Opinion | Florida, Texas book bans show conservatives are leading US down road to ignorance

Books and ideas are the latest ‘culture war’ casualties, dispatched by a new generation of anti-intellectuals led by the governors of Florida and Texas

The banning of books touching on race, slavery, racism and LGBTQ issues shows powerful conservatives feel threatened by an accurate recounting of US history

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“Gender Queer”, by Maia Kobabe, is displayed with other books during Banned Books Week at the Lincoln Belmont branch of the Chicago Public Library on September 22, 2022. Photo: TNS

Published: 6:21am, 8 Feb 2023

I am grateful to have lived in the golden age of the United States when I could read any book I wanted. Today, I look back with nostalgia at a time when I learned about Martin Luther King Jnr, Rosa Parks, the Battle of Wounded Knee and this nation’s full participation in the slave trade and the forced resettlement of Native Americans.

My knowledge of my country’s past came not only through books but also throughout my years in the Chicago public school system and in the state universities I attended.

Books and ideas are now the newest “culture war” casualties. They have been dispatched by the latest class of anti-intellectuals, foremost among them the governors of Texas and Florida.

In a report titled “Banned in the USA: The Growing Movement to Censor Books in School”, PEN America has compiled one of the most comprehensive investigations of the nation’s disturbing trend in borrowing from the autocratic playbook of erasing truth while silencing minority voices of colour and of LGBTQ people.

The report is shocking. According to the non-profit that works to defend the freedom to write, there were 2,532 instances of individual books being banned in libraries and schools, affecting 1,648 unique book titles, between July 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022.

The titles are by 1,261 different authors, 290 illustrators and 18 translators, affecting the literary, scholarly and creative work of 1,553 people. Bans occurred in 138 school districts in 32 states. These districts represent 5,049 schools with a combined enrolment of nearly 4 million students.

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