Utah's newest book ban law is designed to let small school districts punish Salt Lake City kids.
Small Lake City
By Bryan Young @swankmotron
During the most recent session, the Utah Legislature decided to continue its manufactured culture war by taking literature out of school libraries. Sure, they claim it's due to "pornography," and they're just "protecting the children." But if you look at the books getting challenged, the alleged pornography boils down to milquetoast stuff written by and starring marginalized folks.
Sometimes, critics do focus on books that contain depictions of sex—but they ignore the idea that topics like sexual assault are real and how written narratives can be instructive to kids in how they can report, react or feel in such situations if they find themselves in the same, horrific boat.
Adults use literature to learn about the world around us. It's one of the ways kids learn, too. Robbing them of the ability to understand things that bigots find distasteful—i.e., racial justice, queer identities and the sexual assaults they would rather cover up and ignore—means children will be ill-equipped to deal with the harsh realities of a world that our Legislature keeps making worse.
It's bad enough that lawmakers are trying this at all, but the new mechanism they have chosen to enact their anti-American measures is insidious and ensures damage to the kids of Salt Lake. They created legislation where if three Utah school districts ban a specific book, then the ban goes into effect in every school district statewide.
It doesn't matter if the parents in a particular area are for or against it. Now, if the three most conservative districts in the state ban Black Panther comics or When Aidan Became a Brother from their school libraries because of their offensive transphobia and racism, students in Salt Lake will also suffer. It's not a good thing.
Worse, it makes it more difficult for pro-literature individuals to engage in counterprotest banning. So what if activists in Salt Lake get the Bible or The Book of Mormon banned from school libraries in response? It's not like they will gain the support of two other districts, will they?
Instead, book bans themselves should be banned. We should let local librarians choose the books they put in their libraries. They're the trained experts we should trust.
Books open eyes, change minds and help make the world a better place. Those who want to ban books are afraid of a world that doesn't conform to the pablum they've been fed that creates their worldview.
In a statement from the League of Utah Writers condemning the book banning, the organization's executive committee (of which I'm a member) quoted Ursula K. Le Guin: "A dangerous book will always be in danger from those it threatens with the demand that they question their assumptions. They'd rather hang on to the assumptions and ban the book."
We should fight. Always. Salt Lake and its school children deserve more than the abuse we keep taking from the state Legislature.
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