- [Narrator] This program is made possible through support from Bloomsburg University.

(upbeat music) From the WVIA studios, WVIA and Bloomsburg University present "Conversations for the Common Good Civil Discourse, Civic Engagement.

Librarians Challenged Books Banned What Can Be Read in Public Libraries, and Who Decides?

A Community Conversation."

- Hi, I'm Larry Vojtko, coming to you from the Sordoni Theater in the studios of WVIA.

Welcome to the latest edition of "Conversations for the Common Good."

Today, librarians challenged books banned, what can be Read in Public Libraries, and who decides?

A community Conversation.

This is the second in a series exploring contestant narratives about the history of our nation and the ongoing struggle to live up to the ideas formulated in the constitution, the persistence of racial inequality, the role of racism in the history of America, LGTBQ rights and other issues have become topics of controversy.

And this controversy is now reaching into our public libraries.

Individuals and groups are seeking to ban books that do not reflect their worldview.

In this program, we'll try to answer these questions, what are these books and why do some find them objectionable?

How do those who want certain books pulled from public shelves operate in the nation at large and in Pennsylvania specifically?

How are libraries and authors reacting to the book banning initiatives?

What role do professional scholars in history and literature have to play amid this controversy?

Are political leaders part of the solution or part of the problem?

Now let's meet our panel of special guests who are here to add perspective to the conversation.

Lydia Kegler is a Library Director of the Bloomsburg Public Library.

Dr. Kegler is sensitive to attempts to restrict reading materials in public libraries, and recently oversaw the creation of collection development policies designed to value public complaints while projecting institutional commitment to intellectual freedom.

Susan Campbell Bartoletti of Scranton PA is an author of both fiction and nonfiction and a specialist in children's literature.

Dr. Bartoletti not only has experience writing on controversial topics in U.S. and world history, but has also been the target of book banning activists.

Russell Rickford is with us via Zoom.

Dr. Rickford is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University, and a specialist in African American social and political history, and an author of an impressive number of publications, mainly dealing with the African American experience during the 20th century.

And of course, welcome to those of you who are joining us on our video stream.

Now, if you have a question for our panelists, you can email info@wvia.org or submit your question online at wvia.org/conversations or on social media, use the #wviaconversations.

Now, just a reminder that following this discussion, you can view this program on demand at WVIA.org.

Well, let's get started by examining the scope of this particular problem.

The organization, PEN America released a report titled "Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in Schools."

And it found that between July, 2021 and June, 2022, there were 2,532 instances of individual bans, which covered 1,648 books.

Now, Dr. Rickford, I'll start with you.

Are there certain issues, phrases, words, or other characteristics that books identified as being unsuitable for public consumption, are there any commonalities?

Are there any patterns that pop out?

- Yeah, I think that there have been bannings really widespread attacks on a whole variety of books.

I think that we can see patterns, but actually, I would go beyond the question of book bannings specifically and talk about what I see as a larger campaign, a larger attack against critical thought, against anti-racism, against a whole number of challenges to the status quo in our school curricular and beyond.

And I think that these attacks can't be separated from the backlash against movements like Black Lives Matter and other social movements that have been causing a real reckoning in our society.

And I think that we have to historicize these kind of campaigns.

I don't think these attacks from the right on critical consciousness, on anti-racism, on even the possibilities of awareness about, let's say the racial path to the United States they're not new.

We look at periods after World War I, after World War II when there's similar panics and there's a similar mobilization of these kind of scare words, whether it's critical race theory or what have you, to cause people to basically give their consent to the closing of our minds and the foreclosure of the possibility of the critical dialogue that we need to move people to activism, to action in their daily lives.

So I think we can have a conversation about book banning, but I think there's a larger question of what are people able to think about and read about and learn about?

And what is the relationship to social change and ongoing social movements?

- Well, we really want to try to focus on this particular issue of book banning and what we can possibly do about it, but of course, it's hard to... human knowledge doesn't really work like that in little pockets.

It's all connected.

And of course, the way that we learn about our world, about the human experiences through reading.

But there were a couple of issues that you brought up that I'd like to unpack.

First of all, Dr. Kegler, in your experience, these attacks, and I'll use Dr. Rickford's word, the attacks have they been increasing in the last several years or has this been a continual drum beat, or if there is an acceleration, has it been a precipitous acceleration or has it been a gradual acceleration?

- I very much like the image of the drum beat.

It has been with us a long time.

There have always been books, depending on what political era that have been called upon, had been looked at and challenged.

However, in the last 10 years, this has changed dramatically and differently.

In the last three years, it has got skyrocketed.

It is quadrupled.

There were thousands where we used to have hundreds, and we see that there's a great change and a change in how and who is leading a change.

In my training, 20 years ago as a librarian, when I came to be a director, we would be thinking about the individual who would come, who'd be disturbed by a particular book or a parent who's unsure if a book should be on the shelf for a young child to just take.

But now we are seeing groups that are highly organized, not an individual that you can talk to as part of the community that you can have a dialogue with, listen to one person and often satisfy them to then walk away from the library knowing that you're taking good care.

And now we're seeing these groups that part of the parents' rights groups that are highly organized nationwide, then set up different associations in a state, and then also help their members to communicate with librarians and with elected officials to then give them a script.

So it's very organized, and that's an onslaught.

If you get five, 10 emails, that can be impressive to a library director.

- Now, Dr. Campbell Bartoletti, you were an author yourself, you write fiction, nonfiction, and you have been a subject of having one of your books or multiple books being challenged or asked to be banned.

Can you tell us about that experience?

- Well, the first time I became aware of it was when a friend sent me an email and said, "Look, you made the Washington Post."

And then I began to hear from other friends who were saying, "Look, you've been on... you've made 'Good Morning America' you've made the various news outlets."

And I realized then that my book was being challenged.

My book is, they call themselves the KKK, which is the history of the first wave of the KKK in our country.

And it was being challenged in Texas because it appeared on a list of 850 books that were considered questionable, and a husband and wife couple then submitted my book along with hundreds of other titles.

I think that was like 400 and some titles to be pulled from the shelves of this one particular school district in Texas.

I read through the complaint for each book, and each complaint was the same.

They had simply photocopied what they had written the first time, made many copies of it, compiled the list, submitted it, and they were saying that my book was teaching critical race theory, that it had pornography in it, which it does not, and that it was unsuitable for junior high and high school students.

- And is that the readership you were intending to reach?

Is that.

- Yes, my readership is like, I typically write for seventh, eighth grade, and higher.

- So if I understand this correctly, you had a couple that now it was just this one couple that.

- Well, they were starting in the one school district, but the list came.

- Okay, so now they took a list.

Now this goes back to what you were saying, organizations.

Okay, so they got some list from some organization that was compiled and they went down and they- - From the state representative and his name is Eva.

- Okay, so I see.

Well, let's go to Dr. Rickford.

What can you tell us about these organizations?

How did they grow up?

Did they come about organically or where is the roots?

Where do they begin?

Where did they begin to develop?

- Yeah, I don't think that they are organic, although these ideas take on a life of their own.

And particularly, in the absence of the kind of public education and the kind of clear narratives about society that enable people to understand the circumstances of their lives and enable them to grapple with questions of inequality, I think in useful ways, I think that people latch on to these narratives, right?

And I think the right has been very effective at waging these kinds of culture wars and manufacturing narratives and using these kind of scare words, right?

Whether it's woke, whether it's critical race theory, whether it's cancel culture.

Practically nobody who's involved in this conversation, and a lot of folks with loud voices involved in this conversation.

Practically, nobody who's railing against critical race theory has any idea what critical race theory means.

And it doesn't matter.

That's not the point.

The point is to suppress a conversation about racism and to suppress critical consciousness in our schools and in our society.

So this has been a very convenient crusade for those who are trying to insulate the status quo.

I'm sorry, go ahead.

- I would just like to point out to the viewers that we covered critical race theory and talked a lot about that in the first conversation of this season, which is available on demand, because that was about how history teachers are being challenged.

So if you'd like to learn more about that, then you can go on demand to view that.

But Dr. Rickford, you keep bringing up, it's all coming from the right, is it all coming from the right and why is that so?

Are there not people on the left who object to some of the books that are being adopted within the library system?

- Well, I think the reason to focus on the right is as I think that the very conversation and the framing of the conversation empowers a conservative agenda and in fact a reactionary agenda, not just conservative act, but actually an attempt to take us back to an even more backward past, right?

A past in which our curricular readings available to students, to young people did not acknowledge, right?

Any identity, any narrative, any experience, but a very sort of narrow identity, right?

So I think it really is about turning back the clock, but more than that.

I mean, my emphasis is on anti-racism and my emphasis is on anti-racist social movements.

But quite frankly, I think that these kinds of attacks on books, on curricular, on teachers, again, it's really about insulating the status quo and discrediting any kind of challenge, challenge to racism, challenge to misogyny, challenge to heteronormativity and homophobia, et cetera.

And even though I focus on anti-racism, I recognize for example, that a movement, like a racial justice movement, like Black Lives Matter, part of the reason why it's so threatening to conservatives is that it goes far beyond the question of racial, it goes far beyond the question of policing.

It goes far beyond even the question of racial justice.

Once people are mobilized, once people begin to acquire the grammar, the language to think critically about their society, about the status quo, to think critically about their place within it, then it starts to raise a number of other questions, right?

And so a movement like Black Lives Matter is also interacting intellectually and socially with a whole number of other movements that we're also witnessing.

We're seeing a wave of economic justice movements of labor unrest, of wild catch strikes, of industries organizing from Starbucks to Amazon, et cetera.

So I think that in that context, there's an array of people deeply invested in the status quo who want to discredit the entire conversation.

And I think that when you start to create a grievance narrative, right?

That says that people who are talking about racism, they're, in fact the problem.

They're rupturing these essential American principles.

You put people on the defensive, and then such as some of our guests here today, and then they find themselves defending their work based upon the sort of framework of debate that is created by their opponents.

So even the conversation in ways unfolding, I think the right has already won in many respects.

- I have a question that came in from a viewer.

Bill asks, "There seems to be a worry, there seems to be a worry operating among some proponents of book censorship about regimentation of political opinion.

How valid a concern is that in your view?"

And Dr. Kegler, do you have a comment to that?

- That's something you hear all the time, that there is that danger, that threat.

This is something that comes up more in school curricula and school libraries.

I can't speak to that very well, but they have a real challenge and it's uphill to, because of curricula is very tightly controlled and laid out.

They have a lot of trouble.

- And that for a very good reason.

- For very good reason, well, just also just functional to be able to march through a year and make sure you cover entire piece of information.

So it is a challenge.

- Yes.

- I add to that because yes, the school curricula is very regimented.

And that's the reason why we need books that go outside the curriculum.

That's why these books are necessary in classroom libraries and school libraries and in public libraries.

I find readers, young people are so curious, they wanna know, so they wanna know more information than just presented in history class.

Something might spark their curiosity.

They wanna go find a book on the subject.

That book needs to be there.

Not only are they even the very youngest kids, kindergarten kids, first graders, they're so curious.

But then as they get older, they want more of an explanation, and these are kids, kids are natural philosophers.

They wanna ask questions.

Why did this happen?

Why do we have this?

And you can't cover it all in the curriculum, but we can... teachers are wonderful, they're magnificent at sparking the curiosity that will send those young readers to the library.

The librarians are fantastic at helping them dig out the information.

And so even multiple points of view, we talk about regimentation, but you can go to the library and find six books on one subject all written by different people.

I'll use an example, I have a book called "Terrible Typhoid Mary."

And the year that that book came out, another author also had written a book on the same subject.

So those books are side by side in the library, two different points of view.

One more point I'd wanna make is we talk about the people who are organized and banning books.

I find that they're losing an opportunity because instead of connecting with readers, with their children over the subjects that children want to know more about over the books that they're bringing home, they're closing that door and they're nailing the window shut.

- Absolutely, absolutely.

And it's intentional.

It's one thing to guide your child.

It's another thing.

I don't know if there's an ability to even talk to these groups.

What I find more helpful is to talk to those people who are silent, who aren't coming forward, that are in the community, concerned about what's being taught and the banning, and to talk to them, to mobilize them to come out.

It's an election year who do you really know those people that are putting themselves up to lead us?

And that question right there is mobilize them.

There's like 70% of people are against book banning, but they're not as loud as those few.

- Well, and they're driven by a fear.

And I mean, yes, I think that we're all presented with so much information on a daily basis that it's just hard to even, we don't have the bandwidth to process it all.

And so there's so much being thrown at us as adults.

There's so much being thrown at our kids.

And I think that parents are looking like, okay, what can I do?

What can I do about all of this?

So instead of taking the time to connect to, they're losing that opportunity.

And I think that we could just move the discussion with these people who wish to regulate what children are reading to that.

I think maybe we'd make some progress.

- And I think you identified the main root of what's driving this, and this is that motion of fear, which is so powerful.

And Dr. Rickford had mentioned that before, that there's this desire to turn the clock back.

And I sometimes wonder is that vision of the utopia of the past, is that a true, accurate memory, a vision or is it half imagined?

I have another question here, and I'll go to you, Dr. Rickford on this.

Why can't people just say, I don't wanna read that.

So why do they want it banned?

That's not a book I wanna read.

What's the goal of the ban?

Why don't people just say that's not of an interest to me, or that offends me, I'm not gonna read that?

- I mean, 'cause they wanna control the conversation.

I think it's actually, it's seductive to...

I mean, I think it's tempting to explain these crusades, this kind of what I see as clear repression, as motivated by fear.

But I think that actually what we need to do is understand what is truly at at stake here.

And I think what's at stake is legitimacy, right?

This is or these are attempts to narrow the scope of legitimate conversation, legitimate discourse, legitimate debate.

And that is happening because when you narrow the scope of conversation, you narrow consciousness and it's easier to subject people, right?

It's easier to control people.

So I think that the paradigm is not necessarily fear, the paradigm is power.

The whole discourse about our kids being groomed that somehow the left that these sort of subversive forces, anti-racist or what have you, are trying to undermine our children.

It's very powerful and it's very compelling and it's very effective.

And what it does is it sort of shifts the terrain, it shifts the conversation.

It allows very retrograde forces to claim a kind of moral high ground and attempt to control the conversation.

And I think that we should see this for what it is.

It's an attempt to control the conversation and control consciousness.

- I agree that it is an attempt to control, and I think that one very effective way to control people is through fear.

And that to me is how fear plays into it.

Let's make parents afraid of what their teachers are sharing in class.

Let's make parents afraid of what their children are reading, and let's make them afraid of, instead of expanding children's experiences by letting them meet people who may think differently and be different than they are in books, they are looking to control that before that experience even happens.

- Well, we're about halfway- - And I guess part of the reason why I'm stressing that this is a bid for power, that it's a power, it's an attempt to grab power.

And certainly yes, there's always fear involved and ignorance involved, but I think, look, it's an attempt to reassert legitimacy, to reassert the legitimacy of certain narratives and to discredit challenges to those narratives.

So I'm a historian, right?

So I think in terms of historical narratives, I think particularly in a moment when, let's say white supremacy seems in jeopardy because of social movements, including Black Lives Matter, that's when you get this sort of reassertion of these kind of denialism, right?

Denialism of let's say America's racial past, denialism of historical facts and the attempt to suppress any conversation, like critical race theory.

I know we don't want to talk about critical race theory, you already had that show, but it's just another example of a scare word, right?

As was used in the time of McCarthyism, as was used in these other moments of deep repression to mobilize people and to discredit any kind of a questioning of American identity, of American history.

So I think the effort is really to reassert the notion of an innocent America, a perpetually innocent America, right?

And any discussion about racism, any discussion about homophobia, et cetera, threatens that.

And that is a question of power, right?

So, I mean, maybe we can have the conversation about fear and the bid for power at the same time.

- Well, really books are really about ideas and communicating ideas.

So, your point is well taken.

And I think it's important that we state that the people are making these decisions about what books are to be assigned or put on a reading list or put in the libraries.

The people making these decisions are professionals.

These are people who have dedicated their careers and the study and hard work and their passion to understand how to choose books for the appropriate age to put forth an idea.

It also includes how well written the book is, the style of that book.

These are all professionals who are making these decisions.

So when these attacks occur, they're almost an attack on professionalism, on people who have devoted their lives to certain pursuits.

And we don't see those kind of attacks, say on doctors or dentists or any other sort of professions, but somehow we're under attack in education.

There are lots of other questions here, but I just wanna ask one quick question as a librarian.

When someone comes up to you to challenge a book or demand it be banned or whatever, they have a problem with it, what's the first question you ask that person?

- Have you read this book?

How familiar are you with it?

And maybe a third question be, how did you find out about this book?

- And what is the normal answer to that question?

Did you read this book?

- I have to say I'm very lucky.

I've never had this kind of an aggressive conversation, but for my colleagues, usually the answer is no.

And I was informed by, and then fill in the blank.

- There's a question from a viewer.

How can public libraries depend on a public funding respond to the demands that books should be banned?

- That is very, very difficult.

I have to say in Pennsylvania, we are very fortunate because more than half of the libraries are independent of any local government, which gives us an advantage and a protection to be able to develop our collections as we see that we need to do for our communities.

This is the challenge for organizations to step up and meet their mission, to express that.

It's a time to look carefully at those missions and to make sure you meet that.

There are librarians who feel personally intimidated.

It is a really tough decision to think about whether or not your library will be attacked, defunded, defamed, and your own paycheck.

And that's, I do not fault at all, anyone who steps back from that fight.

I do not.

- Yeah, so there's fear on the other side of the equation as well.

I wanna go back to this idea of professionalism and decision making.

So Dr. Bartoletti, when you decide to write a book and you're choosing a topic, walk us through that process a little bit.

- Typically, I like to look at the lives and the experiences of people who have lived through some survived and some do not through difficult times.

And that's one of the things, when I find myself thinking about a topic, I'm considering that.

When we're writing for young people, there's one rule, and that is that there must be some kind of hope in the book.

And so, you know what you'll find is, of course, every rule can be broken, but what you find is that most books for young people do offer some kind of hope.

The other thing that I follow as I'm researching and I'm writing is that I don't believe that I don't hold onto just that there's only one set of truths for one set for adults and one set for children.

I think that both children and adults should have this.

I hold to the same truths for both of my readers.

So when I find a subject that I'm interested in, of course, I begin by learning as much as I can about the subject, looking for experts to interview, looking for people who will vet my book once it is written.

And that's what leads the way.

- So we have some guiding principles.

There has to be an element of hope, there has to be an element of truth and truth is truth or accuracy.

Any other guiding principles as far as how we can measure your intent and what the goal is, what do you want the reader to take away from that experience of reading your book?

- Okay, well, coming back to this idea of what is true is truth.

I mean, to me, facts are what is true, okay?

And so once the facts are true, then I can build on the truth of the story.

And I think that the truth of the story comes from, where I'm standing, where the story stands.

So to me, a book can have a fact that is incorrect, but still be true, can still have an element of truth to it.

- So Dr. Rickford, on that same idea, so when you make an assignment, a reading assignment, or even suggesting on a reading list, and what is your intent?

You perhaps assigning a book that some might find controversial.

Is your intent to persuade that reader to adopt that perspective or those beliefs, what is your intent in making that assignment?

How do you think about that?

- Well, I think first of all, I mean, we should acknowledge, I don't think that that anybody who's in the history profession now, whether that's a history teacher or a history professor, I don't think any of us that are really serious who write history and teach history and interpret history would pretend to pure objectivity.

I mean, obviously, we get into this business in part because of our values quite often because of commitment to social justice.

But look, honestly, let's not, and I think your guests suggested this earlier.

Let's not insult our students by just regarding them as lumps of clay that are just sort of infinitely malleable.

And that furthermore will accept any kind of political line that we feed 'em.

No, they're very, very critical.

The better students they are, the more critical they are.

They ask challenging questions.

And so my job is not to indoctrinate students, although it's a very convenient narrative for the right to rehearse this notion that somehow the academy is full of these leftists.

I wish that were the case.

I mean, my goal is, as a historian, when I assign particular narratives, I assign narratives that are going to enable and empower my students to think critically about the past and to think critically about social change and to become more self-aware about their own philosophies of social change, right?

How does societies change over time?

And as I tell my students, all of my students, when they walk in the door, their first day of class, they already have some notion of some philosophy of historical change, but usually they haven't reflected on it consciously.

And that's what we do over the course of the term here at Cornell in the history courses, is we enable and we empower students hopefully if we're doing our jobs to think critically about the past and to develop their own narratives of social change.

But I do think that this conversation about professionalism, I think it can be a little misleading because I don't think these books are being banned, and I don't think the curricula is being challenged.

I don't think anti-racist curricula and books are being challenged because there's a question about expertise or there's a question about professionalism.

I think they're being banned because these people oppose an anti-racist agenda that they're trying to reassert a white supremacist narrative, let's say, of the United States.

And I think that's what's at stake.

I think it's really important that we understand and that's what's at stake particularly, in light of the fact that there are many vulnerable people, including teachers, many of whom have already been fired, punished, are already facing the consequences of this who really don't have too much power, right?

And of course, that there's this kind of witch hunt atmosphere in which students, parents, et cetera, are being encouraged to call hotlines and to sort of surveil their teachers and to snitch, et cetera.

I think, look, people of conscience have to recognize this is this for what it is.

This is a crusade against critical thought and this is a crusade to insulate white supremacy and a white supremacist narrative about who we are as a society and who we've been in the past.

And so I think people of conscience are called to struggle actively against this agenda.

I think this is a call to activism, and I don't think we should be misled that this is really motivated because people's historians or writers professionalism or expertise is really what's in question.

- I have another question here.

This is really meant I think for someone who has some experience in teaching, but it does resonate and perhaps all of our panelists can ask or comment on this or have some advice.

How do we push back on the parents who want to ban a book, since most administrative staff at schools will cave to the parents.

So how do we handle that when those above us, and I don't know Dr. Rickford, if you had any experience with this, of having some of your assignment or some of the books you assign being questioned.

So if you have an experience like that and how you handle that, that could be helpful.

- Well, I think I'm in a more privileged position than a lot of history teachers.

Not only because I'm teaching at the college level, but because quite frankly I teach at an elite, a private institution, I think in a lot of ways, and I'm tenured, so I think in a lot of ways I'm insulated against the kind of backlash and the kind of attacks.

I have faced those in the past for various political positions, but not in a way that was ever seriously jeopardizing my career or livelihood.

But I do think, look, there is a tendency among I mean I move in, let's face it, progressive circles.

It doesn't really necessarily look like the rest of America in a lot of ways.

And in the circles I'm moving, there is a tendency to dismiss these kind of, or sort of ridicule these kind of movements and to just reject and dismiss them as sort of ignorance.

I think these are very serious times and I think the stakes are very high.

I think we have to take these movements seriously and see them for what they are crusades against critical thought.

And for me, I'm less invested in this sort of legislation I'm less invested in what kind of formal political leaders, how they would react to that.

And I'm much more interested in how the rank and file, how everyday Americans and how people of conscience in particular will respond to this moment.

I think that this is the question of what is the legitimate scope of topics of subjects that are young people can be exposed to?

I think this is absolutely connected to larger questions of social justice, of racial justice, of justice in the realm of gender, sexuality, et cetera.

So I think this is a very serious political issue and should be treated as such.

- But getting back to that question though, do you have any advice for this teacher?

- Yes, I find that schools need to have a plan, all right?

And plans can be found, I believe, at the American Library Association website where if a parent is going to challenge a book, there is a form that needs to be filled out.

The parent has to have read the book, the parent has to come up with the thesis statement and the evidence to support that thesis statement.

Also, you need a strong administration who will also support that plan.

And you need a school board who's going to support the administration and their teachers.

Also, you have students who are wonderful activists and they are also getting involved across the country and fighting against efforts to ban challenged books and more information about that can be found online.

I think PEN organization has information about that.

But what also concerns me is what we would call gray censorship, where a principal might hear from a parent about a particular book and that member of the administration might take it upon herself or himself to go to the library, take the book off the shelf, and not let it have it returned.

And to me, again, it comes down to strength, strength in the ranks.

In my research to pick up on what our guest has said in the research, I've come across a lot of books that I've read.

I don't agree with them, I argue with them.

I journal a lot.

I argue in my journal with the books so that when I am eventually then with writing the book on that subject, I have already thought through some of the biggest and the depth of the research that I'm going to need to include.

- Well, we're only about 10 more minutes in the program, and maybe this is something like the lightning round of this particular program, but in preparing for this, I was looking at lists of banned books, and I was really surprised at the number of books that I have read, some of which I hold very closely in my heart and have be a big impact on me over the years.

And I just wanna read off a couple of these, and if you have heard that they're banned and know why they were a banned, if you could give me maybe a sentence or two of why that is.

And so just raise your hand or ring the bell or whatever when I read the name of the book, "The Diary of Anne Frank."

- I'll take that for 500.

- Okay.

- Yeah, that book has been challenged because Anne Frank talks about menstruation in that book.

There's the mention of her coming Sexual Identity in that book.

And so that book of course has made its way into many classrooms, but it has been bowdlerized where those sections have been removed.

But once, do you know if you've read the real book?

- Yeah.

- And I mean, again, you're talking about a book that's intended for usually high school, junior high or high school.

- Here's another, Maya Angelou's "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings."

Why would that be banned?

Dr. Rickford, any idea?

- Well, I mean, like all so much of Maya Angelou's work, Maya Angelou is dealing with questions of identity and critical consciousness.

I mean, what happens when a young person reads "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" is they start to understand the way in which oppressed people may internalize some of the assumptions of the majority culture, may internalize some of the principles, for example, of racism.

And so any critical consciousness, any blossoming of critical thought, any social movement starts with subjected people rejecting the internalization of those lies about themselves, right?

Once you start to understand that process, and once you read Maya Angelou's beautiful description of that process, then you can go through, it's liberating, right?

Then you can do that work in your own life, start to reject the lies that society has told you about yourself.

And all of a sudden you are an intellectual, you are an empowered person, you are a critical thinker.

And that is precisely what I think that many powerful people in our society do not want.

They simply want consumers, they want mindless folks who don't have any sort of framework for challenging anything.

And who can be misled, right?

- And yet we're told that in the economy, that's what the employers, that's what they're looking for, critical thinkers that we have to turn out more critical thinkers.

It's a little bit ironic perhaps this is one of my favorite books.

And it really hit me hard as a young, as a teenager when I read it.

I cannot for the life of me understand why anybody would not wanna read this book.

I think it everyone needs "To Kill a Mockingbird."

- "To Kill a Mockingbird."

Any book that challenges a safe narrative, any will be challenged.

And that is one of those books that gives voice to those who don't have voices.

There is critical, there is a huge social justice and it will be challenged.

We love them, they're dear to us, they've been taught, and it's shocking and surprising what will be the "Wizard of Oz."

Comes up on the list so often understand Harry Potter, but the "Wizard of Oz," we all watched it on that one special Sunday night.

It's very difficult.

- Well, as we come to the end of the program, let's try to find some actions that we can take or some solutions or something that we can do.

And we'll get this started with a viewer question, by asserting a false narrative of a moral high ground, how do we challenge those who want to control through book bans without raising their platform more?

So we wanna take action, we wanna push back, but we run the risk of even with this program, of raising that platform more.

Who wants to take that one?

How about Dr. Rickford?

- Yeah, look, I think that we should not shy away from confronting this issue head on.

And we can't be, I think, too worried that somehow having the conversation is going to sort of empower retrograde elements.

But I do think it's important how we have the conversation.

I don't think we should have the conversation on the ground that this sort of fundamentalist want to have it on.

I mean, which is really about putting let's say anti-racist social justice forces, et cetera, on the defensive and forcing us to prove that we're not somehow disrupting a harmonious status quo.

I think we have to be very clear about what's at stake and what's at stake is critical consciousness and what's at stake is power.

And what's at stake is legitimacy, right?

We should not allow ourselves, people of conscience, anti-racist activists, et cetera, we should not allow ourselves to be placed in a position where we are trying to defend the purity of the American experience and the innocence of the American experience.

I mean, these books are controversial because they force us to look at the problems of our society at oppression in our society, at inequality in our society.

And they hopefully should inspires us to confront them.

- And that's the whole point of a lot of these books is to do just that so that we can solve those problems.

Dr. Kegler, you had a comment.

- I have.

And just taking what Dr. Rickford just said to a really practical, what we can do, I invite everyone to get involved with their public library, get a card, renew your card, show up, engage, make comments, tell us what you want, what you don't like.

I also suggest that everyone get involved.

Support your library, buy a ticket to a fundraisers, send that check back when they ask for it.

I would also invite everyone to go to unitedagainstbookbans.org, inform yourself.

We should inform everyone else, this is why I'm responsibility, and there are pledges for candidates for public office.

That's something we can all do today, tonight.

- And Dr. Bartoletti, I'll give you the last word.

- Well, we can also show our support by showing up at school board meetings.

A lot of times these people who are challenging books are very vocal at school board meetings.

And we also can exercise our first amendment rights and show support so that administration know and teachers know that we have their backs as well.

- Well, that goes back to what you were stating before, 70% or something, the poll show that are against book banning.

But the majority doesn't use the voice that they have.

And that goes back to what you were saying to Dr. Rickford, you were saying it starts with individuals taking action.

- Yeah, I would say very briefly, hold study groups, read banned books and read them collectively, right?

I mean, let's really start a counter movement that's uplifting these books.

And let's think critically about why, I mean, who are the interests and what are the interests that want to suppress these conversations.

- Good advice, good advice.

Well, I wanna thank all of you.

I wanna thank the panel and you who are viewing now, the audience to be part of this addition of "Conversations for the Common Good Libraries Challenged, Books Banned."

On behalf of WVIA, I'm Larry Vojtko.

Thank you so much for watching.

And remember, you can watch anytime online on demand at wvia.org.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] This program is made possible through support from Bloomsburg University.

(upbeat music)