Ep 271 | Cultural Views: Book Bans

Narrator  

You are listening to the Be the Bridge Podcast with Latasha Morrison.

Latasha Morrison  

[intro] How are you guys doing today? It’s exciting!

Narrator  

Each week, Be the Bridge Podcast tackles subjects related to race and culture with the goal of bringing understanding.

Latasha Morrison  

[intro] …but I’m gonna do it in the spirit of love.

Narrator  

We believe understanding can move us toward racial healing, racial equity, and racial unity. Latasha Morrison is the founder of Be the Bridge, which is an organization responding to racial brokenness and systemic injustice in our world. This podcast is an extension of our vision to make sure people are no longer conditioned by a racialized society but grounded in truth. If you have not hit the subscribe button, please do so now. Without further ado, let’s begin today’s podcast. Oh, and stick around for some important information at the end.

Latasha Morrison  

Okay, Be the Bridge community. I am so excited because I have some of the team with me today. So you know that we do something called Cultural Views. And so Cultural Views this episode, this is a part of conversations where we go deep into societal and cultural issues with the intent of exposing our listeners to opportunities for reassessment of your own values and perspectives. And so if you’ve heard our last Cultural Views that we did, we did one on white Christian nationalism. So if you haven’t listened to that episode, you want to go back and listen to it. It was so good that we had to break it up into two episodes. And then we previously did a Cultural Views on gun violence. And this was episode 250. Now we’re diving deep into another relevant topic. And so hopefully, that you can take these conversations back to your Be the Bridge group, to your community, to your family, and just your spheres of influence. And that’s what we want. These are talking points, our opinions, our thoughts are our opinions and thoughts. But there are facts here. And so we want you to be able to assess the facts and give you understanding from our Be the Bridge perspective. And so today’s topic is that of book bans. Book bans. And so this is not anything that’s new. Some of you, it depends on how old you are, maybe you have never lived through book bans. But, you know, this is something that I know our parents are familiar with. You know, I’m gonna state my age now, I know this was something that was happening in the 70s when I was born. And so it has historical context. And what we want to do here is not so much get into the mud of everything, because it’s messy. It’s messy. But we want to make sure we give you historical context. So you understand that this is something that has happened and what the impact has been. Today’s guest is Elizabeth Behrens. And she is an educator with Be the Bridge. She has been around Be the Bridge since the beginning. And so she is our researcher, our resident researcher of all the things. And so she’s done some great research here on the topic of book bans. And then there’s someone new that you guys get to hear. This is his first podcast. So you guys give a warm welcome, Be the Bridge community welcome, to Mr. Jefferson J. Jones. Yes, I did say J. J. J. And Jefferson is new, is a new employee of Be the Bridge. He is now the manager of our youth and university, so expect to hear a lot of great things coming from there. Jefferson, let’s give you opportunity. Since this is your first time on the Be the Bridge Podcast, tell the people a little bit about you. So that way, they have a little upper hand. So when they see you online, they kind of know and then people who don’t listen to the podcast, won’t know. So they get a little tea and a little scoop, you know, by listening to the podcast. So just tell the audience who you are.

Jefferson Jones  

Yo, what’s up everybody? It’s an honor and a privilege to be here. I am, let’s see. I got to always tell people, I’m originally from Anchorage, Alaska. I’m not getting into all of that right now. But that’s where I was born. But I grew up, I spent most of my life in the country, in the sticks of Virginia. Freeman, Virginia. I am a strong biology background, but I am a pastor, chaplain, life coach, bridge builder, racial reconciler. Married for 20 years, 21 years to my wife, Rosa. We live in Duluth, Georgia, north of Atlanta. And two sons, got two boys, Peter, 14, Abraham, 12. And I’m excited to be with you all. I spent most of my life working with youth and young adults, college students. And my wife and I have centered our lives around being advocates for young people, and especially these generations, because we believe in their voice and who they are.

Latasha Morrison  

So cool. So we have Elizabeth and Jefferson, they both have sons named Abraham. (laughter) So yeah, so anyway, let’s dive in. So you know, the current book bans that we have have a lot to do with limiting access, but also controlling who gets to make the call. And, you know, this is just when we’re in a democracy, there’s some things that can be harmful in that. Because as we look at some of the books that are being banned currently, as it relates to racial justice, these are books that are telling historical truths about people who are still living. You know? Like, I forget her name. (laughter)

Jefferson Jones  

Ruby Bridges?

Latasha Morrison  

Yes, like a Ruby Bridges. And so that is, those are some of the things that we’re going to talk about today. But Elizabeth, give us a little bit of history on book banning, and why this is something that we should care about, and that we have to really understand the contextual background of it.

Elizabeth Behrens  

Of course. So you know, it’s really interesting, the, you know, Sean likes to give me a hard time about when someone says, “Let me hear the history,” I go back to like Aristotle or something. But honestly, with this one, like there really is a centuries long history of when one group takes over another group, one of the first things they do is they destroy things like any written record, cultural artifacts, bombing and burning of libraries and museums, like that’s a historical fact, worldwide. And you might think, “Well, we’re just talking about a handful of books in some libraries. No one’s bombing the library.” But again, we look at that history and we see the ways that oftentimes, like it starts with that restricting access, and then it kind of moves to a, “We’re gonna exclude those books from getting to be published at all.” Then we end up with these, you know, pictures from history of piles of books burning in a street. It’s really about this long history of saying that books are not just about the paper and ink there, they are really, a they’re a cultural artifact, they’re a way of saying, a library exists. And what is allowed in that library is a picture of what’s allowed in the broader culture, who is allowed to exist, whose stories are allowed to be told. And so when we look at book banning, both historically and presently, we kind of see these two kind of bands come out of history. When we’re not to the point where we’re totally trying to destroy a culture via that like bombing or burning or whatnot, we start with these bans. And it’s either, “I want to ban the existence of this book as a symbol of really banning the existence of this person or this group of people,” who are simply trying to say, like, “We do exist, we should be allowed to tell our stories.” And the ban is saying, “Actually, no, like this counters our belief, therefore your existence in the culture isn’t allowed, isn’t warranted.” And then the other kind of ban is more like a group of people telling their stories saying, “Hey, we’ve always existed and our stories have always mattered, even if they counter your origin myth. Or even if they counter what you think is okay, or the way you want to tell our narrative.” And a ban is a way of maintaining that cultural hegemony of like, “No, this is the group that gets to tell our history. You can tell your history but not if it counters ours, not if it messes with our narrative.” Because that throws off, that throws off that origin myth, that throws off that existence. And so we saw this really come out a lot post Civil War in the US with the Daughters of the Confederacy. This actually pulls into our last episode. We were talking about white Christian nationalism, where, remember, I was talking about how the Confederacy was explicitly a white Christian nationalist nation, like that was written into their constitution. They were mad it wasn’t written into the US Constitution. And so they explicitly wrote that in and so when they lost, they couldn’t say, “Well, white Christian nationalism lost.” Right? So they had to create a new narrative which is where we get the idea of this myth of the Lost Cause. That this was, they were doing the work of God and this, you know, “This secular nation won over but yet we’re still doing God’s work. And we’re still going to labor for the work of white Christian America in the south” and whatnot. And so there was an active effort to tell history in a certain way. And I mean, anyone who really tried to counter that would be banned, would be pushed out. Because again, it fits that, “Hey, just because…we’re not going to actually allow that story to exist, because it doesn’t mesh with the narrative we’re trying to keep prominent.”

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, and one of the things is this narrative, the pamphlets that the daughters of confederacy came out with that really guided the education system. Because they, you know, after Johnson comes into power, he was a southern sympathizer, and you have the Hayes Compromise. All these different things to take place. And they became in prominent places of power. And so they push that narrative and agenda. And even today, you know, presently, today, we are dealing with that and having arguments about all of the things that the Confederate statues that came up during the Civil Rights Movement, you know, all of those things to counter or to really what you would say whitewash history, and to put people who were considered traitors and treasonous in our country in places of memorializing them. And so even with that, those pamphlets were around until 1969. And so you know, and they, this is a big part of the structure of our school system where the books that get printed and what they have in them, the stories that are told. And this causes a major issue, because then we’re not starting from a common memory, from a common history. So that too, is going to change us having a common language. And so that creates tension. So this is even why we exist today, trying to right a wrong. And so we can’t continue to wrong, because our faith is about recalling, our faith is about remembering. We should be able to remember and recall our history, just like we do when it comes to biblical history. And so this is really important, because this impacts us today. Because although these pamphlets were around until 1969, if you grew up in the South, and a lot of places, the history that was taught was the lost cause.

Elizabeth Behrens  

Oh yeah.

Latasha Morrison  

And that is incorrect. Because it goes against even what the secession paper says. It goes against what the Confederate Constitution says. It’s a lie. And so we know that when you teach a lie, there’s gonna be consequences. And that’s also oppressive. And it marginalizes groups of people. But we know that truth sets us free. So today, we’re gonna talk a little about a little bit about truth. So Jefferson, you know, give your two cents on this. And we’re gonna dive into just some questions that we have. And we just want this to prompt conversations, you know, in your homes, in your Be the Bridge groups, in your communities. So what are some of the thoughts you have? You’ve heard Elizabeth, you’ve heard me, what are some things that’s coming to mind?

Jefferson Jones  

Yeah, I love everything that is said already. And, you know, you made me think, Latasha about the biblical history. And, you know, I began to think about book banning and began to think about what was done with the Bible. And we know that there was a negro Bible, the slave Bible in the 19th century in the British West Indies. And in that Bible, there was 90% of the Old Testament was banned. And 50% of the New Testament was banned. Why? Because they wanted to suppress or hide or remove anything that spoke against what they thought was right about God’s creation. And we know that when this happens, it’s just the controlling of a narrative.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

If I can control the narrative, I can then manipulate the people. But then also I can remove cognitive dissonance. And so in this we see also this conflation of politics, religion, and morality, to where all of these things are now mushed together into this, like if I took three different colors of clay and I mushed them together over time those three different colors are going to become one color. They’re gonna be like ugly brown or some kind of gray. So this conflation of things, why? Because I want to do anything that I can to push against any truth telling that’s going to challenge my narrative; and I don’t want to be challenged. So that’s what we’re dealing with today. When it comes to the book banning. We already mentioned Ruby Bridges. And you mentioned 1969. And that made me think about five years later, in 1974 in West Virginia, there was a county that they were trying to introduce multicultural language into their teaching and education. Well, there was pushback on that. And some of the teachers began to make noise and were in uproar and saying things like, “Well, we can’t teach this African American literature because it would teach a ghetto dialect.” And they would say that Langston Hughes, anti Christian. Okay, pause. Why would you say, in a public school system in America, why would you say that some work in a school system is anti Christian? Because we have the conflation that anything that is American is inherently Christian.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

So we dealt with those things, and we’re still dealing with those things today.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, yeah. I know, you know, as we look at even some of the history, like there’s books on the holocaust that is being banned. There’s a lot of like, books on gender that are being banned. And some of these things, I know that we cannot take this broad stroke, brush stroke with this. But I also believe that one of the things that we have to do as a parent, as a community, I think, is important, where there may be books that I don’t want my children to read. And so I have every right to say, I don’t want my children because this goes against our values, it goes against our religious beliefs. But that’s for me and my family. But when it crosses over to me, telling Jefferson what his children should and should not read, or Elizabeth what she should and should not read, what Mrs. Smith and her class what she should and shouldn’t read, it’s a slippery slope. That what happens is, the target can be one group, but then you get now all of these things as it relates to anti blackness, anti semitic stuff that’s happening. And so you’re playing a dangerous game, when you start doing that? Because where does it stop? Because then on the counter of that, people can say, “Well, you know what the Bible is full of rape. There’s wars, there’s so much violence in the Bible. And I’m really uncomfortable with any religious books being taught.” Those are some of the things that can happen. So it becomes like this really slippery slope that we’re on in this democracy. And those are some of the drawbacks of a democracy, that we have to work through the tensions of a democracy. Elizabeth, when we talk about if there are books on the shelves of libraries with content that isn’t suitable for children or could harm them why shouldn’t we ban them? Shouldn’t we be actively working to protect kids? So I think some people are saying these books are going to harm, but I think we have to start in how do we define harm?

Elizabeth Behrens  

Yeah.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, how do we define that.

Elizabeth Behrens  

Protecting kids from what is always my question. Because when you look at actually like what books are trying to be banned, there’s a lot of books out there, historical books that are promoting white supremacy, that are promoting white nationalism. Those those aren’t on any of the lists of books people are trying to get banned broadly across the country. So you have to realize, what are we wanting to protect kids from? Is this really about protecting kids in schools, which goes back to some prior cultural conversations we’ve had of like, what are we really afraid of? And I think we’ve learned and I mean, Jefferson knows this from working with youth. Assuming that you can simply keep your kids from engaging with content if you put up enough walls, if you put up enough bans, there’s this idea that we can protect via some kind of barrier instead of saying, “You know what, actually, let’s think about like, what does inoculation look like?” What does it look like to say, “Hey, you’re gonna come up against this concept, that concept, this concept at school, in the broader world.” I would rather, I know my kids are going to come up against every concept under the sun. And also the library is probably not where they’re coming across those concepts. Right? They all have the internet in their pocket. I am not so worried about a book on the bookshelf. Um, but if I think rather instead of the exposure to that information is not where harm is done. Harm is done when a child is exposed to information or harmful concepts, having no way to contextualize them, having no background information or way to make sense of it, and no comfort level asking questions. Because similarly too if a topic is off limits for, in some people’s minds, for a child to access, they’re likely probably also not talking about that around the dinner table. So when the child’s coming up against a concept that maybe goes against your personal values, they’re going to be exposed to it at some point. It’s up to us as parents to say, either their first exposure is out there, the library, on their phone, a conversation with friends, or their first incidents with that concept is with me and in a way that opens up curiosity that allows them to ask questions. So then when they do come up against that concept out in the world, they can come home and they know that’s already an open topic of conversation. We talk about this with in teaching parents had talked to kids about race, like that’s the first concepts we cover. Right? “Hey, like this should start. Before your child even has language, you should be giving them language. You should be giving them ways to talk about these things.” And so, I’m not going to prepare my child for the world by thinking that I can just keep banning everything that I might disagree with from around their bubble, because at some point, they leave my house and that bubble bursts. And I would much rather they have exposure in their high school library where they already have talked about it with me and they come home and we have a conversation and we deal with it and we prepare them to go back out into the world, then to have that bubble burst, and them be like, “Why were you, you were keeping all this information from me and why?”

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, that goes back to I think, you know, something that Tim Elmore I read, like years ago that this really helps with this is when you’re talking about saturation, you know, isolation, or interpretation. And so, you know, it’s like you, there’s one thing when you’re like, kind of like what Elizabeth said, where there’s saturation and there’s no, they can’t come home; it’s not an open topic where they can talk about it. And then like, as a parent, if you feel like, you know, you’re not equipped to talk about it, there are resources; there are people out there that can help help you have these conversations. Just like if a student is having issues with physics or trigonometry, and you as a parent are like, “Oh, my goodness, I have no idea. You know, so I don’t think they should do trigonometry or physics because I don’t understand that.” You know? But you’re gonna seek out resources to help your child understand trigonometry and physics in a better way, that maybe is not going to come through you. The other thing is isolation. Just trying to keep them away from things, that’s only going to have them form opinions and worldviews that are not being shaped by you, you know, when you when you isolate. And then you know, we see this as we’re looking at some of the things from you know, this new thing that’s on right now, I think it’s on Netflix, but Shiny, Happy People. This isolation that you have, you know, that is not helpful but very harmful. And then the thing is interpretation. How do I as a parent teach language, open kinds of conversations? Even when you don’t know the answer, it’s okay to say, “I don’t know the answer.” I just never forget when I was in a store and this little girl was just looking at me. You know when the kids are around four years old, they just say anything. And you know, I was one of those kids. My mom I embarrassed her so much because I would say the first thing that came to my mind. And just crazy stuff and staring at people. Because we’re curious, we want to know. You know? You’re developing, you’re filing information as a child. And so, what this little girl, she was around four, and she looked at me. And I knew she was about to say something and I was like, “Okay, what is she gonna say?” This is a little white girl. And she looked at me she said, “Look, mommy, she’s chocolate.” And the mom turned like, beat red, like she was so, she was trying to like get her to hush or whatever. And I smiled, and I said, “And chocolate is good! Right?” And her mom was, she was like, the little girl was like, “I love chocolate.” And she said, “And I’m vanilla.” And I said, “I love vanilla ice cream.” You know? And we were just having a moment, but her mom said, “I’m just teaching her. I’m teaching her colors by things that we love.” And so, you know, so she was doing that, and she was giving her language. And what she was doing was filing that information. And when it came time for her to pull that information up at that store, she saw this chocolate girl and she was like, “I like chocolate!” You know? But she was teaching her pleasant words to associate colors with, to associate ethnicity with. And so I think that was just something that, you know, that she was embarrassed, but I kind of reinforced it. But I also had encounters with another little girl that was in one of the carts and looked at me and looked at her mom, and she said, “We don’t like Black.” And her mom tried to get her off the aisle so quick. But these are the things where learning to interpret, now do I think her mom said that? Well, maybe her mom did or she heard something. But if we don’t queue our children, if we don’t have conversations then they are going to be cued by society. And as a parent, you have to make sure that you’re helping shape that conversation because you’re not going to stop information for coming. People have, kids have access. So you know, you gonna cut off everything? You gonna ban social media? You gonna ban the internet? You gonna ban books, audio books? All this, all the things; you gonna ban everything so that you can keep your child safe? That’s not going to keep your child safe. And so I think it’s just, where does it stop? Because it’s a very slippery, slippery slope that we’re all in. And I think that’s something for us to think about. Because I love children, and I want them to be protected. But I do understand that there’s a right way and a wrong way to go about it. Because a lot of us are products of the education system that has banned and isolated and tried to justify what history needs to be taught and what doesn’t. How many times, Elizabeth, have we’ve been in a training, and we start talking about the history of geographical racism or red lining.

Elizabeth Behrens  

People have no idea.

Latasha Morrison  

And giving people contextual understanding to really know why their community or why their state or their city is structured the way it’s structure. You know, why in Austin, Texas, did they build 35 right through African American neighborhoods? Same thing with here in Atlanta with 20. Why do we have this? And then when you start explaining the history, there’s a good book, The Color of Law, for those of you who may not understand this, that really breaks this down and explains that these things were intentional and strategic. And then this impacts our wealth gap, because those communities, their housing properties are valued lower. You know, my grandparents weren’t able to purchase a house in the communities of their choice until after the Fair Housing Rights Act. So when you start giving people that history, they’re like, “Oh, my goodness. Why wasn’t I taught that?”

Elizabeth Behrens  

I was just, it’s been a few years ago, and I have something I just want to tee up and send Jefferson’s way as our youth person. I was working with a group of moms with a MOPS group, which if you are in the Christian evangelical world, you know, Mothers of Preschoolers. And it was this all white moms group in my area. And they wanted me to just come. It was in the midst of, you know, things are happening in our city. And they’re like, “How do we talk? We’ve got all these little kids. Come teach us how to talk to these little kids.” And so I did my presentation. And then, like as an aside mentioned something about the intentional racial division in our city and how it’s set up that way. And there was like a hush went over. They were like, “Wait, what?” Like, no one in the room knew the story. They lived in an all white neighborhood. Their kids went to all white schools. They were in an all white church, and they thought it was an accident. And so we went into that history. And so at the end one of them, a mom asked me she’s like, “Why don’t I know this? Why has no one told me this?” And this ties right into what we’re saying. It’s like, I answered, I was like, “Who benefits from you not having this information? Who benefits from keeping this information out of people’s hands?” And I think we’ve got to think about that with book bans too. Who is benefiting by banning these books? Is it the kids we say we’re protecting? We’ve kind of covered that. No. They’re not actually benefiting. Which actually makes me think, like way back early 1800s, throwing it back into history. There was a book came out that at first got no publicity. It was a story about how maybe the world that actually started. It accounted one of the creation narrative. And so, it didn’t get any popularity until places started banning it. And then all of a sudden, it started, like, everybody was reading it; it was started getting published over and over and over again. And Thomas Jefferson actually said, like, “I thought this book would be innocent, because no one would read it.” But it like, basically, if you would have left it alone, it would have been fine. But as soon as you persecuted the book, it will be generally read by the public because everyone in the US will think it’s their duty to buy a copy to read. Because, “Oh, well you can’t come to our freedoms to read things.” But this is what I wanted to tee up to Jefferson is like, you’re working with youth. Like, the general response of youth when you try to keep information from them and they’re aware of that, like, what do they do? We know youth. Like, how do you think youth respond to this?

Jefferson Jones  

Yeah, we, you know, we’re wired though, even as humans to touch the untouchable. If the stove is hot, let me find out; let me let me put my hand on, let me touch to see if it’s really as hot as you’re saying that it is. And so when you’re dealing with youth, when you’re dealing with young people, when you’re dealing with the nature of man, we like to go beyond the boundary. We like to eat of the fruit that you say I can’t have. Even if I can have everything in the garden. But no, you can’t have the cherries from the cherry tree, I want the cherries. So it is this, that as we focus on a thing, if we hyper focus on a certain thing or a certain book, or we say, “Ban this. Band that,” Those are the things that people want to gravitate to. Because then the inquisitive part of youth, that part like, “What’s really beyond the line? What’s really in this book that you don’t want me to know that’s so bad?” And so as a father, also, not just working with youth, but having a 12 and a 14 year old, that we have created a brave space in our home, that our kids can ask us the hard questions, and we’ll have critical, you know, courageous conversations in our home. Why? Because I am a steward of my sons. I am the responsible one that helps to not necessarily shape everything they believe. But give them a God perspective, a healthy perspective of what is presented to them. But then on the other side of that, I think, Elizabeth, the part that people don’t like, is that I don’t get to dictate what my child believes and knows.

Latasha Morrison  

Whew. Say that again, Jefferson!

Jefferson Jones  

I don’t get to dictate what my child believes and what they know. But I do have a responsibility to provide a God perspective, that is a healthy perspective as I’m shaping them to be responsible, healthy adults that can go out into society. Because if I don’t teach them, everybody else is going to. But if I say, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,” to everything, then I’m going to close the door, and they’ll come to me for nothing. So as we think about this book banning it is a building of borders around the imagination of people. Because many want the imagination of their children to be a offspring of what they know and not a development of what God is shaping in them or what’s developing in them naturally because of the way that they are wired. And with this, all of this, I think to it, it comes down to these thoughts that people have that, “I don’t want you to learn what I’m ignorant about.” Or “I don’t want you to learn about what I have discomfort with. Because you bringing up the history or truth or truth telling, dealing with these hard issues, I haven’t even wrestled with the discomfort and the pain that I have. So how do you think I’m going to be able to help you navigate something that I haven’t even resolved in myself?”

AD BREAK

Latasha Morrison  

There was a woman, I think she may have been in Florida, but she was a survivor of the Holocaust. And she was reminding people in a video, she kind of brought her testimony to a community event that they were having to discuss all the banning of books is happening in Florida. But it’s not just happening in Florida, it’s happening in other places. And some places it’s happening under this undercurrent, you know, with a lot of political agendas that are driving this, partisan agendas, let’s say that, partisan agenda sort of driving this. And so one of the things that she said was, you know, pointing back to some of the things that were done to begin dehumanizing a lot of the Jewish community was the banning of books, you know, removing them from history. And so she recounts that. And saying, you know, like, basically a warning, “Don’t go down this slippery slope.” I heard recently, I think, one parent can complain, and just think about the danger of that. One parent can complain. And then a school is making the decision to ban the entire book. So just think, one parent having that much power. That is a dangerous slippery slope. I think Amanda Gorman’s speech, which inspired a lot of people, was recently her book was banned.

Elizabeth Behrens  

The white lady on the podcast, I just have a word for my people real quick. Like, when we are the parent, who is dictating that broader thing, we are falling into a long white cultural norm and pattern of allowing our fear to be weaponized by those in power.

Latasha Morrison  

Teach the people, Elizabeth. Teach the people.

Elizabeth Behrens  

When white people are scared, Black people die. We’ve talked about that on prior episodes with guns and things. When white people are afraid Black people’s history gets erased. When white people are afraid, what happens to marginalized communities? There is so much fear that our children will feel any sense of guilt or discomfort or. I mean, there was actually a Texas legislator that said, like “I’m gonna pull any book that makes someone feel any psychological distress at all.” And we know what’s unsaid there.

Latasha Morrison  

But what children?

Elizabeth Behrens  

We know what children they are actually worried about. They’re not worried about the BIPOC children in those communities.

Jefferson Jones  

Exactly.

Elizabeth Behrens  

And so we are so afraid that our children will have any level of discomfort that we are willing to allow other children to end up dead. And we’ve decided that like, that’s a white cultural norm that is a historical through line through our history. And when we decide to play into that, because “Well, no, actually, this book, maybe actually really is dangerous. So this school curriculum, this whatever,” you are playing into a narrative. And I want to ask that same question that I asked that woman in MOPS. Who’s benefiting from your fear? Who’s benefiting from your lack of knowledge? Who’s benefiting from that ban? Because I promise you that it is never the most marginalized in your community. It is always the most privileged in your community who are benefiting from you being told to be afraid, for you being told to push a ban. And it is always going to lead to the further marginalization of a community. And when we are ever okay with a people group being marginalized, we are acting well outside our call to be life and to be light and to be love and hope in our communities.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, so good. So good. I think even like this is not something that’s just happening in the United States, as I mentioned, you know, the situation in Nazi Germany. But when we start talking about the worldwide banning of books, we also have parts of our Constitution that protects us from some of these very things that are happening now. So it’s like there are children’s constitutional rights that are being violated right now as it relates to the freedom of speech when you start talking about book banning. But this research, when you start talking about worldwide book banning, there’s a historian Julian Petley, had observed, “Banning works, once they have been published can be difficult and often counterproductive, as such bans tend to give the works in question a curiosity value,” we’ve mentioned this, “or draw attention to the public, which might otherwise have remained ignorant of their very existence.” So we’ve seen that happening where there’s a lot of books on that list, and they’re saying, “Hey, go buy it.” And then a lot of us now we are downloading books to our Kindles, to our iPads. We’re listening on Audible. There’s so many various ways where, you know, physical books are not just the thing that we’re talking about. We have access to information from various places. And so we have to look, even look at that. You know, I think there’s, you know, when we start talking about worldwide book banning, I just wanted to mention this, because you did a lot of this in your research where you talked about Nazi Germany. The Catholic state leadership during Protestant Reformation, they had a list of banned authors, special commission to address literature,  commission published a list of banned books. Spain during the Spanish Inquisition aggressively censored books. China and Hong Kong used book banning and censorship in order to protect the Chinese Communist Party from criticism. We see this happening in Russia. We see  the lack of access to information and in China, North Korea. There’s no, I think someone is getting life in prison or either death penalty because they had Bibles. We’re on a slippery slope, here in this democracy. And so, you know, the history of Russia, you know, related to far right politicians, you know, sexuality, all of the things. The Philippines in 2021. Saudi Arabia. South Africa, as it relates to the apartheid, they banned literature up until the 1990s. And they had separate schools where the Black South Africans were educated on a very minimum level, just kind of like our Native boarding schools, enough to just assimilate you and to dumb you down and make you ignorant. And so you create this society that you’re still dealing with the legacy of those those harms. So we can go down to Australia, New Zealand. And then coming into America, where there was one of the most banned worldwide books in history, you know, was this book called Ulysses in 1933. Or something like this, or a book, 1984 was it? Elizabeth, if you want to talk about that.

Elizabeth Behrens  

Oh, yeah.

Latasha Morrison  

I just read down the history, because it’s so much because I wanted to show a pattern.

Elizabeth Behrens  

It is. But 1984, yeah, it’s one of the most banned books in history. And the crazy thing about that is that in the book, there’s a branch of the government that’s dedicated to finding and erasing the past and having books rewritten to tell a certain origin myth. (laughter) We don’t even see the irony. And we don’t see the irony, clinging to this idea of American exceptionalism, while at the same time engaging in the tactics that come from like, the most hardlined authoritarian regimes in history. We want to still see ourselves as like on this pedestal. Even when we talked about nationalism, this idea of like, putting ourselves on the top, this hierarchy is superior. Even as we’re engaging in all of these things that we would turn our noses up and look down on other nations for an engaging while we do the exact same thing. And that doesn’t just go for book bans, that goes across the board. But it’s very interesting to see the same groups that are trying to hold us up as this pinnacle of like Christian nation, while at the same time doing the same activities as authoritarian regimes around the world and throughout history.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, yeah. And that’s just a slippery slope. What would you say? What does book banning have to do with racial literacy or bridge building?

Jefferson Jones  

That’s such a lovely question. It made me think about you know, when you have a specific entree or a dish, say your grandma passed a specific dish down to you. And you know, Grandma know how to make that thing.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

And it hit. It slap. But if you took that recipe, and you took one or two of the ingredients out of that dish, guess what? You done messed up the dish.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

So when it comes to book banning, racial literacy, and what we’re dealing with, when we remove people, stories, and books that represent people groups, represent the history of people groups, we are taking away from the wholeness of who we are as a people. When we when we remove African American literature, we’re taking away from the truth telling; we’re taking away from the stories; we’re taking away from the experiences that people have endured in this nation and even other nations. And then it cripples our ability to show a truer narrative that includes me, that includes you, that includes Asian Americans, that includes Indigenous people. And it causes us to live life with blinded vision. And we’re not able to see beyond our own lens. And it messes up our ability to even empathize with other people groups. I’m reading a book now, that deals with, that talks about reading Black books and why it’s important to read books outside of our own ethnic group. Because it helps me to not just see God in others, but it helps us to see just the stories and the experiences of people that I may never know or that I’m not surrounded by. So it’s critical, Latasha, to bridge building. Because, you know, if I say that I want to be a part of a community where there is equity. If I want to be a part of a community, where there’s harmony and dignity for others, then I have to be able to have access to the information that’s going to enrich my perspective, that’s going to broaden or expand my understanding of other people and stories that I may have never known had I not picked up a book.

Latasha Morrison  

Right. Right. So good, so good. What do you think, Elizabeth, that bridge builders can be doing in their cities if this is happening in your city? What can bridge brothers be doing if there are efforts to ban books happening in their cities or states? What is something that Be the Bridge…I know a lot of people are right now they’re seen all of this happening, and they’re paralyzed. And I know, when I read history, and I’m looking at all the things that happened. I think about while apartheid was happening up into the 90s, what was the world doing? What were like, you know, what you would say white people in South Africa doing? You know, what I’m saying? Like did everybody agree? Like, what were people doing? And then I look at some of them, like what we’re doing now, staying in our own silos or paralyzed because of fear, not wanting to speak up because you’re afraid of losing something. What can bridge builders be doing in their cities and states?

Elizabeth Behrens  

Yeah, you know, I pull in this, when we’re doing trainings, I have this concept when I talk about some of the era of lynching in America, actually. So I talk about that idea of, what are white people doing. And that there’s these categories. Right? There are the active instigators; they’re the ones who are doing the actual physical work of engaging in the lynching. That group is likely not who we’re talking to on this. But you know, like that idea, like people that are trying to instigate these bans, they’re trying to instigate the harm. But the problem is that there’s also these other groups that are just as necessary in order for that active group of instigators to have any level of success. And the first is the active bystander. And those were the people that would show up and watch. They may not be actively participating, but their showing up to watch. They’re bearing witness, while still being a bystander. So they’re not actually even trying to stop anything. And they’re also like lending credibility to what’s happening by standing by and watching it. And then there’s the passive bystanders who knew it was happening and stayed home, who are just as complicit because they’re saying, “I know what’s happening and I’m still willing to stay home.” And the last group is people who are in places of authority, who actually have power to step in and could be doing something different and aren’t. So I think some of it is figuring out which one of those am I? Is this happening in my school district? And I know it’s happening. And I’m at the board meetings or something, and I’m sitting there quietly watching. Am I at home pretending it’s not happening? Or am I in a place of authority, like as a teacher, an administrator, school board member? So once we’ve kind of put ourselves on the spectrum of how are we, where are we in relation to what’s happening, that also kind of gives us a roadmap of what we’ll do next. It may be that you decide, “You know what? I’ve been the passive at home bystander, I’m going to shift to the role of someone who has power. I’m going to run for office. I’m going to run for the school board. I’m going to show up at every stinking school board meeting and be the really obnoxious parent. I’ll be a thorn in someone’s side.” Now, that’s not what everyone’s gonna feel the call to. There’s also, you know, there are figuring out who’s running for school board, who’s running for these positions in your area and making sure you are knocking on doors or putting up signs or, you know, donating money, whatever you can do to help get people into office who are a better representation of our communities. But then there’s also I think, there’s a lot to be said for doing some things on the ground floor. I’ve heard of some people talking about doing this, so I’m sure it’s happening somewhere. But just people were starting parent meetings in communities where this was starting to get stirred up where they said, like, “Let’s get a bunch of parents together. And let’s talk about what we’re actually afraid of. And let’s talk about like, how could we be talking to our kids, instead of trying to ban the books?” How do we be parents supporting parents, so that we can counter that cultural norm of utilizing white fear and instead, empower people to feel like, “Oh, I don’t have to allow my fear to be weaponized, I can actually have better conversations with my kids.” “I can be the parent who goes to the school board, a board meeting and set stands up and says, ‘Hey, I may object to what this book says. But I’m really in opposition to banning it and here’s why.'” There are a lot of roles to be played. And the other is even, there’s just, there’s become a lot of great guides online. And I know the Authors Guild has a great one out there. It’s a Stop Book Bans Toolkit. And it talks through like, you know, gives you some really specific language you can use to write to your legislators. There’s a lot, there’s more of a to do list there. But I think especially as bridge builders, we need to be thinking really strategically about how do we build bridges within our community to open up these doors to conversation so that we can kind of dump water on the fear fire that’s happening. Right? Like, we can actually make it so that when when someone’s trying to utilize fear and utilize bans and trying to use us as that weapon, we can say, “Actually, that that’s not scary to me. I’m not afraid of that. And I know my fellow parents aren’t afraid of either, because we’ve been talking about it.”

Latasha Morrison  

Right. That’s so good. Those are some great points. What would you say also Jefferson to, you know, I don’t even want to say really BIPOC parents, because a lot of the target has been Black history, so I want to be, you know, African American history. So what would you say to African American parents in these communities where this is happening? How would you, what would you say to encourage them, to empower them in this moment where they feel fearful, they feel alone in a lot of these communities where one person can say something and you can completely erase this from their child’s school, especially God forbid if a child is in predominantly white communities and schools. And then I know there’s some things that we’re working on as Be the Bridge to be proactive as we see the culture going this way, that we’re not just depending on schools to teach children, but we’re going to create other vehicles that can educate parents and children. So what would you say to African American parents and also other marginalized communities that are being impacted by this?

Jefferson Jones  

I think the first thing that I would say is that to my parents, you are the most powerful voice in the life of your children. And even when you don’t feel like it, your kids are sitting at the table waiting for every word that comes out of your mouth. And that you have the influence to help your children know and to learn the things that you feel to be important to them. And I would encourage parents to also invest in buying books. Invest in buying books. I mean, you, if you could buy your kids $150 pair of sneakers, you can get your child a $12 book. (laughter) So but you know, seriously, invest in finding books, the ones that are meaningful to you, meaningful to even your childhood. Think about the books that you read that impacted your life. Think about the people who speak into your life and the books that they’ve read, and make a collection in your own home that your children can have access to. And I would even challenge parents and communities to do a book club. And actually, you know, pick a book, walk through that book, and tear it apart and talk about different areas of the book and why they are important. And you know, this made me think, too, Latasha something that is in the legacy that’s generational in not just African American community, but in other BIPOC communities as well, and that’s oral tradition.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

And I think that that is something that not that it’s fully lost, and maybe you could speak a little more into that, but that there are parts of it that are being lost. But I think there’s a richness and value to oral tradition, especially in the African American community, that when the books were taken away from us, they cannot take the story out of me. You might be able to take the book, but I have the stories on the inside of me because it’s a part of my legacy. And I think that as we learn this and embrace this idea of oral tradition and oral history, we’ll be able to impart that into our children. But in order for that to happen, we have to learn how to value ourselves again and see the worth and dignity that we have, understand the Imago Dei and how God sees us and how much He cares for us, and that we have something to pass on to our children. And I love what Elizabeth said, what was already mentioned, and Latasha what you’ve mentioned about having these groups and forming groups in our communities, and really holding each other accountable in a way that others are encouraged and kind of pushed a little bit to do what might feel risky, to do the things that even make us feel uncomfortable. Because even as there are others, you know, white people and other groups who might feel uncomfortable with information, there are people in BIPOC that feel uncomfortable about addressing this because of what they feel might be lost. Yeah.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah. I think, you know, even with the summer, there’s so many things that as parents you can do over the summer. Where maybe there is something special your kids want before they go back to school or, you know. you know. We used to have this reading challenge in the church I was on staff with for the summer. And kids who read the most books, and they can either do a report, like give you a high level synopsis on the book. But it was just to get our kids used to reading. There’s also so many documentaries, let’s not forget documentaries, that can kind of stroke the curiosity that are on a lot of the streaming services. There’s so many documentaries that are multicultural, that tells a story of so many different people groups that you can have as a family watch, you know, this summer and kind of discuss it and have questions about it and talk about it. Where you’re giving them some information that they can actually pull up maybe later. There’s also opportunities. I know that I’m going to DC this summer for an event. And so I’ve already mapped, you know, made sure that hey, we want to go to the Native American museum that’s there. We want to go to the African American Museum. There’s a Holocaust Museum there. You know, there’s places if you’re going to California, check out some of the Asian American museums that are listed or the monuments that are there. Elizabeth, you’re in Kansas City. You know, we have the the Negro League Museum that’s there that people can check out. There’s there’s so much history around us where this information is available. Don’t think that just because it’s not about your community that it’s not for you. This is the way we do cross cultural racial literacy. I want to make sure that as African American, I know the stories of other BIPOC groups. If you are a white person you want your children to know and understand different cultures so that they can do bridge building work, so they can empathize and understand the stories of that community. I was watching, I’m trying, but I can’t take it. Started to watch one of the Yellowstone movie, there’s a show called Yellowstone. And I was I think it’s called 18 something I was trying to watch it. But I could not. I mean, in that movie, in that show is really given the harsh realities of what the Native American boarding schools did to that community, the harshness and how it was instituted by missionaries, the Catholic Church, you know, people that were supposed to be Christians, that were brutal. You know? And this is history that I studied, when I was writing my first book. There’s so much information out there, even on YouTube, people personally telling their stories, the impact of that, that you can expose your kids to and know. Just even looking at that to Yellowstone it’s hard. But just imagine it’s hard to watch it. But just imagine the people who survived it and who had to live it. Can we give them the honor of bearing witness? And I think that’s the thing is. Just imagine if you don’t want your kids to hear it, because it creates a discomfort, think about the discomfort that it creates for Black and Indigenous kids of their history being shunned or being denied. Just think about the harm that you’re doing. And we’re not thinking about any other kids, but one group of kids through that. And the injustice in that of thinking about one group of kids. And so, you know, this is this is our perspective. I think, when we start talking about, there was one tie in that I wanted you to reiterate, Elizabeth, as we prepare to close. But you said, you know, the commonalities, the common threads between white Christian nationalism and book banning. I want you to reiterate that as we close.

Elizabeth Behrens  

You’re gonna make me remember when I get on tangents, and what did I say? (laughter) I think the link there is that white Christian nationalism can’t flourish unless only white Christians get to tell the story, get to write the narrative, get to be the ones controlling the culture and the memory and that’s why there’s the push back. That’s why there’s the pushback, even if they are, even if powers that be, who would like to promote white Christian nationalism, are trying to tap into other fears that parents have, the underlying current is one of power, is one of maintaining that norm of white Christian nationalism. And so book bans are, they’re about cultural memory. They’re about, you know, every culture has a this is an us and this is a them. And this is who’s in and this is who’s out. And book bans aren’t just saying about what books are out, but these are what people are out. These are what people don’t get to be part of us. And that’s a really scary road to walk down. Right? Because, and not just because, “Oh, at some point maybe I’ll be the one that’s pushed out.” But because as a Christian, I care about that even if it’s never me, I care that there are people already being pushed out. I can empathize with how that would feel, even if I don’t have to be in fear that it would ever would be would be me. But yeah, I love your recommendations. I used to be a middle school teacher before I landed in this world. So I’m also like, yes, summer homework for the kids! I’m here for it. There’s actually a really, really great book that I think taps into, that I love this idea of over the summer trying to get parents to really open up these conversations and how do we talk about this stuff at home? The book is called Tell Me Who You Are. And it’s a whole collection of people’s personal narratives and stories. It’s written for, you know, young adult into early adult audience. 

Jefferson Jones  

A yellow cover?

Elizabeth Behrens  

Yes it is! You have it on your shelf? (laughter) Yeah. And it’s telling their stories. And they have all different ways of identifying themselves. And here’s how I think about the world and here’s why and here’s where that comes from. And the opening that gives to help tap into even that idea of the us and of them. Of saying, hey, the us is gonna needs to be big and broad, because God, like God’s version of us and them is not the same as this human version of us and them. And if we’re trying to live more Christ like, then we need our us to be much more expansive in as far as who we’re willing to listen to and whose stories we’re giving space to. So I do like that book for practicing that with kids and helping them better understand that creating a them that you then exclude and marginalize has never led to good outcomes and never will.

Latasha Morrison  

So good, Elizabeth. As we close, what hope in this current cultural moment do you have? Because, you know, we see all these things. And it’s like so much chaos around us. But then there’s also this element of peace, you know, that surpasses our understanding. What hope, I think, I’m looking at the students that we’re engaging with and that we’re talking with, that is my hope. Because they see the world very different. They are more inclusive, they are more open. And of course, there always are outliers within that. But I’m really hopeful. I think about Elizabeth, even your daughter, you sending pictures of your daughter on a cheer squad. And I think she was the only little white girl on the cheer squad and she was cheering her heart out. And I think about that intentional choice that you guys are making and how that’s going to take her so far in life just having that experience of understanding what it feels like to be the minority. And I’m pretty sure that wasn’t easy. I’ve seen another friend of mine send, you know, where her son was the only white child that was on the basketball team. I see that all the time as it relates to BIPOC children where we’re the only ones, but you don’t really see that a lot on the other side of that, because there’s a discomfort that lies with that. So I am hopeful of the resilience and the brilliance and the wisdom of this generation. They are, as a Gen Xer sometimes I don’t get them. I don’t understand them. But I love them. You know? And so that that is something that brings me hope. What about you guys? Anything that brings you hope?

Jefferson Jones  

Yeah, I think for me, I’ll just, you know, listening to what you just said. And I’m looking at the young people, looking at the college students, even my son’s, you know, that as they see what’s happening with the book banning there is a resistance to the book banning. And I believe that creativity is birthed out of that resistance.

Latasha Morrison  

Yes.

Jefferson Jones  

That you can try it. But we know this to be true, Latasha, generationally. It’s a part of our legacy that if you take this from me, I’m gonna come back with something even more powerful.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah.

Jefferson Jones  

So it pushes, it forces me to be even more creative, even more dynamic, even more powerful that even as you push me down and try to suppress who I am, because when I think about this with the with the book banning, it’s like if you ban these books, you’re banning a part of me. But in that there’s this creativity, I’m hopeful for the creativity that is coming out of these young people in this generation who are alive and who are vibrant and who are excited, but yet stubborn in a way that you’re not going to stop me from being who I am created to be. You’re not going to strip me of this. You can ban these things, but you can’t ban me.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah, yeah. Okay, Miss Elizabeth. What’s giving you hope?

Elizabeth Behrens  

You know, I would hope say one of the things that’s giving me hope right now is seeing this slow growth of white people into more of this movement into being bridge builders. And the 2020 growth, I know was exciting for a lot of people, but in a lot of ways it was even more scary for me because I was like, oh, no, whenever there’s a big wave, there’s always backlash. Here it comes. And there was. But I think that there’s a lot to be said for the slow growth. And I see that hard work being done there. And I think that’s good. And I think it calls to, you know, trying to figure out how do we talk about this idea of whiteness, which we’ve talked, you know, we talk about at length and always kind of. When I’ve used that word out in the world it throws people for a loop. And it causes all kinds of tension. But I think about the work, I look back at the, you know, the 400 years of the redefinition of Blackness, is what I’m going to call it. Because the word Black was given a meaning. Same with whiteness, both were social constructs. They were given a meaning. And it was Black people, people who were at that time were assigned and told they were Black, that over centuries said, “You know what? That’s actually not what that means. It doesn’t mean that. It doesn’t mean this derogatory, degraded terminology. It actually means Black is beautiful. It actually means that there is history and legacy and culture and beauty in Blackness. And so, when there’s this pushback in the modern day against we don’t use the words whiteness and Blackness synonymously. Or as, like, you can’t just change them out in a phrase. “Well if I change that to Blackness, that will be racist, right?” And it’s like, yeah, yeah, it would be. But part of that is because white people have not done 400 years of redefinition. We haven’t. In fact, we’ve actually kind of doubled down on what we decided whiteness was going to mean. And so but what I see happening now is and what’s been slowly happening is, small, small movements trying to redefine whiteness over generations. But that group is growing. That group is growing. And we’re saying, actually, we’re going to redefine what it means to live in a body that’s labeled white, in a culture that’s labeled white. We’re going to redefine that. And it’s going to, you know what it’s probably going to take us some centuries. It really will. I have no doubt that it will in a lot of ways, because that’s how long it took to redefine other racial terminology. But I am hopeful, because I can look to other communities who have done that redefinition and been successful at that redefinition. And so I have hope that one day we will be able to follow in those footsteps and also redefine like, what does whiteness mean? And that at some day that is redefined. And it won’t be defined by being exclusionary; it won’t be defined by bigoting; and it won’t will be defined by nationalism. But rather, it can be defined as a people who reclaimed their full humanity that whiteness took from them, because you have to give up a piece of yourself in order to engage in in whiteness, because it’s so dehumanizing. I hope that we can reclaim that, and I see that work happening. And that brings me hope.

Latasha Morrison  

Yeah. And that’s, you know, and for those of you who are listening for the first time, as we’re talking about whiteness.

Elizabeth Behrens  

It’s an ideology, yeah, it’s an ideology.

Latasha Morrison  

It’s an ideology that functions a way of thinking. So if you want to know more about that, we have a Foundations Class. And soon more class, more classes coming that you can take through the Be the Bridge Academy. One is called Structures. There are so many things. And so one of the things I was thinking about, you know, before I get into that, but thank you so much for listening. These are just some prompts to help you continue this conversation and to have these conversations in your communities, in your brave spaces. But just to help shape this with some historical context. That’s what Cultural Views are about. So I hope you enjoyed today’s episode of Be the Bridge cultural view on book bans.

Narrator  

Thanks for listening to the Be the Bridge Podcast. To find out more about the Be the Bridge organization and or to become a bridge builder in your community, go to BeTheBridge.com Again, that’s BeTheBridge.com. If you’ve enjoyed this podcast, remember to rate and review it on this platform and share it with as many people as you possibly can. You can also connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Today’s show was edited, recorded, and produced by Travon Potts at Integrated Entertainment Studios in Metro Atlanta, Georgia. The host and executive producer is Latasha Morrison. Lauren C. Brown is the Senior Producer. And transcribed by Sarah Connatser. Please join us next time. This has been a Be the Bridge production.