North Carolina is vulnerable to a dangerous new book banning wave
This week, several schools made the news for banning or challenging books in their school libraries.
In South Carolina, the state superintendent wants an investigation into the availability of the book Gender Queer at Fort Mill School District, the same book that North Carolina’s lieutenant governor has raged about. Similar investigations and removals have come up in Kansas and Texas recently.
In Virginia’s recent gubernatorial race, governor-elect Glenn Youngkin ran a campaign ad featuring a Loudon County mother and conservative activist who tried to get Toni Morrison’s Beloved banned from schools in the commonwealth. This week, two school board members called for the burning of books they didn’t agree with, reminding folks of Nazi Germany’s burning of books that were “un-German.”
Restricting books is a trademark of fascism; it is also a constant presence in U.S. public education. Nothing scares conservatives more than the threat of young people expanding their worldview.
North Carolina, the neighbor of two of these states, has shown it’s vulnerable to moral panic over reading materials. Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson has tried to spin his homophobia as a concern about specific books in specific school libraries. But these are among the books we most need available in our schools — especially in parts of the state where reading is the only way students can access people different from their own.
My middle school English teacher had a poster of “banned books” in her classroom, featuring some of the most well-known books and why they made people mad. Catcher in the Rye. I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings. The Giver. The same teacher had us read Fahrenheit 451, another banned book that was coincidentally all about banning and burning books to keep people numb.
These books stuck in my brain: whether it was a school assignment like Lord of the Flies or a personal pick like Perks of Being a Wallflower, the older I got, the more it seemed like any book worth reading had been banned, or at least challenged. Coming of age with social media fueled this fire by showing me even more books outside of my small town’s periphery.
I had access to these books because I had access to money and parents who wanted to buy me books. Not everyone has this funding or encouragement.
Aside from Beloved, which was being read for a high school AP English class, most of the books up for debate are simply available. They aren’t being forced into every child’s hand so that they have to learn about gender or police brutality or mental health or anything that they may feel the weight of in their real lives.
They aren’t required. They aren’t endorsed. They simply exist within the walls of a school building.
Banned books often center marginalized identities or taboo topics. The Hate U Give depicts the police killing of a teenager; Speak talks about a teenage girl’s sexual assault at a party. Gender Queer, the newest addition to this literary canon, is a memoir about non-binary and asexual author Maia Kobabe’s experience with coming out and understanding gender and sexuality.
This canon pairs well with the right’s moral panic over Critical Race Theory, which they have co-opted and has become a dog whistle for white supremacy. The fear of teaching students any history that depicts our country in a negative light is spreading across subjects.
For public school students living anywhere in North Carolina, these books may be their only means of understanding their own identities, or the identities of others outside their communities. Sure, students will find another way into those worlds: they have Tik Tok and Instagram and other social media.
But a book means that these identities and experiences are officially documented, no matter how uncomfortable they may be to talk about. Every kid should have access to that.
This story was originally published November 14, 2021 at 4:00 AM.