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Book Club: The Importance of Feminist Works · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha and welcome to Stephan
0:07
Speaker 1: Never Told You, a production of iHeartRadio. And today we
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Speaker 1: have a very special edition of a book club for you.
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Speaker 1: It's going to be a bit of a discussion around
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Speaker 1: the importance of feminist books and also why we should
0:29
Speaker 1: be paying attention to all of the book banning efforts
0:33
Speaker 1: going on right now. But it's also special because we
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Speaker 1: have a very important announcement. We have been hinting at it,
0:42
Speaker 1: we have been alluding to it, and it's finally time. Yes,
0:48
Speaker 1: it is Samantha and I wrote a book. Wrote damn book.
0:54
Speaker 1: We did. It's hard to believe, honestly, it really really is.
1:01
Speaker 1: We did it. It was a whirlwind and you'll hear
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Speaker 1: more about the process of writing it in our upcoming
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Speaker 1: Monday many. But yes, the book is called Stuff I've
1:12
Speaker 1: Never Told You, The Feminist Past, Present and Future. It
1:16
Speaker 1: comes out on August twenty ninth of twenty twenty three. Yes, good,
1:23
Speaker 1: very good calls that you never know August twenty ninth
1:26
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty three, and you can pre order it
1:29
Speaker 1: at stuff you Should Read books dot com. You can
1:32
Speaker 1: also find a link on our social media channels, so yes, yes,
1:38
Speaker 1: go do it. It was a very daunting process. I
1:44
Speaker 1: was writing any book is, but also writing any book
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Speaker 1: about feminism. Honestly, things changed so quickly, literally chapters we
1:51
Speaker 1: wrote or changing as we were writing them. Yes, because
1:56
Speaker 1: we started the whole thing twenty twenty one. Oh my god,
2:01
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think. Yeah, so we had to keep
2:04
Speaker 1: changing it throughout. But of course we had a lot
2:06
Speaker 1: of people helping on this journey. But yeah, it does
2:10
Speaker 1: feel like there's so much outdated that we can't go
2:13
Speaker 1: can we fix this? Can we fix there? We go
2:15
Speaker 1: back and add this in there? Yeah, and it is.
2:21
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where it reminds me of
2:23
Speaker 1: how my mom feels about when she cooks things, where
2:27
Speaker 1: she's always knitpicking her own cooking. But I'm like, the
2:30
Speaker 1: taste really good. It's hard for me to look at
2:32
Speaker 1: the subjectively, but there are some really cool parts I
2:35
Speaker 1: love about it. One is we were lucky enough. Samantha
2:40
Speaker 1: had this idea like, let's add in this graphic novel
2:43
Speaker 1: elements because we love that kind of stuff, and we
2:46
Speaker 1: were lucky enough to work with a local illustrator named
2:49
Speaker 1: Helen Joy, and Helen turned in our kind of rambling
2:54
Speaker 1: ideas into beautiful art. It's probably one of my favorite
3:00
Speaker 1: parts to the book, having her doing all the wonderful
3:03
Speaker 1: illustrations of some of the stories that we thought were important,
3:07
Speaker 1: and then having some of the best like graphics for
3:11
Speaker 1: again parts of the things that we couldn't say but
3:13
Speaker 1: wanted to show. So she did a wonderful job, and
3:16
Speaker 1: it's so so fun. Yes, it is, it's really really fun.
3:20
Speaker 1: It was. It was fun collaborating process, which we will
3:23
Speaker 1: talk about more in her Monday Many. We were also
3:26
Speaker 1: lucky enough to work with Jane Franzon, who was kind
3:29
Speaker 1: of our editor, ghost writer, basically the person who made
3:32
Speaker 1: sure we got stuff done. Yeah. Like I think we
3:35
Speaker 1: came in with an idea that we would have a ghostwriter,
3:38
Speaker 1: and then she just ended up being our editor and
3:40
Speaker 1: then our manager, kind of our agent. She just became
3:44
Speaker 1: everything a representative and advocate for us. Not only would
3:48
Speaker 1: she go through everything we wrote and be like, Okay,
3:51
Speaker 1: we're going to change this and then this and this
3:53
Speaker 1: and make us sound very smart, thank you very much,
3:56
Speaker 1: but she really wasn't in between for being a translate
4:00
Speaker 1: her yes, between us in the book world, because there
4:03
Speaker 1: are so many things that we don't know in that film,
4:05
Speaker 1: and she was just a pro holding our hands the
4:09
Speaker 1: entire time and making sure that we were equipped to
4:14
Speaker 1: move forward. Yes, because we did not know what we
4:17
Speaker 1: were doing, like not at all full transparency. We did
4:20
Speaker 1: not know. We would ask the most I assume, basic questions.
4:25
Speaker 1: But she was so kind and so yes, helpful, And
4:28
Speaker 1: there would literally be times where one of us are
4:31
Speaker 1: both of us are having a panic attack, and she
4:32
Speaker 1: would like talk us down. Yeah, And she did like
4:37
Speaker 1: even after we were done trying to write acknowledgements of
4:40
Speaker 1: my bio. I would send her my clip. I was like,
4:43
Speaker 1: what do you think of this? She would be like, yes,
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Speaker 1: this is good, but let's add this part. But she
4:47
Speaker 1: was the entire thing was so less painful. Yes because
4:52
Speaker 1: of her. Yes. Yes, So look out for our Monday
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Speaker 1: mini where we're talking more about that. Definitely check out
5:02
Speaker 1: you can see an excert on that website. I read
5:05
Speaker 1: stuff you should readbooks dot com and they chose we
5:08
Speaker 1: also have. Another idea of Samantha's was that there would
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Speaker 1: be these kind of like fictional women interviews. Of course,
5:14
Speaker 1: Princess Leia's in there, but they chose the last of
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Speaker 1: us one. I'm assuming because of current interest to tay
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Speaker 1: show as an excert. So go go check it out
5:24
Speaker 1: and you can see some of the illustrations and they're
5:26
Speaker 1: really really beautiful and amazing, and so we're happy to
5:29
Speaker 1: share it with you. Now we don't have to be
5:30
Speaker 1: like Corey about it anymore, and we'll probably we'll be
5:35
Speaker 1: talking about it more, we'll be mentioning it more. There
5:38
Speaker 1: might even be some like hangouts virtual or in real life.
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Speaker 1: Who knows, who knows what? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Speaker 1: But like we said, it is a very daunting task.
5:49
Speaker 1: And one of the things we wanted to talk about
5:50
Speaker 1: in this is the importance of feminist books and feminism
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Speaker 1: in books. And I was looking it up and there
6:01
Speaker 1: seemed to be some very basic things that kept coming up,
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Speaker 1: and one was defying patriarchal stereotypes, and that that was
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Speaker 1: in particular, even like in children's books or in fictional books,
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Speaker 1: of the importance of younger people to see something that
6:18
Speaker 1: is not what you know, like these kind of traditional
6:22
Speaker 1: patriarchal stereotypes that we normally get fed at a young age.
6:27
Speaker 1: Why that's so important and there is a lot of
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Speaker 1: research and science behind that. There's also just kind of
6:32
Speaker 1: opening up your mind, both of young folks but of
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Speaker 1: older folks, and you and I have talked about that
6:37
Speaker 1: of Basically, for me, it was college and there it's
6:41
Speaker 1: been some a little bit earlier than that, but college
6:44
Speaker 1: was the big period where I started reading these materials
6:49
Speaker 1: or consuming these materials, and it really changed how I
6:53
Speaker 1: looked at the world and made me challenge how I
6:56
Speaker 1: looked at the world, which is hugely important. Also, they
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Speaker 1: provide contexts and education. So many of the books we've
7:05
Speaker 1: focused on in these book clubs have done that, and
7:09
Speaker 1: they've done it so graciously when they honestly don't have
7:12
Speaker 1: to be so gracious, but because it's true, like if
7:15
Speaker 1: you're raised in one environment, it's so helpful to find
7:20
Speaker 1: a book like this that's like, here's why you need
7:23
Speaker 1: to start thinking about this, are questioning this, or are
7:26
Speaker 1: those kinds of things. It's just hugely important and it's
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Speaker 1: like everywhere. I still love that. We've talked about topics
7:34
Speaker 1: ranging from intersexual environmentalism to just basic like able ism
7:42
Speaker 1: or just basic feminism and how it impacts everything and
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Speaker 1: that can help shape how we view the world we
7:50
Speaker 1: live in. The structures around us can give you the
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Speaker 1: tools to combat oppression, to make society better, to recognize
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Speaker 1: the toxic systems and mindsets you've been raised, and yeah,
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Speaker 1: this is sort of it's been very helpful to learn
8:04
Speaker 1: for me, like how everything is intersectional, how you can't
8:07
Speaker 1: just separate out these different threads that they all relate,
8:11
Speaker 1: and there is so much to talk about when it
8:14
Speaker 1: comes to feminism, it touches everything. And that was one
8:16
Speaker 1: of the big struggles we had with this book. Well,
8:22
Speaker 1: so how do we choose what to talk about and
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Speaker 1: what not to talk about? And it's just so so,
8:26
Speaker 1: so so much, But I do think it's very very valuable.
8:30
Speaker 1: I think that it has been I think that I
8:33
Speaker 1: love when we do a book club and they talk
8:35
Speaker 1: about another book that they read that influenced them. Kind
8:39
Speaker 1: of seeing all the impact of these books on how
8:43
Speaker 1: people think and what they write about or what they
8:46
Speaker 1: pursue in starting these conversations that are so so so important.
8:51
Speaker 1: And as we talked about when we kind of did
8:53
Speaker 1: our wrap up of twenty twenty two, we were talking
8:55
Speaker 1: about book club, so many of these books that we've
8:59
Speaker 1: read on here have just kind of opened another pathway
9:03
Speaker 1: in my brain for thinking about something differently or or
9:05
Speaker 1: giving it more context or putting into words, but I
9:07
Speaker 1: couldn't quite put into words. And it's just it's so
9:11
Speaker 1: powerful that kind of exchanging, especially if it's an experience
9:16
Speaker 1: you don't know too much about. It's just it really
9:19
Speaker 1: really can open you up and make you think about
9:22
Speaker 1: things differently in a way that is more conducive to
9:29
Speaker 1: a better world. I would hope. I think something that
9:47
Speaker 1: we have seen in many of the books is that
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Speaker 1: people are really giving themselves and are being vulnerable within
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Speaker 1: these books. And it's it's a privilege to be a
9:57
Speaker 1: part of that just by reading what has been public.
10:00
Speaker 1: When we talk about Bill Hooks or any of the essays,
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Speaker 1: that they really put it all the work so much
10:06
Speaker 1: beforehand that coming back to it and rediscovering it even
10:10
Speaker 1: though it's been around, has been so important. And that's
10:13
Speaker 1: that's why when things are written down, why we find
10:16
Speaker 1: it so important that we continue to read it, because
10:19
Speaker 1: it is it doesn't go away, thank God, And it
10:21
Speaker 1: may take a little while for us to find again
10:23
Speaker 1: or to discover again, but it does. And no matter
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Speaker 1: as we're about to talk about, like, no matter how
10:29
Speaker 1: people might push back, it can't go away, thank goodness.
10:33
Speaker 1: And that's one of the things that we see is
10:35
Speaker 1: that when we take something and are able to really
10:41
Speaker 1: hone in on what it's trying to teach us, that
10:44
Speaker 1: how valuable and how powerful those tools are. And I
10:47
Speaker 1: find it encouraging that we are able to access that today.
10:51
Speaker 1: Me too, Me too. And I think, like I said,
10:55
Speaker 1: there's just so much you can find, such niche things.
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Speaker 1: It's it's amazing and I love it. But it's important.
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Speaker 1: It is important, and like you said, this is even
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Speaker 1: a bigger deal right now given the wave of book
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Speaker 1: banning that we're seeing, especially around gender identity and LGBTQ
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Speaker 1: plus issues under the guys that these books are quote,
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Speaker 1: sexually explicit, and race activism and feminist books are targeted too,
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Speaker 1: as well as sex ed and abortion. I just saw
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Speaker 1: the day in Florida. They're trying to make it so
11:29
Speaker 1: you can't talk administration to people who are a certain age,
11:33
Speaker 1: which is hilarious. But I did see that lots of
11:36
Speaker 1: people in Florida are doing a read in, so I
11:40
Speaker 1: think it's becoming a new form of protest and I
11:42
Speaker 1: love it, me too. Yeah, there's been a there's been
11:46
Speaker 1: a couple of there's been pushback in play tests, and
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Speaker 1: we'll talk about that a little about the end. But
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Speaker 1: the US and people in general have a long history
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Speaker 1: of censorship and book banning, especially around religion, enslavement, and racism.
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Speaker 1: Jen Crow Air South is a big one, and sex
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Speaker 1: and gender, including birth control and conscious sceptives. According to
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Speaker 1: the National Geographic Quote. By the nineteen twenties, Boston was
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Speaker 1: so notorious for banning books that authors intentionally printed their
12:12
Speaker 1: books there and hopes that the inevitable ban would give
12:16
Speaker 1: them a publicity boost elsewhere in the country. But yes,
12:22
Speaker 1: book banning is seeing a very big surge right now.
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Speaker 1: Almost every state in the US has senior rized in
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Speaker 1: the banning of books in recent years, right as in fight.
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Speaker 1: Let's go over some numbers. From July twenty twenty one
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Speaker 1: to June twenty twenty two, Pan America's Index of School
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Speaker 1: Book Bands lists two thousand, five hundred and thirty two
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Speaker 1: instances of individual books being banned, affecting one thousand, six
12:45
Speaker 1: hundred forty eight unique book titles. The one thousand, six
12:49
Speaker 1: hundred forty eight titles are by one two hundred and
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Speaker 1: sixty one different authors, two hundred and ninety illustrators and
12:55
Speaker 1: eighteen translators, impacting the literary, scholarly, and creative work of
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Speaker 1: one thousand, one hundred and fifty three people, all together
13:02
Speaker 1: with other books that haven't been reported on top of
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Speaker 1: the bands occurred in one hundred thirty eight school districts
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Speaker 1: in thirty two states. These districts represent five and forty
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Speaker 1: nine schools with a combined enrollment of nearly four million students. Yeah,
13:16
Speaker 1: so this is all part of a big Pan American
13:18
Speaker 1: study that are a lot of people are referencing right now,
13:21
Speaker 1: and you should go check it out because it has
13:22
Speaker 1: a lot of data. For one, you can look at
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Speaker 1: who what state as the most bands. Texas has the most,
13:30
Speaker 1: followed by Florida. The report found that ninety six percent
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Speaker 1: of the bands did not follow the best practice guidelines
13:35
Speaker 1: for book challenges outlined by the American Library Association and
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Speaker 1: the National Coalition against Censorship. Nearly half of the book
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Speaker 1: spanned our young adult books. Here's another quote from the study.
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Speaker 1: The vast majority of the books targeted by these groups
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Speaker 1: for removal feature LGBTQ plus characters or characters of color,
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Speaker 1: and or cover race and racism in American history. LGBTQ
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Speaker 1: plus identities or sex edge location. All right, yeah, again,
14:02
Speaker 1: just a reminder, it's not even about that they talk
14:05
Speaker 1: about sex. It's just mentioning a character that might be
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Speaker 1: gay or queer or anything. So from GPB quote, Cheryl
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Speaker 1: Lewis Hudson, an author and publisher specializing in children's books
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Speaker 1: celebrating black culture and black history, said that book bands
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Speaker 1: are about power and that they are nothing new. She said,
14:25
Speaker 1: the trend of book bands is not only censorship, but
14:28
Speaker 1: erasure of marginalized communities. So there is a trend in
14:32
Speaker 1: an underlying pattern of white supremacy really that is challenging
14:36
Speaker 1: the actual existence of people of color in a democracy.
14:39
Speaker 1: And I think that's very obvious. They're not even trying
14:41
Speaker 1: to hide it. No, no, no, no. There's also been
14:44
Speaker 1: an increase in something called preemptive bands, removing books that
14:48
Speaker 1: might be banned before they're even band So in one
14:52
Speaker 1: case in Tennesseel Library removed one third of their books
14:56
Speaker 1: from their shelves and anticipation of a state law on
14:59
Speaker 1: lgb TQ plus content that didn't pass, So they were
15:02
Speaker 1: just anticipating it and they removed the books anyway, and
15:04
Speaker 1: then didn't happen. There's also silent bands where books are removed,
15:08
Speaker 1: are not displayed to avoid controversy, and are labeled. Sometimes
15:12
Speaker 1: are labeled as inappropriate, either in online catalogs or physically,
15:17
Speaker 1: like with actual warning stickers placed on the books. Oh
15:23
Speaker 1: my gosh, I know in bookstores, I've seen people turning
15:26
Speaker 1: books around that they don't like, and then they were
15:28
Speaker 1: coming right back behind them and turning them back. Is
15:31
Speaker 1: quite a back and forth. Okay, So here's another quote
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Speaker 1: from the Pan America report. There have also been efforts
15:38
Speaker 1: to keep books out of the hands of children, even
15:40
Speaker 1: if they remain in circulation. So One prominent example of
15:44
Speaker 1: such activity was the Hide the Pride, an initiative of
15:47
Speaker 1: Catholic Vote dot org. In June twenty twenty two. Catholic
15:50
Speaker 1: Vote encouraged members to check out books from the Pride
15:53
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two displays in children's sections of public libraries
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Speaker 1: and to take pictures of the empty shelves. Yes, and
15:59
Speaker 1: there are. There is a difference between a book challenge
16:01
Speaker 1: and a book ban. A lot of times book ban
16:05
Speaker 1: is getting used for a lot to encompass a lot
16:08
Speaker 1: more than what it traditionally means. There's also a difference
16:11
Speaker 1: between that and being canceled, which comes up in this
16:16
Speaker 1: conversation too, And who can challenge or ban a book
16:20
Speaker 1: varies by locality, so it gets really really messy, really
16:23
Speaker 1: really fast. The report also found that what we're seeing
16:30
Speaker 1: right now of banning books is largely the work of
16:35
Speaker 1: organizations and groups, many of them that popped up in
16:38
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, notably after the twenty twenty election and
16:41
Speaker 1: the insurrection and schools reopening, and some openly push Christian
16:47
Speaker 1: nationalist values. It's also politics involved in a lot of this, obviously, right,
16:54
Speaker 1: So here's another quote from GPB. Fifty groups at the state, national,
16:58
Speaker 1: and local level, with as many as three hundred chapters
17:01
Speaker 1: had light a role in at least half of the
17:03
Speaker 1: book bands enacted across the country during the twenty twenty
17:05
Speaker 1: one twenty two school year. Of those groups, seventy three
17:09
Speaker 1: percent were formed in twenty twenty one, according to that report. Yeah,
17:13
Speaker 1: and they have in some cases harassed and threatened librarians
17:16
Speaker 1: and teachers. They've called them pedophiles, they've called them groomers.
17:20
Speaker 1: They've attempted to defund entire libraries. They've filed criminal charges.
17:24
Speaker 1: Several states have laws about providing pornographic material, which is
17:28
Speaker 1: often the case used against queer content in this context.
17:33
Speaker 1: This is a major thing people get wrong because the
17:37
Speaker 1: issue is often framed as worried parents asking for banning
17:41
Speaker 1: of books, which it sometimes is. Yeah, so there is that,
17:44
Speaker 1: But plenty of people speaking at these meetings that you've
17:47
Speaker 1: seen about banning books don't have kids, or their kids
17:52
Speaker 1: or adults. Many will openly admit that they haven't even
17:55
Speaker 1: read the book in question, but they will just google
17:57
Speaker 1: like a book with queer character and then that's it.
18:02
Speaker 1: These groups have spreadsheets that they just circulate where try
18:06
Speaker 1: to get this book banned in your area. One of
18:08
Speaker 1: the groups is recognized as an LGBTQ plus hate group
18:12
Speaker 1: and claim the January sixth was quote clearly a setup.
18:16
Speaker 1: Many have names like Moms for Liberty and the Yeah.
18:20
Speaker 1: Moms for Liberty has two hundred branches. They are organized,
18:23
Speaker 1: they are recognized. The Santas spoke at one of their
18:27
Speaker 1: conferences about parental rights as it's called. They market themselves
18:33
Speaker 1: as grassroots, but many have connections to wealthy Republicans and
18:37
Speaker 1: are very much not grassroots. Here's a quote from a
18:42
Speaker 1: transgender man named Chris small people are scared because they
18:46
Speaker 1: don't think LGBTQ people should exist. They don't want their
18:49
Speaker 1: own children to be LGBTQ, and they feel if they
18:52
Speaker 1: can limit access to these books and materials, then their
18:55
Speaker 1: children won't be that way, which is simply not true
18:58
Speaker 1: and as heartbreaking and disgusting, which is hilarious because yeah,
19:04
Speaker 1: this is historical. We have historical evidence. This does not work.
19:10
Speaker 1: That's not a thing. And because you're pushing back on
19:12
Speaker 1: it so hard, you're about to get a flip, Like
19:15
Speaker 1: the only hope that I feel like we have. And
19:18
Speaker 1: we talk about these subjects and there's a lot of
19:20
Speaker 1: bad news happening here all over the country. Georgia just
19:23
Speaker 1: got some today and I'm very much in a flunk.
19:27
Speaker 1: But the fact that I know with these pushes, oftentimes
19:31
Speaker 1: the flip happens, and that means it's going to be
19:33
Speaker 1: a revolution type of thing, and it's me glorious to see.
19:36
Speaker 1: I feel like every time. It may take ten years,
19:39
Speaker 1: but it will come back and I'm excited to see
19:41
Speaker 1: that part. Yeah, oh yeah, me too. And then I
19:45
Speaker 1: didn't really go into it too much, but Florida is
19:48
Speaker 1: like a big focal point of this it is not
19:52
Speaker 1: by any means the only states doing this, but they're
19:56
Speaker 1: like they don't the so called don't say gay law.
20:00
Speaker 1: One of the things we've seen in its wake is
20:02
Speaker 1: confusion of like teachers not knowing what to do. They've
20:07
Speaker 1: been told to quote air on the side of caution.
20:10
Speaker 1: And you know, while De Santis and his supporters will say, well,
20:15
Speaker 1: it's just I think grade grade three and below, but
20:19
Speaker 1: it's also has age appropriate in there, which means that
20:22
Speaker 1: any parent at any time could challenge a teacher and
20:27
Speaker 1: could get in big trouble or a librarian. And we've
20:31
Speaker 1: seen those videos of empty shelves, and you know, there's
20:37
Speaker 1: been some back and forth about some of them not
20:39
Speaker 1: being true, but some of them are. And so that's
20:43
Speaker 1: that's an heartbreaking that's like students being deprived of all
20:48
Speaker 1: of this material. And then, if you're curious, this was
20:54
Speaker 1: more than I really wanted to break down in this,
20:56
Speaker 1: but I was interested in it. So this whole parental
20:58
Speaker 1: rights argument isn't new either, but it's also in juxtaposition
21:04
Speaker 1: of the first a minute rights of students, and there
21:06
Speaker 1: have been several Supreme Court cases affirming the rights of students.
21:10
Speaker 1: And here's a quote from one of them, local school
21:13
Speaker 1: boards may not remove books from school libraries simply because
21:16
Speaker 1: they dislike the ideas contained in those books. Now, unfortunately,
21:20
Speaker 1: our current Supreme Court kind of sucks. So who knows,
21:23
Speaker 1: right that might be turned over again. Yeah, yeah, it's
21:27
Speaker 1: quite interesting because again with the news, there's a lot
21:31
Speaker 1: of anti trans bills and it's targeted at parents and
21:34
Speaker 1: young children. Supposedly, we know it's targeted at trans people
21:37
Speaker 1: in general, but the language is talking about children to
21:40
Speaker 1: the fact that they're also going after medical professionals who
21:43
Speaker 1: may assist. But I find that again ironic about parental rights.
21:48
Speaker 1: But yet we take away parental rights right But again
21:52
Speaker 1: once again so library and Sam Helmick said, can we
21:56
Speaker 1: acknowledge that this will have a chilling effect? And you
22:00
Speaker 1: tell me that books about myself as an asexual, non
22:02
Speaker 1: binary person who didn't have those books in the libraries
22:05
Speaker 1: when I was a kid to pick up and flip through.
22:08
Speaker 1: But now publishing has caught up with me and I
22:10
Speaker 1: can see representation of me. Those will be behind the desk,
22:13
Speaker 1: and that's not supposed to make me feel less welcome,
22:15
Speaker 1: less seen, and less represented in my library. And there's
22:19
Speaker 1: so much again the whole level, because we're not even
22:24
Speaker 1: tackling critical race theory, which is a part of this
22:27
Speaker 1: conversation too. They want to take anything out that has
22:31
Speaker 1: a conversation about race because they don't know what critical
22:35
Speaker 1: race theory is. Again, they also obviously can't tell what
22:38
Speaker 1: queer porn is versus just a story about a queer person. Yeah, yeah,
22:44
Speaker 1: which is highly offensive because then the understanding is that
22:48
Speaker 1: all queer people are just pornographic in nature. I mean,
22:52
Speaker 1: you do you, but that's quite an assumption to make.
23:10
Speaker 1: So yeah, this has been kind of Graham. There are
23:13
Speaker 1: some positive zough Poles have found that Americans across the
23:16
Speaker 1: political spectrum do not approve of book bands, and there
23:19
Speaker 1: have long been efforts to push back. They are happening now,
23:22
Speaker 1: They've been happening for a long time. My high school
23:26
Speaker 1: had a Banned Books week. There's a banned book week
23:27
Speaker 1: in September, and we would celebrate it in my high school.
23:30
Speaker 1: Although I bet that would not fly now, I bet
23:33
Speaker 1: that would not fly, but I loved it. It It was
23:35
Speaker 1: great because so many books that are banned are like
23:40
Speaker 1: books that we loved. It's like that you don't know
23:42
Speaker 1: why they're banned anyway. Students have been fighting back as well,
23:48
Speaker 1: in the face of like jeering and taunting from adults. Adults,
23:55
Speaker 1: the librarians and teachers and parents are fighting back. You
23:57
Speaker 1: can find a lot of inspirational stories about it. Also heartbreaking,
24:00
Speaker 1: but inspirational startbreaking what they had to go through, and
24:03
Speaker 1: they have seen some successes. So for example, quote round
24:07
Speaker 1: Rock Black Parents Association successfully campaigned for the book Stamped
24:10
Speaker 1: for Kids, Racism, Anti Racism and You A History of
24:14
Speaker 1: Racism in the US by the black authors at Jason
24:16
Speaker 1: Reynolds and Abram X Kendy to remain on the shelves
24:19
Speaker 1: after it faced a ban. Hundreds of parents and anti
24:22
Speaker 1: censorship activists campaigned in New Jersey to keep a series
24:25
Speaker 1: of books addressing LGBTQ plus experiences, including A Gender Queer
24:29
Speaker 1: by Mayacobabe and A Long Boy by Jonathan Evison in
24:33
Speaker 1: school libraries. And by the way, Gender Queer is the
24:35
Speaker 1: most bannbook in America right now. So there is good news,
24:41
Speaker 1: but we have to keep fighting because the other a
24:46
Speaker 1: lot of the things I read were saying, like a
24:49
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize how organized this like banning
24:51
Speaker 1: book effort is. That it's not just like a random parent,
24:55
Speaker 1: Like it's an organization that is targeting and is finding support.
25:00
Speaker 1: So that's important to know, Like it is not just
25:02
Speaker 1: like a parent that it has suddenly been like, oh,
25:05
Speaker 1: I don't think my kids should be reading this. There
25:07
Speaker 1: are spreadsheets and like sign up sheets and make sure
25:10
Speaker 1: you're at this meeting. I mean that goes to say
25:14
Speaker 1: about all of the things that we're seeing right now,
25:16
Speaker 1: because across the board, the majority of people are in
25:20
Speaker 1: support of the things that are being banned. Whether it's abortion,
25:23
Speaker 1: whether it's a career rights and whether it's book bands,
25:25
Speaker 1: whether there's critical race theory, the majority of people, according
25:28
Speaker 1: to the polls, are actually in support of it or
25:31
Speaker 1: just really don't care enough to do this. Literally like
25:34
Speaker 1: sixty percent if not higher, for all of these things.
25:37
Speaker 1: So we know is an organized few, and that's the
25:40
Speaker 1: scary party. And again, this is what we're watching. I
25:43
Speaker 1: don't want to compare it to all the things, but
25:45
Speaker 1: when it comes to fascism, there is a playbook, and
25:48
Speaker 1: it seems to be that we are following this playbook.
25:51
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean, anytime like censorship and book banning,
25:55
Speaker 1: you need to keep an eye on it. It's not
25:58
Speaker 1: a good thing. Like trolling power and education like that
26:04
Speaker 1: is very very concerning. And yeah, like like we said,
26:07
Speaker 1: many of the amazing books we've talked about in this
26:09
Speaker 1: segment have been banned. I know, fun Home for Me
26:14
Speaker 1: comes to mind. We talked about it in that episode,
26:17
Speaker 1: and it is it's harmful for people to lose access
26:20
Speaker 1: to these amazing works. And you know, seeing yourself, especially
26:25
Speaker 1: as a young person, like so important when you're going
26:28
Speaker 1: through this kind of tumultuous time trying to figure out
26:30
Speaker 1: who you are and then they're removing books. I mean,
26:34
Speaker 1: what are you supposed to take from that? And just
26:36
Speaker 1: as a reminder, and I love it. Social media is
26:38
Speaker 1: an amazing platform for us to be reminded that there
26:43
Speaker 1: are more of us than them. Yes, yes, and there are.
26:47
Speaker 1: There absolutely are, and it does matter, like we said,
26:52
Speaker 1: like the power of seeing yourself, of challenging white supremacy,
26:55
Speaker 1: of challenging peric jarky. You're just like like for me,
26:59
Speaker 1: like coming from a town and getting this material and
27:02
Speaker 1: having like a real awakening sounds kind of nerdy, but
27:06
Speaker 1: like you know, like, oh, there's so much more that
27:09
Speaker 1: I wasn't getting that I was being told and that
27:12
Speaker 1: was harmful to me and to everyone around me too,
27:16
Speaker 1: like all of those things, like, it's so important that
27:18
Speaker 1: we have access to these things. So so if any
27:23
Speaker 1: of you have been involved in these efforts to fight
27:27
Speaker 1: back against book banning, we would love, love love for
27:31
Speaker 1: you to let us know. You can certainly see our
27:35
Speaker 1: upcoming episode on the writing process. I did have a
27:37
Speaker 1: thought of, like a wonderful we'll get banned. The only
27:39
Speaker 1: thing is I feel like you have to have a
27:41
Speaker 1: certain level of popularity to be banned, right, So we'll
27:43
Speaker 1: see if this is still going. I will fill this
27:50
Speaker 1: pride of knowing that we got banned. We made somebody
27:56
Speaker 1: angry enough and I mean people angry. You just why
28:00
Speaker 1: talking about Stacey Abrams. So let me go that's true.
28:04
Speaker 1: It's true. Well, if you want to check out this
28:08
Speaker 1: book that might make people very angry and get banned, Yes,
28:11
Speaker 1: it is going on sale August twenty nine. You can
28:14
Speaker 1: pre order at stuff you Should Read books dot com.
28:16
Speaker 1: You can see an excerpt from it. You can see
28:18
Speaker 1: the beautiful art by Helen Choi, and on our There
28:22
Speaker 1: will be announcements on our social media and links that
28:24
Speaker 1: you can click on in the bio so thank you,
28:27
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for your support, your continued support,
28:29
Speaker 1: and as always, if you have any suggestions for books
28:32
Speaker 1: we should be doing on this segment, please let us know.
28:36
Speaker 1: You can emails at steffaniea mom Stuff at iHeartMedia dot com.
28:40
Speaker 1: You can find us on Twitter at mom Stuff Podcast,
28:42
Speaker 1: or on Instagram and TikTok at stuff I Never Told You.
28:44
Speaker 1: You can also find us on YouTube. Thanks as always too,
28:48
Speaker 1: our super producer Christina, our executive producer Maya, and our
28:52
Speaker 1: contributor Joey. Thank you, comes Amida, Yes, and thanks to
28:57
Speaker 1: you for listening Stuff I Never Told You His protection
28:59
Speaker 1: of by high d. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
29:01
Speaker 1: check out that our radio Apple podcast wherever you listen
29:03
Speaker 1: to your favorite ships