The American “Banned” Stand
As a bookseller, a former English teacher, and a member in pretty good standing of these United States, the news of Art Spiegelman's Maus being "banned" by a Tennessee school board obviously caught my attention. After reading a variety of perspectives (CNN, FOX, Tennessean.com) and the school board's public minutes, here are my takeaways.
In situations like these, it's awfully easy to jump to conclusions—especially when we feel like our relationship status with Democracy has been downgraded to “It’s Complicated.”
Which is why the first and most important thing is to empathize.
To clarify a common misconception: empathy doesn't mean imagining what YOU would do in someone else’s situation, but instead trying to understand (without the weight of your own biases) what THEY would do in their situation, and why. Remember that this is just a group of regular people doing their best, ones who love their kids and want to do what’s right for them. They deserve at the very least your patience and understanding—especially in times of disagreement.
This is particularly hard when the word "banned" is involved. It immediately evokes images of the Red Scare, Nazi Germany, totalitarianism, 1984, Fahrenheit 451. One briskly concludes that They are censoring Us—or, worse yet, that They are trying to erase Our history by denying the Holocaust happened.
But there's no indication that this is the case. In fact, a statement by the McMinn board acknowledges Maus as "an impactful and meaningful piece of literature" but that "the work was simply too adult-oriented for use in our schools." Importantly, Maus wasn't the only Holocaust material—it had been one part of a larger module on the Holocaust and Japanese Internment. The minutes and ensuing statement leave the discussion open for a replacement. To me, “banned” seems a particularly divisive and reductive choice of words here.
For that reason, it's important to be skeptical of our sources. Having worked many years in news and media, I can easily imagine the editors at FOX and CNN practically frothing at the mouth over a "banned book" headline. Don't forget: the media need your clicks to survive! They monetize your attention, not your intelligence. They need to lure you in with incendiary headlines and biased articles—after which it's oh-so-easy for any reader to go right to social media and take sides. For the health of our society, we desperately need to resist that urge.
All of this, by the way, is not to say that I agree with the McMinn School Board’s decision. As a parent and former educator, I personally believe kids are smarter and more mature than we give them credit for. In the hands of the right teacher, Maus could be a really life-altering experience for many students (as it was for me).
Parents and community members at large should encourage schools to embrace difficult material that broadens their views. Let's talk about history as it happened, from the perspectives of those to whom it happened, no matter how complicated, so that future generations don't go on thinking we've left no mess in our wake.
(Related: I also feel strongly that schools should keep graphic novels on the curriculum—they are both art and literature, but also entirely their own genre that uniquely engages students’ critical and creative thinking.)
For their part, schools have to cater to a large audience, at that means sometimes making a decision to benefit the few at the cost of the many. And for this reason, it's more important than ever for parents to have books like Maus at home on their shelves, where you and your kids can read and discuss them together.
And schools, libraries, PTA, and other local organizations should ensure that all students have access to books outside of the board-approved curriculum—especially books by people whose perspectives are commonly underrepresented in history and literature. I encourage all educators to engage with these excellent non-profits for help in diversifying curriculum:
diversebooks.org
socialjusticebooks.org/booklists/graphic-novels
teachingforchange.org/
And finally, the best we can do, as readers and defenders of literature, is to reach out with compassion and support our neighbors when they most need us. I'm reminded of a quote from Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet:
“…rejoice in your growth, in which you naturally can take no one with you, and be kind to those who remain behind, and be sure and calm before them and do not torment them with your doubts and do not frighten them with your confidence or joy, which they could not understand. Seek yourself some sort of simple and loyal community with them..."
McMinn is not my town, their kids are not my kids. I don't know what's appropriate for someone else's eighth grader, especially when I'm not steeped in that town's values. But perhaps a better headline (though less incendiary and therefore not as click-worthy) would be "School District Seeks the Community's Input on a Book to Replace Maus."
There are literally infinite books — a new one is published approximately every 45 seconds in the US alone. Brilliant as Maus is, if it makes these particular Tennesseans flinch, the book-reading community should rally to help them find the right replacement. Remember, the goal is not to read Spiegelman, it's to accurately teach the Holocaust. Surely we can set down our torches and pitchforks and work together to find a book that’ll engage and enlighten the students of McMinn county.
—
For more on the above topics, here’s a brief list of titles I carry at Transom Bookshop.
On Empathy
"This Is Water" by David Foster Wallace
"Emotional Intelligence" by Daniel Goleman
“Sensitive Is the New Strong” by Anita Moorjani
"Empathy, Why It Matters, and How to Get It" by Roman Krznaric.
Graphic Novels with Diverse Perspectives
"Maus" by Art Spiegelman
"Run" books 1-3 and "March" by John Lewis
“They Called Us Enemy” by George Takei
“This Place: 150 Years Retold” by Brandon Mitchell
“Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood” by Marjane Satrapi
“Displacement” by Kiku Hughes
“Borders” by Thomas King & Natasha Donovan
On Media Literacy
“Stand Out of Our Light" by James Williams
"Calling Bullshit" by Bergstrom & West
On the Holocaust
“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl
“Lily’s Promise” by Lily Ebert
“Night” be Eli Wiesel
“Happiest Man on Earth” by Eddie Jaku
“The Diary of a Young Girl” by Anne Frank
“The Tattooist of Auschwitz,” a novel by Heather Morris
