Once upon a time, George W. Bush—former governor of Texas, 43rd president of the United States, and accused of a war criminal—made a disturbing comment: “The question is seldom asked, are our children learning?”
Bush had a point; after all, that question is rarely asked, at least not by people who have mastered English grammar. And yet it’s a question that’s popping up in your mind more and more these days, and especially today on World Book Day, as the US state of Texas leads the country into a book-banning frenzy.
According to Between July 1, 2021 and March 31, 2022, the literary and free expression advocacy organization PEN America saw a total of 1,586 book bans in school libraries and classrooms in 26 U.S. states. Texas led the way with 713 suspensions, followed by Pennsylvania with 456, Florida with 204 and Oklahoma with 43.
Heavy targets for removal have been books with LGBTQIA+ themes and characters, as well as texts about structural racism in American society – actions that, of course, only reinforce the bigoted and evil foundations of the so-called “land of the free.”
Of course, book bans are nothing new and have been around since the 1600. In the 19th century, there were anti-slavery books forbidden in the southern US. And in Germany the Nazis forbidden Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity: The Special and the General Theory among numerous other titles.
Despite the questionable success rate of book bans, which ultimately depends on how one defines “success”, the feverish anger they are known to generate can certainly serve as a convenient distraction from actual social problems.
Take the case of Llano County, located northwest of the Texas capital of Austin, where local officials are currently deciding whether to go full to block the public library system after a federal judge recently ordered 17 banned titles to be put back on shelves.
The include titles They called themselves the KKK: The Birth of an American Terrorist Group by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, which won the 2011 Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award from the Young Adult Library Services Association.
Also on the list are the book Being Jazz: My Life as a (Transgender) Teen by Jazz Jennings and It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health by Robie H Harris.
Then there’s a Jane Bexley children’s book series that is so subversive titles as Larry the Farting Leprechaun, Freddie the Farting Snowman and Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts.
Which brings us to the next point: In a country plagued by racism, discrimination, socioeconomic inequality, homelessness, depression and addiction, a gas-ridden snowman should be the least of anyone’s worries.
Mass shootings have become a daily occurrence in the US, and last May an 18-year-old gunman killed 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, southwest of Llano County.
Give me a farting leprechaun over an assault rifle any day.
Obviously, the presence of a particular book on a library shelf does not mean that even a small portion of the population will actually read it. This is especially true in today’s era of total digital distraction – another socially destructive trend that won’t be solved by, you know, closing libraries.
But the confrontation in Llano County is symbolic of the general attack on any sustained sense of community in the US, where the bipartisan ruling elite directly benefits from the divide-and-conquer approach and the destruction of any idea of communal solidarity.
The resulting individual isolation and dismantling of empathy, in turn, help cultivate a national landscape more conducive to mass shootings and the like.
But back to farting leprechauns.
Spending much of my childhood in Texas myself, I have fond memories of the Austin Public Library, of pre-internet summers spent amid stacks of books, and of the satisfying sound of the librarian stamping book checkout cards with a tool that I can’t even remember the name of.
Admittedly, I also engaged in youthful activities such as shooting beer cans with a friend of my parents’ gun and learning in school why it was so great for my country to bomb people in the Middle East in Operation Desert Storm , conducted by the father of the man who would later ask if our children were learning.
Fast forward three decades, and the US continues to spend much of its time and money destroying other countries. Lest Americans start making connections as to why a country with such incredible resources cannot provide affordable housing, health care or education, those in power are pursuing a simultaneous domestic assault on freedom of thought and expression – one manifestation of which is banning the race books. .
And it’s only going downhill.
The Republican-led Texas House of Representatives is currently moving forward on a bill prohibit materials with sexually explicit content in public school libraries — an initiative that has also received significant support from Democrats
And in Missourithe state House recently voted to cut all funding for public libraries in its proposed annual budget.
According to a March press release of the American Library Association (ALA), “a record 2,571 unique titles were targeted for censorship in 2022” in the US, representing a 38 percent increase from 2021. The ALA noted that the “vast majority was written by or about members of the LGBTQIA+ community and people of color.”
It goes without saying that a society that bans books has a lot to hide. And as we celebrate World Book Day this year, it’s worth dwelling on the fact that you can’t hide system rot behind the cover of a banned book.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial view of Al Jazeera.