It feels like a New Year's tradition for the press to publish lists. It is kind of a drained recipe, but it must entice readers because it is easy to encounter lists about handy technology, the year's best songs, and gifts that we should acquire. There are also a lot of lists about books that we should read.
On my mind today, is not so much a list of books that people want me to read, but more the contrary. As charged discussions about how race should be considered newly become central to our political discourse, it felt poignant to see this conversation with Jason Reynolds. He is many things and Stephen Colbert does a better job than I ever could in introducing him. Among his distinctions is the fact two of the books that he has written and co-written hold prominent spaces on the American Library Association's 2020 list of most challenged books.
This is a list compiled by the Office for Intellectual Freedom that focuses on documented requests to remove texts from schools or libraries. While the reasons cited for banning books often include references to drugs, violence, and profanity, it also jumps out that many of these texts either deal directly or contextually with minority experience in the United States. When asked about being so conspicuous on this list, Reynolds responded with words that call for reflection:
On my mind today, is not so much a list of books that people want me to read, but more the contrary. As charged discussions about how race should be considered newly become central to our political discourse, it felt poignant to see this conversation with Jason Reynolds. He is many things and Stephen Colbert does a better job than I ever could in introducing him. Among his distinctions is the fact two of the books that he has written and co-written hold prominent spaces on the American Library Association's 2020 list of most challenged books.
This is a list compiled by the Office for Intellectual Freedom that focuses on documented requests to remove texts from schools or libraries. While the reasons cited for banning books often include references to drugs, violence, and profanity, it also jumps out that many of these texts either deal directly or contextually with minority experience in the United States. When asked about being so conspicuous on this list, Reynolds responded with words that call for reflection:
First and foremost is not a badge of honor for those of us who are going through it; for those of us on that list is not a badge of honor […] there's been access cut for all the young people who might need these books and where they only might get them in schools. You can take for granted that there may not be a library or bookstore in everybody's community. Or that there may not be a $20 bill to go and buy the books that they no longer have access to because of these bannings, right? Second of all, I just think people should understand that at the end of the day we as adults we claim that we want our children to grow up to be better than we are and in order to do so they must have the information that we did not have so to stop that information really makes us all hypocrites and it's something that we should be thinking about.
Here is the interview, a link to purchase one of the books, and the 2020 list. I'm sure they will soon publish the list for 2021. Considering the tone and subject matter of the last couple of months of racial dialogue in the United States, I have no doubt that the new list will include more books that are being banned for talking about race.
