaker 1: Um so so one, most authors are not, like media
Speaker 1: trained in the way to address these type of things
Speaker 1: in a way like I have a whole background as
Speaker 1: a journalist, So when I'm doing these interviews, someone's always
Speaker 1: gonna try I got your question, Like, They're always gonna
Speaker 1: try like, well, should any books be banned? Like or
Speaker 1: they always try and ask a question like around that right,
Speaker 1: like around other like to kind of like flip it
Speaker 1: on his head. But I always know how to like CounterPunch,
Speaker 1: and I always know how to like counter a story.
Speaker 1: Not like all authors aren't trained to do that, And
Speaker 1: so you have many of them who fear that they'll
Speaker 1: get caught up and say something that they shouldn't say,
Speaker 1: or say the wrong thing, and then it just spires
Speaker 1: out of control. You also have some publishers who, you know,
Speaker 1: we just have to be honest and transparent. Um. I'm
Speaker 1: fortunate that when I made the decision that I was
Speaker 1: going to fight this like the way that I wanted
Speaker 1: to fight it that my publisher was like, let's go
Speaker 1: for it, like we have your back. That's not everybody's situation.
Speaker 1: There are many publishers who were like, we're not touching this,
Speaker 1: we don't We will release a statement as a as
Speaker 1: an entity UM that says we're against this, but outside
Speaker 1: of that, we really don't want our authors in that
Speaker 1: type of fire. We don't want our authors in that
Speaker 1: type of heat. We don't want to have that type
Speaker 1: of thing happening. And so you don't have many authors
Speaker 1: who who speak out. I would say there's a group
Speaker 1: of us though, who are unapologetically speaking out, um, like
Speaker 1: the Tiffany Jackson's, like the Nick Stones, like the Antie
Speaker 1: Thomas is um, myself, Astley Hope, Perez Leah johnsoning like
Speaker 1: there are some of us who are who are not
Speaker 1: afraid to speak out. But it's tough. Does an author,
Speaker 1: especially a new author, who has written something that is
Speaker 1: in the crosshairs of being banned, do they run the
Speaker 1: risk of jeopardizing their career as an author by choosing
Speaker 1: to fight and going against the will and wishes of
Speaker 1: their publisher, who, hey, just be quiet and we'll just
Speaker 1: sell what we can and we'll do a couple of
Speaker 1: activations and you know it, well, you know this book
Speaker 1: has the ability to simmer of a couple and then
Speaker 1: they'll turn around and use the lack of sales to
Speaker 1: justify not running with you again. So like, is there
Speaker 1: is there a bit of that to some degree, but
Speaker 1: some of the authors that are dealing with this absolutely, Um,
Speaker 1: there's there's a lot of that too, right, Like, because
Speaker 1: publishing it's it's you know, there are a lot of imprints,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of places, but it's just like
Speaker 1: any other industry. It's just like any other industry. And
Speaker 1: a person can be or a publisher or multiple publishers
Speaker 1: can be turned off by the fact that you're so vocal,
Speaker 1: can be turned off by the fact And I mean
Speaker 1: like there are even times like we're in contracts that
Speaker 1: I do we have to put a clause in it
Speaker 1: that I'm allowed to still speak out against certain things
Speaker 1: because a lot of times there are actual clauses in
Speaker 1: the contracts that prevent people from from talking about certain
Speaker 1: subjects or talking in certain ways without the approval of
Speaker 1: their their they're publishing house. Um, And that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: like a bad thing. That's more of a protection thing,
Speaker 1: to make sure that, you know, authors aren't just saying
Speaker 1: whatever they want to say wherever they want to say it.
Speaker 1: But I also think because we're in a precedented moment,
Speaker 1: a lot of people just aren't sure how to react
Speaker 1: to it. I think some people aren't sure if this
Speaker 1: is like a situation that's just going to pass once
Speaker 1: the midterms are done, you know, because they always try
Speaker 1: to find something new, and so we're not sure. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's going to pass, but we're still not sure,
Speaker 1: right because it was like, remember it was antifa. When
Speaker 1: was the last time you heard anybody say antifa? They
Speaker 1: don't say it anymore, right, it was black lives matter.
Speaker 1: The only time now that you ever hear them say
Speaker 1: black lives matter is because now they're arresting those capital rioters, right,
Speaker 1: and so that's the only time you ever hear anybody
Speaker 1: say this because they're trying to juxtapose it. But outside
Speaker 1: of that, they don't say it anymore. And so now
Speaker 1: we're like, oh, your next thing is the book bands
Speaker 1: and education, and so we're like, where is this going? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: let's say the midterms, there isn't some big red wave
Speaker 1: and they keep and them actually keep the house in
Speaker 1: the Senate. I'm not sure if they're gonna keep fighting
Speaker 1: for this right, but if they do flip a chamber
Speaker 1: or flip both chambers or whatever, then this may continue
Speaker 1: to be their fight. I think this, the issue of
Speaker 1: book bands, curriculum, education would have probably been one of
Speaker 1: the top issues had the ROV wave this situation not
Speaker 1: having installed the thunder of everything and kind of shifted
Speaker 1: the whole midterm. But I do think that this is
Speaker 1: still a very very important issue. And um, that's why
Speaker 1: I continue to choose to fight it, because it's not
Speaker 1: just about taking my book out of the library or
Speaker 1: taking our books out of certain libraries, like our books
Speaker 1: are saving lives. We have the emails, we have the
Speaker 1: direct messages, we have all of that that that these
Speaker 1: students and that these teams send us, that that let
Speaker 1: us know that literally like these kids were on the
Speaker 1: brink and somebody handed them our book and it changed
Speaker 1: the trajectory of their entire life. Um. And so that's
Speaker 1: why we fight so hard, because we can't let that
Speaker 1: we we just can't let it happen. Absolutely, deb where
Speaker 1: does the line stop them because we could go books,
Speaker 1: we could go audiobooks, we could go e books. This
Speaker 1: has the whole potential to cross over into the digital
Speaker 1: world and the internet. What's to stop a school from saying,
Speaker 1: all right, now that we got all these books banned,
Speaker 1: what's up with these newspapers, let's odd block and all that.
Speaker 1: They're already doing that. You know, they've already enacted bands
Speaker 1: into reading anything from the New York Times dealing with
Speaker 1: the six nineteen project. That's law in seventeen states law.
Speaker 1: Now whether that stands up to the legal challenges right now,
Speaker 1: I have to give a little boost to a c
Speaker 1: l U. They're challenging CRT bills laws in New Hampshire, Oklahoma,
Speaker 1: and Florida and don't say gay in Florida, So props
Speaker 1: to them. We'll see where that how that falls out.
Speaker 1: But I'm terrified given the appointments to the judiciary over
Speaker 1: the last four years. But we'll set that aside um.
Speaker 1: But we're already seeing it. We saw a whole public
Speaker 1: library district in Texas pulled the plug on their entire
Speaker 1: e book platform because they didn't like the fact that
Speaker 1: George's book in Gender Career by ma Kebabi were part
Speaker 1: of the e book collection and to kill the entire
Speaker 1: e book access for two books, all the books, all
Speaker 1: the books, all the books. And they ain't done that. Nobody. Well,
Speaker 1: what's worse is that they they are a rural community
Speaker 1: and they have a lot of elderly and disabled folks
Speaker 1: in the community that relied on digital e book access.
Speaker 1: This elderly woman says, Who's how am I going to
Speaker 1: read my weekly romance? I can't get out, I don't drive,
Speaker 1: I use large print on the screen. And now they've
Speaker 1: taken that all away, and they the board didn't care.
Speaker 1: The elected officials didn't care. They were more concerned about
Speaker 1: the small group in the community that was claiming that
Speaker 1: books like George's were pornography and harmful to minors. And
Speaker 1: they bought that and they actually replaced the library board
Speaker 1: with the actual sensors in that community. Now that's being
Speaker 1: challenged in a lawsuit, but that's to be a long
Speaker 1: remedy for that. It'll be years before that is resolved,
Speaker 1: if at all. You know, it shouldn't be that we
Speaker 1: have to go to court to preserve our civil liberties.
Speaker 1: Are right to read and a right to have equal
Speaker 1: access to a community resource like the books in the library,
Speaker 1: and have the resource reflect everyone's lives in the community. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it's just really terrible. But I don't you know,
Speaker 1: digital has made it worse. Um, it's not only taking
Speaker 1: away digital access, it's the ability to track what people
Speaker 1: are reading and viewing on the screen. And we're seeing
Speaker 1: that happen to K through twelve students. You effectively have
Speaker 1: no privacy if you have a school issued laptop or
Speaker 1: chromebook and there you know, they they've actually uh turned
Speaker 1: on cameras after school hours. And there was one young
Speaker 1: person in Pennsylvania who actually was arrested for drug use
Speaker 1: because he had some kind of hard candy on his
Speaker 1: desk that was shaped like a capsule and the I.
Speaker 1: T department in his high school turned it into the police.
Speaker 1: You know that, you know, again eventually resolved. But we
Speaker 1: we why are we tolerating this situation? Why are we
Speaker 1: taking away young people's rights, the privacy to the right
Speaker 1: to read. It's just it's beyond imagining right now to
Speaker 1: that point about selection and agency. George, So I have
Speaker 1: a six year old. Now we try to let this
Speaker 1: boy choose what do you want to eat? And for
Speaker 1: the most part he's I He like, if you ask
Speaker 1: him for what you want for breakfast, he will choose
Speaker 1: from an array of breakfast options. He won't just say
Speaker 1: I won't cupcakes. Um. We try to monitor the educational
Speaker 1: tablet time and so there there's this there's this app
Speaker 1: called Epic Epic Reading, and Epic Reading lets you swipe
Speaker 1: through whatever book you want to find. And he's old
Speaker 1: enough to spell, so he can search by topic. His
Speaker 1: thing is Ninja's if as long as you're reading, I
Speaker 1: don't care. He's some book called cat Ninja. He is
Speaker 1: obsessed with cat Ninja. And so I feel like as
Speaker 1: a parent, I kind of transition from something that that
Speaker 1: my parents were in, which was very much you're gonna
Speaker 1: read this or you had a sign reading. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm from Alabama, Birmingham Public schools. Where is one slavery
Speaker 1: book and the Hobbit. Here's another slavery book and Babel
Speaker 1: like those. That was kind of the oscillation of things.
Speaker 1: But like when we talk about agencies, so in your book,
Speaker 1: you know, you talked about you know, a child wearing
Speaker 1: a basketball headband, for for instance, and like if we
Speaker 1: use wardrobe as an example, you said quote rather than
Speaker 1: saying you are wearing this. I hope more adults will
Speaker 1: ask what would you like to wear and then have
Speaker 1: a conversation about these choices. So if we apply that
Speaker 1: same concept to reading, what conversations can comparent to be
Speaker 1: having If they're raising a BIPOC or l G B
Speaker 1: t q I a plus child, what are they missing
Speaker 1: out on by not having those conversations and making sure
Speaker 1: that kids are getting reading materials that speak specifically to
Speaker 1: their child's experiences. Yeah, I mean the real thing they're
Speaker 1: missing out on is that there's this They're just assuming
Speaker 1: that their child is okay, and they're assuming that their
Speaker 1: child is like just just navigating life okay because their
Speaker 1: child hasn't said anything to them. And I think it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting right because like, and I've talked about it
Speaker 1: with even like with my family before, um because they're
Speaker 1: all up and through the book. But um, it's just
Speaker 1: interesting because it was like, well, everybody knew I was queer,
Speaker 1: but nobody ever said it. And so I'm navigating my
Speaker 1: life with the bare minimum of resources that I have,
Speaker 1: But I have these guardians around me who are protecting
Speaker 1: me and who are doing all of the right things
Speaker 1: in their minds, but the one thing that they couldn't
Speaker 1: bring themselves to do was just asked me the question,
Speaker 1: or sit down and talk with me about it. Because
Speaker 1: there's a real fear, for some reason that has been
Speaker 1: built in this country, um that parents and kids should
Speaker 1: not be having adult conversations, even though parents are trying
Speaker 1: to prepare their children for adulthood. And realistically that's what's
Speaker 1: being missed, right, And so I liken it to the
Speaker 1: fact that we will send kids to college, but we
Speaker 1: will never teach them how to do their own taxes.
Speaker 1: And then at one they leave college, they get their
Speaker 1: first job, they have no idea what a one exemption
Speaker 1: is or two exemption is a zero exemption, And so
Speaker 1: you're like, we're literally just sending them out into the
Speaker 1: world ill equipped. The whole notion that, oh, this the
Speaker 1: topic of sex is too heavy for my fourteen to
Speaker 1: eighteen year old, because be clear, my book is for
Speaker 1: fourteen to eighteen year olds. So then you're like, okay, well,
Speaker 1: if the topic of sex is too heavy for your
Speaker 1: eighteen year old, then you send your eighteen year old
Speaker 1: to college with no framework around sex. What exactly do
Speaker 1: you think is going to happen. And how do we
Speaker 1: know that we are lacking in teaching fourteen to eighteen
Speaker 1: year olds about sex because we can look at the
Speaker 1: rates of sexual assault, sexual misconduct, and rape on college
Speaker 1: campuses across the United States and how rampid it is,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that is because we are not
Speaker 1: teaching sex education before we send them off into the
Speaker 1: world with raging hormones that we never talked them about
Speaker 1: um and then they're making poor decisions just base level
Speaker 1: no means no reading body language, just how not to
Speaker 1: raise an asshole, right, And so that's what we're missing out,
Speaker 1: and that's what a lot of parents are missing out
Speaker 1: on because parents are keep saying I should have the
Speaker 1: right to teach this heavy topic in my home, and
Speaker 1: we're like, I don't disagree with that, but you're also
Speaker 1: not teaching that heavy topic in your home. So you
Speaker 1: can't have it both ways, Like you can't have it
Speaker 1: where you're like, I don't think the school should be
Speaker 1: teaching them this or this or they should be getting
Speaker 1: this at school, because that's that should be my inn
Speaker 1: home decision that we make as a parent. But then
Speaker 1: it's like okay, but then your child comes home and
Speaker 1: you're still not teaching them that, and you're still not
Speaker 1: talking to them about that, and you're still not giving
Speaker 1: them access to it. So where exactly do you think
Speaker 1: they learn it from? And even in the section in
Speaker 1: the book that they're attacking the most, they're flipping what
Speaker 1: I said. What I said was most teenagers learned about
Speaker 1: sex through pornography. It is what it is. They sneak
Speaker 1: and watch it. I was a teenager who who sneaked
Speaker 1: off and watched it. My friends were teenagers who sneaked
Speaker 1: off and watched it. And so when they when we're
Speaker 1: going through puberty, were literally just pulling from any resource
Speaker 1: that we can that we can access because we keep
Speaker 1: getting denied the actual resources that we really need. So
Speaker 1: instead it's like, oh, well, I'm gonna take George's book
Speaker 1: away from you. It doesn't stop your teens yearning to
Speaker 1: still know the information. But what it does is it
Speaker 1: means that they're going to now go down dangerous paths
Speaker 1: to get it. And that's all we're trying to prevent.
Speaker 1: We just want to be able to say here's the
Speaker 1: roadmap instead of um almost like uh like uh, what
Speaker 1: those things used to call when you used to have
Speaker 1: the search and find stuff um scavenger hunt. Right, It's like,
Speaker 1: rather than you having to go on a scavenger hunt
Speaker 1: for the information, we just want to give them the information.
Speaker 1: But instead they think that when we introduce these heavy topics,
Speaker 1: or that when the students get a book and they
Speaker 1: read the book, they think we're introducing these heavy topics
Speaker 1: to them. And what we're trying to tell them is, no,
Speaker 1: your teams are already going through this. They're already dealing
Speaker 1: with sexual assault, they're already dealing with and they're having
Speaker 1: these conversations. But y'all think we're introducing them too them
Speaker 1: and they're literally saying, no, we want the books that
Speaker 1: we can learn about what we're already experiencing. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: that fantasy. If they don't read about if the books
Speaker 1: aren't there to tell you about it, then it's the
Speaker 1: parents can pretend it's not happening, and we know that
Speaker 1: that's not it. You know, fatting the book isn't going
Speaker 1: to take away the fact that kids are dealing with
Speaker 1: these issues on a regular basis and or that they're
Speaker 1: experiencing it. Uh, And you know what, would you rather
Speaker 1: have a librarian or an educator making choices of our
Speaker 1: and curating good content that addresses these issues and a
Speaker 1: responsible fashion that gives good information, accurate information, or you know,
Speaker 1: out on the internet looking at pornography. I you know
Speaker 1: often say, you know, we're banning books, but let's look
Speaker 1: at that phone that's unrestricted, unfiltered phone in the back
Speaker 1: pocket of every young person, you know. Okay. I definitely
Speaker 1: want to try and spin this into something positive, because
Speaker 1: if it's one thing Americans love, it's stuff that's banned
Speaker 1: and forbidden, and that you have limited access to low
Speaker 1: key banned books. We might be the thing that they
Speaker 1: didn't want to happen that's going to happen. I want
Speaker 1: to unpack that a little bit with you, George, and
Speaker 1: also I want to figure out ways, dvor that we
Speaker 1: the people can join the fight to help change this.
Speaker 1: We're talking banned books and beyond the scenes, we'll be
Speaker 1: right back beyond the scenes. We're rounding third headed for home.
Speaker 1: We're talking banned books. Now, let's discuss Banned Books Week,
Speaker 1: which is this week. George, Now you are the honorary chair.
Speaker 1: Run us through the week. What's what's on the agenda
Speaker 1: of is there a branch included. I love a good
Speaker 1: branch of barbecue or block party, anything would be okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this is the fourtieth anniversary of Band Books Week,
Speaker 1: and I'm really excited that I was chosen to lead it.
Speaker 1: UM interesting, I guess interestingly enough, Like band books have
Speaker 1: always been like a thing, It's just never been this
Speaker 1: big of the thing. So I think it's exciting because
Speaker 1: so many people are like interested in like, uh, talking
Speaker 1: to the authors and and hearing from us and so UM.
Speaker 1: We have virtual events lined up. We have one with
Speaker 1: the Emancipator UM, which I believe was I think that
Speaker 1: was was that Frederick Duck with his original newspaper. UM.
Speaker 1: I know they brought yes, So they brought it back.
Speaker 1: They brought back the Emancipator. It's now under the Boston
Speaker 1: Globe family. So we have an amazing robust panel conversation
Speaker 1: UM with Sarah Kate, who's the president of glad Leah
Speaker 1: Johnson will be there and several other authors will be there.
Speaker 1: I'll be moderating that conversation. I'll also be on Tamarin
Speaker 1: Hall coming up soon to talk about band book She's
Speaker 1: been an avid supporter of books um and against the
Speaker 1: book bands. Um, we have you know, some virtual like
Speaker 1: I said, several virtual events lined up this week, UM
Speaker 1: in person event and I believe in d C with
Speaker 1: dr Abrahm x Kendy. Um. Yeah, so it's it's really
Speaker 1: really exciting to we have some Instagram live things going on, um,
Speaker 1: Facebook live things going on. Uh. Yeah. We just wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, wanted to make sure that people got to
Speaker 1: hear from the authors, UM, that people understood you know,
Speaker 1: the importance of fighting against censorship, um, and just having
Speaker 1: a really good time being proud of being banded. Like
Speaker 1: I'm proud to be banned. So I don't know about anybody.
Speaker 1: I think everybody can tell by now. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: me being band got me on a New York Times
Speaker 1: best seller lists, so the New Yortime best seller list,
Speaker 1: and it got me in the top ten list, right,
Speaker 1: And I think my book is right about Tony Morrison's.
Speaker 1: And so I always tell everybody like that's probably the
Speaker 1: only list I'm gonna ever make with Tony Morrison. So
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take that as a badge of honor. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, band books, we we we wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure that we did something a little bit different this
Speaker 1: year and really go hard at it and really, um
Speaker 1: almost re re reput the messaging back out there because
Speaker 1: school just started again, so of course they're starting again
Speaker 1: and sell band Book Week is now our moment to
Speaker 1: really really start again. Yeah, and really we have a
Speaker 1: whole calendar of things going on both nationally and locally.
Speaker 1: If you go to Banned Books Week dot org, you'll
Speaker 1: be able to find the calendar of all these events.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of in person events going on at
Speaker 1: local library and schools and community centers UM, but we're
Speaker 1: also doing things like a virtual read out with authors
Speaker 1: and students who are part of the Kids Right to
Speaker 1: Read Project at n c A c um UH and
Speaker 1: a number of all these events that you know, social
Speaker 1: media and things like that that will be a real
Speaker 1: great thing. UM. One thing to remember about Banned Books Week.
Speaker 1: Tuesday at Banned Books Week is National Voter Registration Day,
Speaker 1: and so we're encouraged we're taking that opportunity to encourage
Speaker 1: everyone to make sure that they know whether they're registered
Speaker 1: to vote or not if they're not, to register to vote,
Speaker 1: and to educate themselves about what's going on at elections
Speaker 1: at the local level. And we're gonna really build a
Speaker 1: whole series of promotions and events around that fact and
Speaker 1: take advantage of the coincidence. You know who you're voting for.
Speaker 1: Don't just vote for somebody because they got it. I'll
Speaker 1: be falling for the nice pictures some of them politicians.
Speaker 1: You don't read the platform theyb like ban everything. Damn
Speaker 1: already check yes on this person. Whatever? Are there any
Speaker 1: other resources that people like me? You know, let's talk
Speaker 1: hope and optimism. What else can we look to? You know,
Speaker 1: we continue to see banned books in the news. Well,
Speaker 1: you can understand that you can do something about this
Speaker 1: as an individual, and you can get your networks, your
Speaker 1: community groups to join you in this. And I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier Unite against Book bands and the resources that are
Speaker 1: available on that website that anyone can use to organize
Speaker 1: their friends there, church groups, their connections, their networks, to
Speaker 1: be aware of what's going on locally. Um, and to
Speaker 1: be that louder voice in the room that speaks up
Speaker 1: in favor of the right to read, the right to choose,
Speaker 1: and the importance of making sure that your library reflects
Speaker 1: everyone's lives and choices. Um. And then uh, there's other
Speaker 1: things that individuals can do. Uh, you can. Well, we
Speaker 1: have a deer Banned Authors campaign. UM. We have, and
Speaker 1: actually we're going to start a Deer Librarians campaign this year. UM,
Speaker 1: encouraging people to send postcards to librarians because they've been
Speaker 1: under particular attack this season of censorship. UM. And so
Speaker 1: we're just inviting people to use these resources to look
Speaker 1: beyond Banned Books Week. UM. You know, for so long,
Speaker 1: band Books Week has been one week, and we talk
Speaker 1: about celebrating the freedom to read. We celebrate the authors
Speaker 1: who have gone through banning and and celebrate the right
Speaker 1: to make choices about our reading. UM. But I think
Speaker 1: this year we have to have Banned Books Week all
Speaker 1: year round. We have to have that awareness that we
Speaker 1: have this promise that we can read anything we want,
Speaker 1: we can think about anything we want under the First Amendment,
Speaker 1: and we have to protect that. And the only way
Speaker 1: to do that is becoming engaged locally. We have an
Speaker 1: aphorism all library politics are local, all school politics are local.
Speaker 1: We need to take that to heart and and just
Speaker 1: take on that duty to become engaged at the local
Speaker 1: level and UH to raise our voices together, to empower
Speaker 1: ourselves to speak out. Okay. Last question, debral calwell Stone,
Speaker 1: director of the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Free
Speaker 1: And they are George im Johnson, author and former journalism
Speaker 1: Proud Band author. Give me the two of you some
Speaker 1: of your favorite band but other than All Boys Aren't Blue.
Speaker 1: Other than George, you don't get the name your book, George.
Speaker 1: Other than that, what are some of your favorite band books?
Speaker 1: Just throw out a couple of titles for our listeners
Speaker 1: to go and try and dig up. Have to be honest.
Speaker 1: One of my more life changing reads was the absolutely
Speaker 1: true Diary of Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexei. Actually
Speaker 1: a family who lives in the area of Washington State
Speaker 1: that he grew up on the res in and I
Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on beyond the country
Speaker 1: roads I was traveling on to go visit family. And
Speaker 1: it was just an eye opener. It was that door,
Speaker 1: that window into another life and gaining an understanding of
Speaker 1: the struggle to have an education. I so deeply appreciate
Speaker 1: that book and I recommend it to anyone. And you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a recovering attorney, so almost incumbent on me to
Speaker 1: throw out to kill a mocking Bird. Al though it's
Speaker 1: kind of cliche and things, you know, but you know,
Speaker 1: I find when I read through the list of band books,
Speaker 1: you know, I have that experience that I had with
Speaker 1: absolutely True Diary. They turned out to be life changing,
Speaker 1: eye opening, uh, thought provoking, you know books, And I
Speaker 1: recommend anyone the reading list of this year's ban Books
Speaker 1: Top ten band Books list, which you can find on
Speaker 1: the l A website at l A dot or um
Speaker 1: as a reading list. Of course, George's book is on
Speaker 1: that list, but I have the list hanging up. It's
Speaker 1: uh right here to the right of me, Um, hanging
Speaker 1: on the wall. Um yeah, long boy, definitely Um. Tolle
Speaker 1: Morrison's The Bluest I, which I'm still like, I don't
Speaker 1: get it. I'm shocked at, Like, how is that being
Speaker 1: challenged all these days? I think Beloved is also challenged,
Speaker 1: and I think, um, I'm specifically going to talk about Beloved, um,
Speaker 1: because I remember when the movie Beloved came out and
Speaker 1: a lot of us struggled with it and like, I
Speaker 1: don't understand it. I don't get it. And then one
Speaker 1: of my friends, her name is Dr Jim Jackson. She
Speaker 1: reframed Beloved, and she was like, the problem is y'all
Speaker 1: aren't reading Beloved as a black horror story. And she
Speaker 1: was like, if you go into the mindset of like
Speaker 1: how Jordan Peel is doing black like these black horror
Speaker 1: she was like, read Beloved, but read it from the
Speaker 1: mind standpoint that this is a horror and it blew
Speaker 1: my mind. One. It blew my mind once again. Tony
Speaker 1: Morrison was well ahead of her time. Um, but too,
Speaker 1: I think everybody should go back and reread Beloved from
Speaker 1: the mindset of I'm not looking at this as like
Speaker 1: a love story or a tragedy, but I'm looking at
Speaker 1: this as a horror um. Because that's it, truly. If
Speaker 1: you read it, it will teach you how to build
Speaker 1: upon if you want to be a horror writer, or
Speaker 1: you know, it just has so much texture to it. Um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, okay, well that's all the time we have
Speaker 1: for today. George, Thank you to you, Debra, thank you
Speaker 1: to you as well. Hopefully by now we have taken
Speaker 1: you all beyond the scenes. We'll see you next week.
Speaker 1: Listen to the Daily Show Beyond the Scenes on Apple podcast,
Speaker 1: the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: This has been a Comedy Central podcast.