Intersectional Education: Overcoming Book Bans
On this episode of The Joy Report, we’re discussing books and the ongoing fight for truth and inclusion in education, publishing, and storytelling.
Episode Transcript
“Welcome to The Joy Report, a podcast dedicated to sharing stories about climate solutions and environmental justice grounded in intersectionality and optimism. Tune in to hear updates on all things climate, social, and environmental justice explained in a succinct and accessible way by me, Arielle King, an environmental justice advocate and attorney passionate about environmental education. The goal of this podcast is to give you the tools you need to stay informed and take action to protect the planet.”
Episode Agenda:
In this special episode, we’re talking all about books and the ongoing fight for truth and inclusion in education, publishing, and storytelling.
Topic Background Info
Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov once said, “any book worth banning is a book worth reading.” So why have more than two thousand five hundred book bans been enacted from July 2021 to June 2022 in 138 school districts throughout 32 states? During this short timeframe more than sixteen hundred titles have been removed from school libraries and one clear theme and rationale has arisen: these books are predominantly written by and about the lives and experiences of diverse, but particularly historically marginalized, people. In fact, 4 out of 10 banned books analyzed by PEN America had LGBTQ+ characters or themes, and 4 out of 10 had protagonists or characters of color.
Unfortunately, this wave of limiting students’ ability to think critically, freely, and with a heart open to difference is not new. Book banning is the most widespread form of censorship in the United States, and the practice began in the 17th century.
Children’s literature is often the primary target of censorship, prompted by the fear that young people’s impressionable minds will be improperly influenced by a book’s contents. Today, many people opposing book bans believe that teaching a more inclusive history actually harms students.
Lately, much of the controversy has centered on a framework called Critical Race Theory, coined by the prolific legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw, who also coined and popularized the term Intersectionality. Critical Race Theory has been used as a catch-all for wokeness, political correctness, and leftist-indoctrination. Some other prominent reasons for challenges and bans across the country include non-traditional values, LGBTQIA+ content, indoctrinating kids, anti-police sentiments, promoting a homosexual lifestyle, white privilege, and more.
So how does book banning actually work? Generally, a book must be challenged before it is considered for banning. The initiator of the challenge must read the whole book, fill out a challenge form and explain why, how, and where in the book the offensive material takes place, and finally present a case in a hearing. From there a decision will be made on what action should be taken, with options ranging from complete removal from the library, thus completely restricting access from students, or diminished access to a book through relocation of the book to a different section of the library or the requirement of a signed permission slip from a parent or guardian before a student can check a book out from the library.
However, many book challenges come from individuals who have never actually read the books they want to be removed. Often excerpts from these texts are taken out of context to villainize the authors who wrote them and the teachers and librarians who share the books with young people. According to Penn America, almost 40% of the time parents initiate book challenges, and only about 1 percent are initiated by students.
[Recording pulled from this clip at 00:35] “I think those books… I don’t want to even see them. I think they should be thrown in a fire.” “Just cooperate with me, I’m sure I’ve got other colleagues here, I’m sure we’ve got hundreds of people out there who would like to see those books before we burn ‘em. Just so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”
The voices you just heard were two members of the Spotsylvania, Virginia School Board discussing the removal, and even the potential burning, of any “sexually explicit” books from school libraries in the district. This uproar was spurred by a parent who was upset that her high school student was using their school library app to access and read what the parent called “LGBTQIA fiction”.
Some of you might be wondering why we’re talking about books on The Joy Report. What do books have to do with climate justice and sustaining movements? And to that questions, I would challenge: what don’t books have to do with these things?
[Recording pulled from this clip at 01:30] “It makes me furious that we, as a world, are prohibiting knowledge. How many of you have ever read the book The Giver before? It is a phenomenal book, but that is not why we are talking about it. If we continue to pull books off the shelves, we are going to end up in a world like that, where we can only see things in shades of white, gray, and black, where every single person is the same. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to live in a world like that.”
That was youth advocate McCartie McPadden during a youth TEDX talk in Fort Worth Texas, who makes abundantly clear that they do not want to live in a world with restrictions on knowledge.
Regardless of where you live book bans impact us all. Censoring what and how people can learn limits the ways that we can interact and connect with one another. It limits our ability to envision a future— or present— beyond a straight, white, middle-class America. Limiting access to media increases division among those with different lived experiences because often books are a powerful means of connection. As people working toward a better world, we must recognize, honor, and uplift the voices of those most marginalized by society. Books written by these voices being ripped from library shelves can limit the ability of the next generation to understand difference and contribute to a more inclusive world. Now more than ever we need books written by these authors because we as a society have so much to learn from the rich, diverse perspectives of BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, and other authors from from the global majority.
Author Roxane Gay once said, “Salvation is certainly among the reasons I read. Reading and writing have always pulled me out of the darkest experiences in my life. Stories have given me a place in which to lose myself. They have allowed me to remember. They have allowed me to forget. They have allowed me to imagine different endings and better possible words.”
I’m not sure there’s any better way to explain the value of books. This quote really leans into the idea of radical imagination that our last special episode was all about. If you haven’t listened to that one yet, I’d definitely encourage you to do so.
Because we believe in radical imagination and ensuring that all voices are included in environmentalism, as an organization, Intersectional Environmentalist is continuing to amplify the voices of underrepresented voices in the environmental space and make environmental education more inclusive and accessible by gifting free books to our community. This year we launched a series of intimate music and educational events that serve as an entry point into the world of environmental justice called Earth Sessions. We had Earth Sessions shows in New York and California this year with more in the works for 2023 , and during these shows we started giving out free environmental and liberation-centered books by diverse authors to attendees.
Fortunately IE is nowhere alone in this fight to work against censorship. Organizations and institutions are working against book bans all over the country, including in states where censorship is steadily increasing:
Like the group of librarians in Texas, the state with the highest number of book bans nationally with over 800 bans in 22 different school districts from 2021-2022. These librarians invited families, authors, other librarians, teachers, students, and parents to come together to share and highlight the diverse books that bring them joy, and bring the support of readers to the attention of the Texas Legislature. The organization, called Freadom, now runs monthly campaigns to support the freedom of reading and resources for those interested in getting involved. In the show notes for this episode you can find the website they’ve created with templates and guides with resources for things like how to write a letter to the editor, how to speak at a school board meeting, how to start a local group to support school board races, and so much more.
Diverse books also provide opportunities for adequate representation for students. Did you know that in an average classroom of 20, there are likely at least two kids who are trying to figure out their gender identity or sexual orientation? Pride and Less Prejudice is an organization that provides LGBTQ-inclusive books to Pre-K through 3rd-grade classrooms in North America to help students and teachers “Read out loud, read out proud.”
In the three years that the organization has been around, they have helped educators create more inclusive learning environments by raising over one hundred thousand dollars to disseminate LGBTQ-inclusive books to over three thousand classrooms in the US and Canada. 44 different teaching guides to accompany the donated books have also been created, and the organization has held 10 professional development workshops to help more than 400 educators.
Unsurprisingly libraries have been the biggest advocates against book bans, and all over the country librarians are going to great lengths to ensure that banned books remain on their shelves. You might even remember your local librarian, whether at school or in a local library, excitedly putting together the banned book exhibit each year. Banned Book Week, created by the American Library Association, has been bringing attention to school censorship for over three decades.
Currently, over 25 organizations have partnered with the American Library Association for their Unite Against Book Bans campaign to empower individuals and communities to fight censorship and protect the freedom to read. This coalition of advocacy groups, education leaders, businesses, and civil rights groups all believe in the principles of reading as fundamental to learning, the right of leaders to access a variety of books, and the need to work together to protect that right.
Through their Books UnBanned initiative, The Brooklyn Public Library now offers anyone ages 13-21 across the country unlimited access to the libraries eBook and audiobook collections, including banned titles. As of April, Scholastic, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan Publishers have partnered with the New York Public Library to offer anyone in the country access to commonly banned books through a free e-reading app called SimplyE.
And these aren’t the only places in New York where you can access to banned books and books from diverse authors.
Featured Story:
Did you know that during the 1970 and 80s there were woman-of-color-owned feminist bookstores and radical Black-owned bookstores throughout the United States? These bookstores not only served as places to preserve and support diverse literature, but the
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