Latest / Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship / Banned Camp Presents: They Came After the Librarian

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Banned Camp Presents: They Came After the Librarian · Banned Camp: Banned Books, Comedy, and Free Speech vs. Censorship

Welcome to Band Camp.
I'm Jennifer.
And I'm Dan, and this is the podcast where we read banned books out loud, and try to figure out why they were banned in the first place.
Today is National Library Workers' Day, and we have something very special planned for today.
In fact, wouldn't you say, Jennifer, this is, in our world, in our universe, this weird book banning, anti-censorship universe, our guest today is about as close to getting like an A-lister as we could possibly get.
Yeah, she's definitely a superstar.
In fact, which is a documentary you can find right now for free, find it on YouTube, you can find it, uh, uh, on the PBS channel on YouTube.
Go find it while there's still a PBS.
Thank God there's still a PBS for now.
and I bet if you watch this movie, you, uh, we-- you really should watch the movie, but if you watch it, you are gonna have every kind of emotion you can have while watching it.
But I guarantee one of them is just gonna be anger, anger mixed with, with tears.
That's, that's my recommendation for this movie.
and a sprinkle of joy.
There are some sparkly moments throughout.
One of the featured librarians is Martha Hixson.
Turns out Martha is a scary book person.
She is an actual fan of Band Camp, and it is such a pleasure to have her.
Martha, come on in here.
our Look at this gal.
Well, I just love the podcast so much.
It seems like the people behind all of the book banning.
Keep going after the same type of targets.
librarians teachers, people who basically don't usually punch back pretty hard.
they're not picking fights, for instance, with anyone who has a legal team or a big platform.
So why do you think that is? Why do you think they constantly go after librarians? I think it was actually a fairly strategic move.
and I think there's a heap in helping of Ms.
Misogyny in there as well.
you know, this started back in 2021, this unprecedented wave of book banning that we're seeing now in school libraries.
And I don't know how much you remember about your own school library experience, but, um, school librarians tend to be sole practitioners.
We are unicorns in the building.
There's, if there's one of us, there's just one of us.
the profession is predominantly female.
about 85%.
And I think we were an easy target and we were a tool to, fan the flames of extremism and, get some headlines around their issue.
so, you know, we're just easy.
Pickens.
that's what I told Dan yesterday.
I was like, you think it's 'cause it's women? And you know, like what? It reminds me of like echoes of like witch burning, like it just Oh yeah, we, we compare it to the Salem Witch trials all the time.
Um, and if you look at, you know, some of the language that they use to attack us, and they, and they really, it's, they just do all the typical things.
sex related slurs against us.
They'll go after our appearance.
personally myself, apparently my voice is too deep for them.
You know, they're used to women speaking in a high little girl voice for the love of God, what is wrong with these Yeah, so they they question whether I've been a truly assigned female at birth because, um, I don't know, I speak too low and perhaps with too much confidence to be a real woman.
Mm-hmm.
gosh.
Good lord.
It's like a two for one for them, they insult the women and then on top of that it's like, is there something wrong? Even if you were trans? You know, like, it's like a double insult for them.
It's, It does feel like being back in high school though, or on the school bus.
and it's the same kind of juvenile insults, you know, when you don't have any, anything real to attack.
You sort of go after you make these ad hominem, attacks and accusations.
Yeah.
We have to talk about.
the lawn boy story, because that is the thing I think that truly put you into becoming this canary in the coal mine.
So in the documentary you talk about a student who kept coming into the library day after day.
And you did what any good librarian would do.
You ask if he needed help finding what he was looking for, but what you did not know was that you were being set up.
So can you tell us what happened? Sure this was in the fall of 2021 and um, I know I'm speaking to listeners who are invested in this whole book Banning situation.
So they've probably followed this timeline somewhat.
But the fall of 2021 made me one of the very first librarians in the country to be attacked by this organized movement.
And this was September school had just started.
And this student who, um, had never been a library regular before.
You know, when you're in a library, you get to know your library kids.
Um, and this kid who hadn't come in before, but that's great.
I'd love to see a new kid.
And he was coming in every day at lunchtime.
and he was roaming the stacks.
and I thought, well, maybe this is a coping behavior for him.
Maybe he's just browsing, um, you know, looking for inspiration.
But every day I would go out and ask him, can I help you find anything? And every day the answer was the same.
Nope.
I said, okay, just, just keep looking and if you need any help, I'm right there in my office.
After two weeks of this, the kid emerges from the stacks and he's holding the book that I recognized immediately by its green cover because it's a book.
I had read myself on the recommendation of the New York Times, Failing New York Times failing.
That one, that fake news source.
Um, New York Times had called Mike the protagonist of Lawn Boy, a Holden Caulfield for the 21st century.
That made me wanna read that book immediately.
'cause kids who read catcher in high school are al and love it, are always looking for something similar.
So I had read that fairly recently and when he came out I said, is that Law and Boy? And he said, yeah.
And I said, oh, I love that book.
But.
It was not on anybody's radar.
I mean, unless you were a librarian, or an avid reader of the New York Times book review, it wouldn't have been on your radar.
And I'm like, how'd you find out about that one? And he said, oh, my parents told me about it and said I should look for it in the library.
And then I made some comment about, well, your parents have very good taste, or, you know, what a great recommendation.
Check the book out to him 24 hours later.
A woman stands at the microphone of the Board of Education meeting surrounded by about 25 of her friends and neighbors, all of similar stripe, and began attacking Lawn Boy.
That book, along with Gender queer by Maya Cobe, referring to both as, uh, pornography and pedophilia.
presenting selected cherry picked passages of both books and then proceeded to call me And the members of the Board of Education called me by name, a Pornographer pedophile and groomer of children.
And you will not be surprised to learn that that woman was the mother of the student who had been sent to the library to look for Lawn Boy.
Martha Sson, our school librarian, remarked to my son as he was checking out the books quote.
I love that book and whoever wants to read it has very good taste.
End quote.
Explain to me how this perversion enriches or benefits the young minds of our students or anyone for that matter.
This amounts to an effort to groom our kids, to make them more willing to participate in the heinous acts described in these books if grooms them to accept the inappropriate advances of an adult.
When that happened though, as soon as you said, well how, why this book? And the little boy said, well, because I want my parents told me to, to come looking for it.
You truly did not think anything bad like you because again, this wasn't a thing.
Like you had no reason to think like nowadays I would imagine.
You would probably think different if somebody would come in and say, can you give me gender queer? Or something like that, right? Like you would imagine like, oh, you're like, are you coming after me? Maybe, but I hope I never do get that cynical like librarians through our training.
We are trained to treat every inquiry in the library as a sincere question.
so I hope I never get that jaded, to assume that someone coming in the library asking a question is there for a gotcha moment.
however, in retrospect, I did kind of beat myself up a little bit because had I been paying better attention in that moment, I, my radar might have been up a little bit regarding both Genderqueer and Lawn Boy, first of all, that was a very strange combination of books.
He checked both of those books out and, um, the parents both weird combo.
So immediately in the moment, I mean, as this board meeting was happening, I started researching what is it about these two books? And almost immediately, uh.
Challenge.
About two weeks prior to the same two books in leaner, Texas popped up, and about a week after that it ended up in Fairfax, Virginia.
And then a week after that, here it was in my backyard.
And same pair of books, same talking points, same tactics.
You know, an ambush should aboard me.
so had I been keeping up on my intellectual freedom news, which I do now, I might've been anticipating something, but then I wasn't.
And I also wanna correct one thing.
This ain't no little boy.
This is a 15-year-old.
I don't know how often you were interacting with teenagers, but teenagers in the 21st century, they're pretty hip.
it's not like we're talking about a first grader here.
And understandable.
but you know, you gotta consider Dan's over.
He's your dare you.
How dare you.
I take that as nothing short of a personal attack.
How dare you? Well, you're probably not as old as I am, Dan.
I get a social security check every month.
Oh, I dream of this, Jennifer, your, your generation better not f this up and take all of my money that I have coming to me.
You understand? It's all over for us.
It's not happening.
I can only imagine how shocked you were though.
Like that must have been a real slap in the face and I'm, I'm sorry for it.
How Thank you.
it was shocking and it was not.
normally, again, this is me admitting my failures as a, a school employee.
Watching the board meetings every month was not part of my, you know, regular viewing habits.
However, my principal, who.
Almost never set foot in the library.
Did happen to show up in the library the day of that board meeting at lunchtime, as I was actually reading that week's New York Times book review to say, oh, uh, I heard a rumor that I think there might be an objection to a book tonight.
In retrospect, I'm sure he knew exactly what was coming.
But anyway, I decided to tune in to see, oh, well, what's going on? And so I had a little foreknowledge, but never did I imagine that I would be called a Pornographer.
So when you say tune in, you actually meant you were gonna watch it online, so you didn't actually go to that Yep.
I could watch the live stream.
So there I was, seven 30 in the evening, September 28th, 2021, watching myself, be called these horrible names, and I had all the feels in that moment.
It was just a rush of panic, anxiety.
Literal nausea.
Uh, my heart was beating outta my chest, but eventually, within about a minute or two, I kind of composed myself and I'm like, okay, you gotta take action now.
And as the meeting was going on, as these people were one after one coming up to the microphone to bash me, my library, these books, I was reaching out to my union, to the American Library Association, to the comic book Legal Defense Fund, the National Coalition Against Censorship.
I was on it.
This is where your like librarian brain must have helped you like to organize and like do the card cataloging in your, in your brain.
it actually kind of led led to our next question, which was like, was this the first time you were ever attacked or do you remember when the attacks started coming in? every librarian is part of our training.
You know, we learn about the First Amendment, we learn about book path challenges, and by the way, it's perfectly fine to challenge a book.
We're prepared for that, and we want to have that conversation with you.
Um, and over the 20 years of my library career, there had been prior, instances, here and there, never more than five or six where parents, had a complaint about a book.
Um, I remember in about 2006 there was a complaint about, Uh, looking for Alaska by John Green.
a few years later there was, uh, Billy Lets, where the Heart is, um, me talk pretty one Day by David Sedaris.
Uh, but in each of those cases, what we were talking about was a parent complaining about a book.
And the way they had that complaint was either through an email or a conversation.
And just about to ask.
Yeah.
it felt different, right? Like it felt like they were talking to you rather than just yelling expletives, Correct.
And in each of those prior cases, the conversation resulted in, my, you know, asking the parent.
So, so what is your concern? Hearing a concern, explaining to the parent, uh, the value of the book and the collection and why it's there.
Uh, and then in each case I was able to say to the parent, you know, and if this isn't a good fit for your student, there are 20,000 other books back there, let's find a better fit for you.
Everyone walked away happy.
The book stayed.
The parent ended up with a, an alternate title for their student, and there was nothing further happening.
This changed for MEO in 2019.
and that is when, uh, the superintendent of the school at that time, and let's name names here, his name was Jeffrey Bender, insisted that I remove on his say so.
The book Fun Home by Allison Bechtel.
And I said, no, I won't do that.
We have a challenge policy, and if you want that book removed, let's follow the challenge policy.
He said the rules did not apply to him, and I said, oh, yes they do.
I'm not removing the book.
That led to a protracted battle.
Of about nine months.
At the time, in 2019, I thought it was the worst thing that had ever happened in my career.
In retrospect, I'm thankful that it did happen because it prepared me for when hell broke loose in 2021.
That's how I knew in 2021 to immediately reach out to the A LA Office for Intellectual Freedom, national Coalition against Censorship and so on.
What I, I love about you, even the very first attack you knew, 'cause you're good at your job.
Well, I've got this union, I've got this resource, I've got this resource.
And thank God that you did because I bet they never expect that kind of pushback.
No, I think their error was, they believe the stereotype that's perpetuated about librarians they thought they were dealing with.
You know Mary from, it's a Wonderful Life.
Remember her coming into the library and poor.
That's who they think they're dealing with.
But as many of them have found time and time and time again, we're smart, we're resourceful, we're crafty, we're persistent.
And I don't know what I can say on this podcast and what I can't, but we don't take shit.
Yeah.
this whole fight.
One of my favorite parts of the documentary was seeing the, the young kids and the students like this probably was something that they didn't even think about before, but now they're in it.
And I love the students who not only took up the fight, but like how cool was it to see the kids at the meetings like, stand up for you.
That was so emotional for me and Dan.
We were like tearing up.
It still makes me tear up.
I'll tell you, one of the best compliments I got through this whole thing, or maybe ever in my life, was in the thick of it.
One day I was walking through the library and one of my library kids sidled up to me and said, Hey, Ms.
Hixson, I see what you've been doing and you're a badass.
And I'm like.
I love it.
retire half, but these are kids in, in, in my case, all the books that the Book banners went after, uh, there were seven in total.
were books with lgbtq plus themes elsewhere in the country is LGBTQ plus books plus anything having to do with race or diversity.
to their credit, at least the ones in New Jersey knew that, being out and out racist was not a good look.
For them.
but for whatever reason, they felt comfortable being homophobic.
Um, and many of the kids who came to the board meetings and spoke at the podium, uh, self-identified as members of the LGBTQ plus community.
And one of the hardest things to see was, Any of these kids who did self-identify the microphone as an LGBTQ plus person, they were jeered, uh, by these book banners, many of them holding a loft, signs proclaiming Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Savior.
So those kids were facing increased harassment, bullying.
Uh, one of my students, who's actually in the documentary Mitchell, even received death threats.
Oh my gosh, what a nightmare.?
Oh, wow.
Well, those are some brave kids! January, Mitchell was inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr.
Spirit Hall of Fame, for his activism and his role in helping me get the New Jersey Freedom to read Act past.
So I'm incredibly proud of Mitchell DeCosta.
How, how weird was it for you to sit back when the principal who just seems like a weasel? I, I don't, I Oh, let's name him too.
Greg Trell.
Greg Trell, you.
Dick, Greg.
he's how crazy must it have been? To see these adults.
Not stand up for you.
The people who should have your back.
They're not standing up for you, but you have these brave kids standing up for you.
That had to be one of the just major things that does keep you going.
I.
If I were to say to the board or someone at school, you are a vile and disgusting C word and a danger to young people.
I could and should be escorted out of this building by the police.
This is the exact language that has been sent to our school librarian by a group led by the spouse of someone on the board.
If you wanna get rid of SE and censor books, you are no different than fascist for every fascist movement.
Began the same exact way you're here to ban books with gay characters.
You might as well be here to start the forthright.
Yeah, the kids were absolutely magnificent and that's the reason I I was in this job.
First place.
I don't have children of my own, but those library kids over the, the last 20 years became my kids.
I just, admire them so much, for what they did to defend me and actually to defend every other student in that.
School.
and I should say, although I received absolutely no support from my, administration, in fact it was quite the opposite.
They were actively antagonistic and accusatory, uh, for the, the five years that this went on.
the kids in the building were very supportive and I was able to cobble together a network of community supporters.
To the tune of about 400 people who showed up at that, um, critical board meeting that appears in the, in the documentary.
So no support in the building other than from the kids and a, and a handful of, uh, colleagues, but tremendous support in the community.
Well, You mentioned about how there seemed to be like this divide that trickled down from the parents to the kids.
And I seem to remember, when COVID hit, it seemed to break a bunch of people's brains they started spending so much time online rather than in community.
Like it seems like someone putting in hooks to rip us apart.
And one of those hooks is, book, banning Like there seems to be all these different parts, like the anti-vaxxers, the anti-science, the anti-intellectualism, and These moms for Liberty.
how it started with not wearing masks, a lot of this seems to start online.
So where do you think this is all coming from? Those are good observations.
I do agree that social media has played a huge role in this.
This really is an outgrowth of all that, uh, anti mask, anti-vax open the schools, goddammit.
Um, when that no longer became an issue, then they morphed to, the books, then they morphed to the whole trans, uh, DEI, then the whole trans issue.
it's, it's a strategy to, Kind of contain, or commodify, this free floating outrage, uh, that a certain segment of the population that goes by the name of maga, has, and it's, let's, let's contain this and let's use it to our advantage.
back in 2021, I think the purpose then was to throw red meat to that base.
Let's keep 'em together.
'cause we gotta get, you know, this.
Orange person reelected and that was successful.
Uh, and since it's successful, they're gonna keep going so that they can implement all of the horror of, project 2025.
In terms of social media, it's truly the, the tool of transmission, and what social media has done to the culture as a whole.
I'm sorry, but it has made people stupid.
Poorly educated.
I love the poorly educated, and he, he depends on the poorly educated.
They can't read things in long form.
people are no longer willing to, analyze things critically for themselves.
So they're, you know, they're just spoonfeeding this nonsense to, to folks who swallow it, quite willingly.
On the other hand.
we can use social media too.
so, you know, it's, it's both, a curse and a blessing depending on which side of the, the, the problem you're on and, uh, how you're using and consuming it.
the good news is that there are, there is some gradual awakening happening to that.
I, I see more and more, every day.
Well, there was that clip that went viral about two weeks ago of the poor woman out in, I think, Allentown, Pennsylvania.
She was.
Filling up gas.
If you could say something to President Trump, he was gonna hear you right now, what would it be? You are a worthless pile of shit.
And you voted for him how many times? Three times.
That was my bad.
Apparently I'm an idiot.
Shut up, silly woman.
you know, people are starting to realize that they have been conned and they have been taken.
There will always be, you know, that segment that are gonna, you know, go into the bunker with him and, and you know, take the cyanide.
Right.
Right.
a a, a larger and larger portion of people are starting to realize they've been had.
It's like he does so much stuff that is Truly diabolical that...,
It confuses me because I think he's truly stupid.
successful con men need to know their marks, right? So he knows his marks.
He, he knows what he can tell people to, to get them to, to march in lockstep.
It's like that one character.
Oh, I don't remember who, who He was the, the black pastor.
I think he called it wicked genius...,
Reverend Dove, Reverend Jeffrey Dove from Clay County, Florida.
For liberty are making a lot of ground very smart young ladies.
I call it wicked genius.
It's a genius thats to, uh, oppressing people.
Isn't he magnificent? every time I see the film, when Reverend Dove stands there, I get weepy just thinking about it right now, when Reverend Dove speaks I cry every time I've seen the film.
It's all politically motivated, right? But I met the young man outside.
I said, how you doing brother? He says, I hate librarians.
This can't be America.
No, this can't be America.
in what world? What sci-fi world are librarians ever? The bad guys.
it's really hard.
Speaking of this documentary, it is truly hard to watch it and not it's.
Weird feeling you get.
It's a mixture of truly like being on the like, I'll admit it, I was crying through it.
But at the same time, I'm like, I can't take it.
I'm crying and at the same time I'm like punching the pillow.
Like I just wanna, if I, I'm gonna find these people who are making, like, I go to screenings all the time.
Um, you know, I've traveled, um, around the country and after even internationally with the film.
and then we host, uh, q and a sessions afterwards.
And just last week, I did a screening basically back at the scene of the crime, at Ton Valley Community College here in New Jersey, where students, From Hunterdon County where I taught, who are seeking a community college education, that's the college they go to.
And normally I don't sit through the film, uh, at these events 'cause it's emotionally, um.
It gotta be.
to do, but I thought, let me sit through it here.
I wanted to hear how that audience reacted and man, was it hard? my sister-in-law and my niece happened to be in the audience with me and I was just bawling my eyes out.
it's a really gut-wrenching experience to watch it.
Yeah today is National Library Workers Day.
So the Scary book.
People are hearing your story on the day that is, you know, celebrating people like you.
So what can the scary book people do to help There are so many things that the scary book people can do, to help libraries.
The simplest thing that every.
Anybody can do and you can do it even while I'm uttering this sentence, is to go online and join Unite Against book bands.org.
That is a coalition of many of the organizations that I've already mentioned.
The American Library Association, national Coalition Against Censorship.
Penn America comic book, legal defense fund every library.
And they have put together fantastic resources to help anybody, in their community, fight, book, banning, and support the librarians.
Now, not everybody feels comfortable standing up, uh, and speaking in public at, uh, a contentious board meeting.
Like my high school students did.
So I also have kind of a menu of things that people can, uh, choose from, and that's available@tinyurl.com
slash burning.
Mad, I'll say that again, too.
Tiny url.com/.
Burning mad.
But that, that includes things like reporting book challenges, uh, when you hear about them in your community, report them to the a LA office for intellectual freedom because that information is tracked.
Don't assume that someone else is reporting it.
and that's how we know about these patterns.
Uh, you can post about what you've learned on social media so that other people in your community, learn about the book bands.
You can also post about how wonderful your library is, whether it's the school library.
Public library.
use your library.
So libraries are more than just books.
They are centers for community.
Um, and the more you use the library, the better likelihood that that library will be funded.
And most of all, since it's National Library Workers' Day.
Let your librarians know that you see them, you value them, you appreciate them.
That could be just having a conversation to say thanks, uh, but it's even better if you put it in writing.
Send an email or a card, uh, to thank the librarian for their work, uh, and what the librarian means to you.
Uh, that can be very helpful when you're in a situation like I was in, when the library comes under attack or when the library is, uh, seeking to have its, uh, budget renewed or maintained.
Wonderful, wonderful suggestions.
We gotta, we're gonna put those somewhere, right? Dan? Somewhere people can see 'em.
Okay, great.
Oh my God, thank you so much for being here.
It is such a pleasure to talk to you, and we always see you commenting on our stuff and posting on the stuff on social media and it's just so nice of you to do...,
Well, I just love the podcast so much.
I find it absolutely delightful.
And you know, right now I'm listening of course, to, uh, the, the Catcher episodes and I haven't read Catcher myself in at least 20 years.
So it's a really fun, easy way to get back in into the book.
And I love recommending the podcast to other people.
Plus you.
send out cool free swag.
Um.
I, my husband has on his phone case, uh, one of the, the, book band stickers that you sent out.
Every time he picks up his phone to use it, people will comment on that wow.
that's so cool.
We always ask when people come on who are listening to the show, who have read these books, you can grade us.
How are Jennifer and I doing every time we read a book, two college educated people should have read this book back when we were probably forced to read this book and we didn't.
I don't know.
Why are we understanding it? Do you like Holden Caulfield? We get so many emails and comments like, I hate holding.
Like, well, what's there to hate? It kind of does piss you off.
Are we doing okay? Are we getting the major themes? You are, I think you're doing a great job.
I, I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical.
Like how could they have never read it? I mean, I thought it was part of every high school curriculum, but you know, maybe it was part of it and you just chose to opt out.
I don't know.
But then as you've gone through to read it, um, the questions you ask reveal that.
Okay, I guess they didn't read it.
but.
It's all a big con.
Yeah, but, you're getting an a plus from me for this reason.
You are reading it, you're actively reading.
You are stopping to question what you do when you don't know.
Jennifer I say, does this a lot.
She will harken back to previous chapters to say, wait a second, I recall that this happened, and that relates to what's happening now.
So I really love that you're very active readers and, you don't assume that you know everything and you ask.
Buddy boy to research things for you.
And that's what every reader should do.
When you come across something that you're not familiar with, you don't understand.
Even it's a, if it's a vocabulary word like you did with, the, the skating skirt, that weird little word he used to describe Butt Witcher.
Like what is that? Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, that's the way you build a vocabulary too, is just by stopping to say, wait, what does this mean? And figuring out from context clues or actually looking it up.
So I think you're doing a wonderful job.
I'll probably get into a fight with somebody at Costco for getting in my way.
Move your cart.
You butt witcher.
And I'm not gonna, where did that come from? No one's gonna know what it is.
People are gonna be like, what's going on with this guy? tell them it's a literary reference and they'll shut Yeah, you wouldn't get it.
You're not educated like me.
And do I hate Holden? No, I don't.
I ha I have spent, I grew up as the oldest of five.
Children, the four behind me.
My mother had five kids in six years, the four behind me.
They're all boys.
I grew up surrounded by teenage boys.
I taught teenage boys for 20 years, love them or hate 'em.
JD Salinger did a credible job in creating a believable teenage boy.
Okay, that's all we have for this episode, scary book people.
Thank you for being here.
We will get back to our normal literary shenanigans in the next episode, where we get back to reading the book and figuring out where this book is going.
And happy National Library Workers' Day to those who celebrate, which should be all of you.
And I'm going to go down to my library now and bring them a cake.