Book Bans - Into Darkness

Jordan Anderson, Jonah Chadwin, Rachel Everett, Caleb Smith, Orelia Thottam, Delisa Troupe

In the second episode of our two-part series, host Caleb Smith explores how book bans affect students and the authors who hoped to spread representation, connection, and understanding with the characters and experiences in their books. Listen on Spotify or Apple Music.

Ashley Perez: Out of Darkness was published in 2015. It received a Prince honor it won the Tomasi better Book Award. It won the America's Book Award. It was a School Library Journal and a Kirkus review Best Book of the Year. It was named by Booklist, one of 50 best YA books of all time, like, you know what I mean? It's been around, and so I think it was like, a bit startling because I think when I first wrote this book, I wondered, how will it be received? You know, will people be ready for it? And initially for the first six years, it was well received, you know, overwhelmingly in positive ways and only in 2021 did it start being banned.

Caleb Smith: Hello and welcome to point of view, where we give students a place to listen, learn and lean in. I'm your host, Caleb Smith, and today we are back with part two of our series on book bans, where we will dive into the implications behind the recent surge of book bands in America. Specifically, how it affects our youth and the authors who are working to help our students learn and grow through their books. Please note that this episode references sensitive topics, including sexual violence and racism, and may not be suitable for some listeners. This is author Ashley Hope Perez.

Ashley Perez: Out of Darkness is set in 1936. And it's a love story. It's about a Latina named Naomi who moves to this community in East Texas, from San Antonio with her two half siblings, so she has younger siblings, and she falls in love with a boy named Wash or Washington. One who’s black.

Caleb Smith: Wash walked the girl out of the yard and down the road away from the house. She could hear their laughter and wondered if he was telling this girl the same jokes he told her down by the river. Once they were gone, Naomi tore down the path into the woods trying to outrun the sob that was Connor’s throat. without remembering the steps in between, or the light in the woods, or the sound of the river. Naomi found herself in the back steps of Henry's house.

Ashley Perez: And this is a sort of the kind of relationship that has no place in this time and in this community.

Caleb Smith: Wash tried keeping his voice calm. But he felt his fear creeping in the stories he'd heard from his father's growing up days in the country. All the ways a black man could die.

Ashley Perez: And so they really kind of create a little family out in the woods, and it's a space of joy and possibility for her and for her siblings. But there are a lot of things set against them.

Caleb: Naomi didn't need to be told she felt safest in the room with the sleeping twins. She did not want to see her mother's empty face, her strange, swollen body drained of color. She did not want to be out in the part of the house where Henry walks.

Ashley Perez: Naomi has an abusive stepfather. And then the book leads up to a real event. The New London School explosion which killed 300 students and teachers, and that event triggers like a downward spiral for these characters.

Caleb Smith: On March 18 1937. A gas leak led to an explosion that destroyed the London School in East Texas. The school had cost a million dollars to build. It was located in one of the wealthiest school districts in the country. And yet a leak had allowed natural gas to accumulate in the basement, killing almost 300 students and teachers. This tragedy known as The New London School explosion is the deadliest school disaster in American history to this day. The content of Perez’s books mirror reality in modern day and in historical texts. The novel tackles racism, classism, and segregation during the 1930s. At the center there's a love story between Naomi and Wash. He reveals the challenges they face from sexual assault to overt racism and fear, real things that real people face. In fact, she writes most of her books with her previous students in mind. She writes about their experiences and their struggles in the same setting where she used to teach.

Ashley Perez: I was a teacher in Houston starting in 2004. And this book What Can't Wait is my first novel which is set in our school. It's about you know, it's about places that all my students recognize. And it was really focused on my students experiences, specifically, their feelings about how complicated it was to figure out how to help their families meet the needs that were coming up every single day, while also finding a way to navigate towards their own future. So college or work or whatever, out of darkness is the historical novel I wrote, for my students, the one I felt what will make them want to keep turning the page, what would make this matter to them. And it matters both because you start, you really come to care about the characters, but also because it shows aspects of our history, like a lot of people know about school segregation, as it affected black Americans. So having, you know, quote, unquote, colored schools, but a lot of people don't know that in places like Texas, there were three ways of segregating students, there was the well, the better funded white school, there was the quote, unquote, colored school. And then there was the Mexican School, which was not for people who were actually from Mexico, but for Latinos, or anybody brown, but not black, not white. And in places like San Antonio, by the time kids were in sixth grade, they were basically pushed out of school. So they were, they had, you know, huge classes, and they didn't have the resources that they needed to learn. And the whole goal was, basically to get kids to drop out. There weren't Mexican high schools there. So you have to be wide enough to go to the white school, or find another way, if you're going to continue in education in many cases.

Caleb Smith: Parent associations or school boards advocate for banning books, they take away real experiences that students may have faced, or will face, they take away literature that is meant to educate in a safe space for open conversation. They take away students’ rights to learn about the different circumstances that people live through, and these students deserve to read literature that they can relate to.

Ashley Perez: To think about all the times that I walked into our high school library with my classes and worked with them to find books, and how excited my students back in 2004 would have been to find these books. It really makes me…, what do I say? I'm not very good at being angry. I don't do anger. It makes me really sad. It does, but it also makes me feel indignant, because we've worked so hard to bring more representation, a wider range of experiences, more of the untold stories into high school libraries, and these actions are all about pushing back on that progress. I know as a teacher, and as a parent that students are the ones that are harmed.

Caleb Smith: Out of darkness a novel by Ashley hope Perez, a Latina author. Was one of the novels targeted or removed in Georgia, Utah, Virginia, Ohio, Indiana and Texas. It had challenges in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas as well. The book was first banned in Texas schools when Kara Bell interrupted a school board meeting to voice her opinion on the now controversial book. She read a passage from the book pertaining to sexual content and explained how it was unsuitable for kids to be reading. She finished her argument by stating that the school board should focus on education and not public health.

Ashley Perez: And the passage that gets read over and over from my book, as proof that it shouldn't be in schools is about a Latina, arriving to an all-white school on her first day. And it's what the characters that the kids in the class are thinking about her. I'm not endorsing that perspective; I'm showing that it happened that young people had to endure those circumstances and somehow find a way to maintain their dignity at the same time.

Caleb Smith: Miss Perez is not the only one who has fought back against the book bans in the most diverse high school in the state of Missouri, North Kansas City. 10 students condemned their districts and the Northland parent associations attempts to ban books, many of these associations author Perez is familiar with.

Ashley Perez: So there's a bunch of right wing groups like No Left Turn in Education, Moms for liberty, there are some that are specific to Texas, and then there are tons of these some of them private Facebook groups and online groups were basically you know, spreadsheets where folks who are looking to signal I'd say their objections to certain identities, queer identities, non-white identities. They target the books as a way of sending a signal historically, book banning has been focused in banning in schools has often focused on you know, one or two texts, and they were very local challenges like a parent finds a book in their kids backpack and is shocked because books like that weren't in school when they were kids or whatever. You know, this is how like… There were times when authors like Judy Blume were being banned for talking about having your period. So, you know, there's been fights over what kids should read for a long time, but these are really different because it's actually not about the books.

Caleb Smith: The Northland parent association is a nonprofit organization whose goal is to, quote, make a positive impact by protecting our children's educational experiences and fighting for American freedom in the classroom. For the students at North Kansas City High School, this meant banning books from their school, including All Boys aren't Blue, a coming of age novel by George M. Johnson's life growing up queer and black, as well as Fun Home a graphic novel about the author, Alison Bechdel’s childhood and complex relationship with their father.

Aurora Nicol: The NPA which is the Northland parent association, they came to speak at my school district's board meeting and they read some and the president of it Jay Richmond read excerpts from four different books. Well, he read excerpt from three, but then when it came to the fourth book, he just said he was refusing to read an excerpt from it because it was from a gay black man. And apparently that means he didn't have to read the whole thing.

Caleb Smith: Jay Richmond, the head of MPA, along with other supporters of the book bans believe in the right of parents to decide what is best for their kids. They advocate against topics like mask mandates, and teaching critical race theory, emphasizing the importance of choice.

Kate: The book banning was initiated by the Northland parent association. I had been following the Northland parent association for a while. They started gaining popularity last school year at the end, and then this summer, they held a conference that was basically just a bunch of these angry, far right wing parents like rallying together, and they were all upset about masking and critical race theory and, you know, exclusive topics in schools.

Caleb Smith: This is why it's so strange that the supporters of MPAA, the parents may not even have children in the school district they are rallying against.

Phedre: Because it's a giant parent association, the speakers that go and speak up at districts may not necessarily be parents of any children that are in the school district, Miss Kraft, went and spoke at my school district board meeting, but her kids are currently enrolled in a Liberty school. So they're just one giant association, and they go and speak about books and masks, because they want, they claim that they want to take care of their children and make sure that they're the ones that are seeing their children, because they you know, seeing what their children learn about and all that because they're the ones that have the right to take care of their children, and that is true, but the thing is, is that their actions don't match their words, because if they cared for their children particular, they would not overreach the rights of other parents, because that's one thing, one parent may not want their kid to read these books in particular, and that's fine for you to want that for your own child, but when you go into school board meetings, and you're like, No child should read all Boys Aren't Blue, because it's got, you know, it's got gay people in it, and it's like, okay, but other parents may actually want their kids to read that other parents may be indifferent towards that. And it is kind of hypocritical of them to go parents’ rights matter and then completely forget that other parents exist and may actually want their kids to read these things.

Caleb Smith: The NPA made a list of over 25 books, they want to be removed from the district. That same week, the North Kansas City School Board banned four of those books from their school libraries.

Aurora Nicol: I was so surprised to see those on a list like Perks of Being a Wallflower was on there, and I was just like, what nothing happens in these books except for sex or racism, like characters experiencing racism, and by that mark, there are quite literally like thousands of books that need to be removed.

Caleb Smith: In response students Aurora Nicole and Holland Duggan started a petition against the book bans which received over 1100 signatures, but Aurora and Holland are the only students to speak up against the banned books. During the North Kansas City School District Board meeting in November of 2021. 10 students from the North Kansas City High School expressed their opinions on the issue. These students included presidents of the woman's empowerment club, the Asian student, union, and more.

Aurora Nicol: I made eight copies so each board member could get one, and I gave each one of them one, and so I and it literally just said, like every person who signed it their name and then if they made a comment, and I'm guessing those board members probably threw them out, but I really hope some of them kept them.

Caleb Smith: North Kansas City High School is the most diverse high school in the state of Missouri. And yet, it's still easy for students to feel like they don't belong. When books such as all Boys aren’t Blue were banned. It excluded people who would have been able to identify with the author and remove the representation they deserve.

Lynh: A lot of times it was just like, I was identified just on my race and I wish I could have been more than just an Asian, like, girl at the school.

Caleb Smith When right-wing conservative groups such as the Northland parent association, or Mom's for Liberty advocated for removing these books on the basis that they include pornographic or sexual content. They're not acknowledging the true meaning or themes behind these books.

Ashley Perez: It also is clear that these are folks who aren't reading, even if they're not reading these books, they're not reading a lot of other things to, you know, they're not paying attention to the fact that it's not just authors with marginalized identities are writing about marginalized characters who we’re writing about, you know, frankly, about sexual experience or violence are those themes have been in literature since Shakespeare since Chaucer, way before that, the Bible which I've taught as literature at the university level, and I grew up in a Bible Church. So, I know the Bible really well. The Bible is full of graphic depictions of sex, right? Male genitals, incest, like really harmful sexual encounters, murder, like vivid, you know, not, we're not just talking about a mention that it happens. So, these things things exist even in books that we go to as a source of wisdom, the politicians and the political organizations that are pushing the talking points that provide a handbook on here's what you should say, I mean, they're all over online, you can find all the passages that some people think mean Out of Darkness as a terrible book for young people, and you can find the talking points, you never even have to read the book, to be able to make a challenge.

Caleb Smith: Rather than the actual content of the books. Several of the students from North Kansas City High School believe that the MPs decision to censor these books wasn't due to the content, but the refusal to center a white male perspective.

Lynh: If you can change the way that children learn, if you can change what they learn as well, then you have created a new generation of people who think just like you, they use the word pornographic as just the reasoning, but books such as like fences, the only mention of like pornography really in there is just the main character cheating on his wife, which I find it very interesting, because most of these book came from people of color. So I think it's just a facade to their real intentions of banning books that provide a different perspective on marginalized groups.

Caleb Smith: Due to stress from these books, the North Kansas City school district passed over the formal process of removing these books from libraries exacerbating the issue.

Lynh: They're getting really frustrated, because they're supposed to get notified that books are being you know, taken off the shelves, and they didn't get any notification. So it was really frustrating at the time, because it definitely showed that our district was susceptible to that kind of rhetoric that says, you know, oh, these books need to be banned, because this and this, but I am so proud of our district's ability to bounce back from that and to go, No, we're going to keep these books.

Caleb Smith: The books ended up being back on the shelves within the same month, the morning the North Kansas City High School students spoke up at the board meeting.

Aurora: They took away those books for a month in my library. But during that month period, when I you know, the petition was going, my friend Holland reached out to the to the ACLU. And the ACLU also threatened our district that they were going to sue them for removing the books. So they put the books back in the library, kind of the same day that my classmates and I went to speak to our school board.

Caleb Smith: Although the issue was resolved in that school district book banning is still a nationwide problem. For students without easy access to a free public library. Taking these books off the shelves could restrict them entirely.

Ashley Perez: And in fact, the students who most rely on school libraries for access like my students in Houston, some of whom did not have the time or resources outside of school to go to the public library and check out something if it had been removed from our library. So, it was really important that they could find things in the school library.

Caleb Smith: Of course, parents have the right to oversee what their kids read in order to protect them. However, district-wide book bans are not necessary for individual parents to protect their own children. They're already methods in place for parents to accomplish this.

Lynh: I have met some parents, I talked to some parents who don't want their kids to read that. And I think that those parents should just abide to like the regular library rules are already set in place where if you don't want your, you know, kid to read the material, then you can go on to the school website, and, you know, block your kid from checking out those things. That's always been, you know, I thing you could have done but these parents are completely ignoring that and that just speaks to how discriminatory they are.

Caleb Smith: By letting a group of people decide for other parents with their children can read. It takes away the rights of many parents to decide what they want for their children to have access to, and even when books are put back on shelves, it can have lasting effects. This can include both soft, and self-censorship.

Ashley Perez: Self-censorship can be more like a principal making comments to the librarian to signal we don't really need more books like X, Y, or Z, even though those books may be important for young people in the library, and the librarian’s job is to fill that library with the books that you all need that meet your needs, and no book is going to be for everybody, right, but if someone needs that book, it needs to be in the library.

Caleb Smith: Perez is an established author and a professor, she does not have to rely on her bookselling to make a living, but for many newer authors, book bans could be their downfall.

Ashley Perez: In my case, I'm a university professor. So I have a job that helps me feed my two kids, even if none of my books sell or I never get asked to do another school visit, which would break my heart, but I haven't done a single school visit since all of this started, because schools don't want to create controversies. Um, but I will be okay financially. However, there are authors who depend on book sales for a living and there are new authors like this is my third book, I have two books that are under contract, so I don't have to worry that my next book is not going to get published because of this book ban stuff. People who are publishing their first book and having it banned, could be the end of a career.

Caleb Smith: As parents and schools implement these bands, they turn a blind eye to the meaning behind these books, and their impact on the students that read them. Books like Maus teach important historical themes relating to the Holocaust, resonating with a great number of Americans.

Aurora: Maus is a story written and illustrated by Art Spiegelman. It is the only graphic novel to ever win a Pulitzer Prize. And it follows the story because it was originally presented between the seventh 1970s and 1980s in a series of chapters, but it follows the story of Art Spiegelman's father and his father's life as it was in the Holocaust from like, just before the Holocaust to when the war is over, and they were able to come to America. And it's, it's this really just, like, heartbreaking tale. And it's, it definitely, it plays on the trope because during the Holocaust, Jewish people were primarily associated with vermin. So like as an there are, there's a direct quote from Hitler in mouse that equates Jewish people with vermin. So Art Spiegelman takes that and uses that and all of the Jewish people in the book are depicted as mice.

Caleb Smith: If sweeping book bands related to these events continue, then the new generation cannot learn from their mistakes that we have made in the past.

Lynh: I'll admit, I had no idea why Jewish people were stereotyped as being like money, hoarders like that whole stereotype until I read Maus, and then when I read Maus, I was like, Oh, dang, that's why because when they were in the Holocaust, they had to use their personal objects and items, like that's why they had to be, you know, smart about how they got their money, because they needed to be because if they didn't, they wouldn't survive, and I didn't know that. Had I not read Maus, or had I not, you know, actively gone out and go, I want to read Maus or I want to learn more about this. If I had not had that mindset of wanting to learn, I would never have gotten, I'd never had deepened my perspective, and it changed what I knew. It's a very excellent book, and I it definitely made me like helped me learn a lot and it helped just paint this bigger picture because when we learn about Holocaust in our history classes, it's often this nebulous idea of terror instead of something personal and the book definitely brings how horrible it was, it brings it personal and it brings it close.

Caleb Smith: Fences. A play by August Wilson is centered around the life of Troy Maxon, and his complex relationships with other characters. It explores his thwarted dream of playing in the major leagues for baseball, as a black man and his conflicted relationship with his wife and son. Troy is a tragic hero, someone who displays how the long standing division between black and white affects future generations of black Americans. explicit content happens everyday in the real world. These books are in elementary school libraries, and rarely are the they in middle school ones. These books are meant for high schoolers, who may be months away or years from becoming an adult. Even if readers are not able to relate with these characters. Reading gives them the opportunity to learn from them.

Aurora: All Boys aren't Blue like I am queer myself. So that has a personal connection to me and I know that queer stories are very graphic and dark and that we don't we shouldn't hide those aspects of queer stories or you know, any other types of stories because it is reality that people face this and people should learn about it. These kids who don't get that type of support at home and don't get that type of support other places. can't access them, and so you know, school is a safe place to talk about those types of topics. In all honesty, like those types of topics should be discussed that schools like in our IB literature class, we definitely talk about like rape in books, and we talk about molestation and all these like hard topics because it's an educational environment where we can explain you know, the depth of them and what they represent, and I think that's an important opportunity that all kids should get out of.

Caleb Smith: Out of darkness, All boys aren't blue, Fences, Maus are just several of the hundreds of books being banned nationwide. They are under attack being called filth, disgusting, inappropriate, or pornographic, but books like these have had positive effects on so many students. Books like these allow students to relate to the characters to learn from their actions to understand the world from a different perspective. Books like these are more than the cuss words, violent explanations, or explicit material of the content inside. Books like these should be judged based on the intention of the author, and the message they try to convey through their writing. By keeping these books, it allows us as a society that is more inclusive and welcoming towards the decisions children make about their sexuality, race, status, religion, and identity. It helps us break the trauma and challenges children face today. When parents Facebook groups, school districts refuse to have these books in schools, when they call these books, filth, disgusting, inappropriate, and pornographic, they exclude people who may have experienced those things, they exclude people who may relate with the characters, and they take away the opportunity for students to learn.

Ashley Perez: It is a tragedy too, because there's a there's a lot of harm and hurt in this book. In spite of that, I hear from readers that they end the book both like heartbroken and hopeful because they see what that the family that Wash and Naomi and the kids make, should be given room in the world. Right, and maybe in this day and age, there's not the same level of negative response to interracial relationships that there was at the time, but there are other forms of love, that don't have space to thrive, and I think that it's really powerful to fallen in love ourselves with characters, and then want them to have space to grow and care for each other, and when they don't get to have that space. I think it makes readers and certainly makes me want to build a better world. I want a world where that love is possible. I want a world where young people get to matter and feel safe in their schools. And that's not the world that Washington, Naomi live in, and it's not the world that we live in either, and there's a lot of work to do.

Caleb Smith: As books are still being banned in several states and more soon to come. We hope the truth comes to light on what banning these books can truly do to society. Thank you for listening to our final episode on book bans. For a transcript of this episode, head to the point of view tab on our website, nhsmessenger.org and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook at @nhspointofview for more updates and new episodes. I'm your host Caleb Smith, and this has been Point of View.