At first glance, the recent criticism that Barack Obama leveled against those in America who are supposedly “banning” books might sound reasonable — if you overlook the characteristic Obama touches of generalities, obfuscations, and euphemisms. “Some of the books that shaped my life — and the lives of so many others,” Obama wrote in an open letter penned in support of the American Library Association’s “United Against Book Bans” campaign, “are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives.” “It’s no coincidence,” he continued, “that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or feature people of color, Indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community.” Among the authors that Obama singles out for special praise are “Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin.”
And who can disagree with that? Books do, indeed, shape lives. A broad range of ideas and perspectives improves a free country. Mark Twain is a national treasure. Actually banning books is a terrible thing. And yet, when one digs into the controversies that have inspired Obama’s missive, one quickly discovers that it is not so much that “ideas” and “perspectives” are being suppressed in America as that age-inappropriate material is being removed from its schools and, in some cases, from the children’s sections of public libraries. The book that is most commonly described as having been “banned” — by which critics do not actually mean “banned,” but rather “moved to a different section within, or removed completely from, public school libraries” — is Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe, a graphic work that, among other things, includes depictions of minors performing oral sex, of male adults having penetrative sex, and of an adult man masturbating a small boy’s penis. Others on the “banned” list are Let’s Talk About It, which features graphic illustrations of masturbation; Flamer, a book about young boys engaging in sexual acts at a summer camp; and This Book Is Gay, a book that demonstrates “the ins and outs of gay sex.” So explicit are these works that, in March of this year, Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida held up the relevant pages for the cameras and forced every news station covering his event to cut its broadcasts in a panic because federal law would sanction them for airing obscene content.
While there is a fair argument about the threshold for a book to be removed from a school library (e.g., objections from one parent should not be sufficient), it is telling that Obama mentions none of the controversies surrounding sexually explicit materials being on offer to children. This despite Gender Queer having received the fervent endorsement of the American Library Association, which, in 2020, presented the work with an award that is reserved for books that “have special appeal to young adults, ages 12 through 18.” It is telling, too, that, when the works in question are less sexually graphic, the ALA sounds far less absolutist on the question of what is and is not appropriate for young eyes, as well as on the question of what constitutes “censorship” per se. In 2018, the ALA voted unanimously to strip Laura Ingalls Wilder from its major children’s literature award on the grounds that the author’s legacy “may no longer be consistent with the intention of the award named for her.” This decision, the ALA was keen to insist, did not represent an attempt to “censor, limit, or deter access,” but to ensure that the organization’s “core values of inclusiveness, integrity and respect, and responsiveness” were observed.
Or, to put it another way: In the eyes of the American Library Association, books that show grown men masturbating teenage boys’ penises ought to be recommended to twelve-year-olds while Little House on the Prairie ought to be cast aside in the name of inclusion, respect, and responsiveness.
In a free country such as the United States, it is the prerogative of the ALA to adopt this stance — although we note that the ALA is not a purely private organization. Many of its dues-paying members are taxpayer-funded public libraries, whose concerted action is a form of governmental power. But it would be nice if it were willing to extend the same courtesy to those who strenuously disagree. Inevitably, questions such as these will involve a degree of judgment. Thanks to the First Amendment, we are not debating here which books will be unavailable in the United States, but which will make it into school libraries and school curricula — and at what age they will be attainable. Because public schools are just that — public — they must remain responsive to the states, school boards, and parents who run them. Because neither time nor space nor funds are unlimited, they will always exclude some books whenever they choose to include others. Necessarily, San Francisco will have different standards than Mississippi, conservative counties will set different rules than progressive counties, and institutions run by advocates of colorblindness will employ a different definition of “inclusiveness” than institutions that are obsessed with identity. Sometimes, school boards will make overzealous decisions. Occasionally, a genuinely good book will be tossed out with the junk. Sporadically, mistakes will be made. That, though, is the price we pay for democracy, the flawed system that is superior to all the others.