Banning books definitely doesn’t count as cancel culture and I don’t know why you’d say it does

Texas Republican State Representative Matt Krause wants school districts to ferret out ‘material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously’

A Tennessee pastor invited his congregation to burn ‘occultic’ books like ‘Harry Potter’ and ‘Twilight’ on Wednesday, 2 February, 2022. (Screengrab of Greg Locke Facebook Live video)

I once met a woman at a yard sale who told me she was on the hunt for Sarah Palin’s book “Going Rogue.” Her goal was to buy any volume she could find. Not to collect the book as a keepsake, per se, but to take them out of circulation. At last count she owned over 100 copies. As you might have gathered, she was not a fan of the author and failed vice presidential candidate, who once claimed she could see Russia from her Alaska home.

Alongside the ubiquitous John Grisham, Sue Grafton and Nora Roberts novels, dusty copies of “Going Rogue” are a mainstay at yard sales, and on the bookshelves of such literary graveyards as Goodwill and the Salvation Army resale stores. I have noticed that few if any “Going Rogues” are dog-eared and exactly none that I have thumbed through have ever seen the business side of a highlighter.

But Palin’s book is hardly alone among the conservative scribbling set. I regularly see titles by Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Newt Gingrich and Sean Hannity. These books have ridiculous high print runs to match their lavish book advances to the authors. Publishers then flood the bookstores — physical and online — assuring that these tomes land firmly atop the bestseller lists, well, for a few weeks. Additionally, they are sold at Republican rallies or gifted for a hefty donation to whatever right-wing cause the writer is championing. But obviously, based on my anecdotal combing of thrift stores and rummage sales, there are many copies available on the remainder market.

Last December, former president, twice-impeached and many-times-investigated Donald J. Trump gifted the MAGA set with a picture book titled “Our Journey Together” (current price on Amazon $132, signed copies pushing into the low-$200 range.) The 320-page hardback of flattering poses and syrupy hagiography was birthed by something called “Winning Team Publishing.” A Google search on such publisher leads one to “45books.com.” The website features two blurbs by none other than Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump.

Percolating around all of this destruction of our forests in the name of inflated egos is the current cause du jour of book banning among concerned parents and hysterical talk show screamers. These folks, who politically lean heavily to the right of right, will argue with a straight face that this form of censorship is not to be confused with “cancel culture,” you know, when one of their own gets banned from Twitter or YouTube for claiming that a butterfly sanctuary in Texas is, in fact, a center of human trafficking. No, tossing books out of public libraries is definitely not cancel culture.

In Texas (it’s always Texas, isn’t it?) the obviously well-read Republican State Representative Matt Krause has compiled a list of 850 books that he wants school districts to identify, and then for them to reveal how much they paid for these corruptive treatises. But, wait, there’s more! Krause wants school districts to ferret out “material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.”

Among the 850 books are “What is the Black Lives Matter Movement?”, “Black Lives Matter: from Hashtag to the Streets,” “Race and Policing in Modern America,” “A Kids’ Book about Racism,” “The Black Power Movement and Civil Unrest” and, to perhaps best sum up his biases in one 268-page volume, “Things that Make White People Uncomfortable.” Hmm, do I sense a pattern here? (Because I could use the publicity, and as a boost to my dismal sales reports, I was hoping one of my books might make the list, but it was not to be. However, the good Texas legislator has unintentionally given me a great reading list that I can pass along to my grandkids.) Elsewhere, a Tennessee pastor led a literal book-burning event on Wednesday night.

Forcing school and local libraries to remove books that you don’t like is as effective as hunting down and eliminating copies of “Going Rogue” and “Our Journey Together.” Sarah Palin remains a darling of the right, and she has even earned an additional 15 minutes of infamy this winter in her failed defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. As you might have noticed, Trump is also not going away any time soon.

This current attempt to ban books is doomed to fail. Books contain ideas. Ideas cannot be erased. The violent history of American race relations, the history of this nation’s genocide of Indigenous peoples, the acceptance of LGBTQ+ culture and rights, and the pushback against police brutality need to be seen in the full light of day. By children, by parents, by grandparents. Indeed, by all Americans. We cannot move forward if we ignore our past. In a democracy, the answer to words you do not like is not fewer words, but more. Always more.

Stephen J. Lyons is the author of five books of essays and journalism. His newest book is “West of East.”