By Laura Swanson
When this situation was first brought to our attention, the initial reaction was “Are you kidding me?” And then we are reminded that there is a small group of small minded people who have been attacking our local library and other institutions through a variety of tactics, including book bans. All in the name of supposedly “Christian” values and “protecting our children.” These actions are happening across the nation, and actual book banning has been used for decades as a way to control, restrict and manipulate information availability.
First, let’s be clear – this is book banning. According to the Oregon Library Foundation, any time a book is “restricted” or removed from a curriculum that is considered a ban.
We hoped that the school board would heed requests to review the process by which the book was recommended for banning but that’s not what happened. Further investigation shows that it’s likely that a member of the school board was actually involved with requesting the removal of the book, and then voted to uphold the curriculum review to remove it. The school board members vote – three to one to remove the book. The three votes to remove the book were all men, the vote against the ban was by a woman. The meeting did not allow for all public comments, was constricted by the vice chair and those speaking for removal were men that threatened audience members with name-calling and finger-pointing. The meeting was called an “embarrassment” by those that attended. We will be sharing various views and reports from the meeting. There are numerous violations of policy, process and public meeting protocol.
The book “How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents” is an award-winning novel that depicts important cultural themes and details the experience of women and girls. At first, there was concern that the school district may be banning this book because of it’s portrayal of the Hispanic culture and that showed racial discrimination and bias. Now, I’m convinced that this is more about control of women, not about “protecting our children.” If these men and school board members truly care about their daughters, wives and the women in our community, they would want everyone to read the Garcia Girls. The so-called offensive passage provides an opportunity for discussions about how we do protect our daughters – knowledge is power. That when something like this happens, and if you’re a woman it will happen, you know to report it, and not to pretend it didn’t happen.
It’s been a week – I’ve had to refer multiple women to Tides of Change for counseling and help with stalking and restraining orders against men who are harassing and stalking them. It is happening, right now, right here and it’s important that we protect our children by equipping them with the awareness of right and wrong. Book bans do not protect our children from real life, in fact, studies show that book bans do more harm than good. Book bans limit the perspectives that young readers have access to, narrowing their worldview. This can impede the development of traits like empathy and open-mindedness in younger students and foster ignorance.
A grassroots community effort has been organized to hold the school board accountable for providing the best education possible for our students, that doesn’t include any further book bans. If you are interested in helping to ensure access to all reading materials for students, email to editor@tillamookcountypioneer.net and we will put you in contact with the group.