QUESTION
What are the most common tactics you see to banning books and do you see any signs of those tactics in New York City?
1:08:55
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4 min
The chapter discusses the tactics used in book banning, highlighting common practices such as local activists' and school boards' involvement in challenging school books. Testimonies from Jonathan Friedman and Emily Drabinsky reveal that while New York City has not seen aggressive laws like those in other states, there are still concerns about censorship and the influence on the culture of education and libraries. They emphasize the role and autonomy of libraries and educators in resisting these trends, the effect of hostility towards LGBTQ+ content, and the importance of funding and support for libraries and education. The role of the city council in combating book banning, supporting libraries, and safeguarding educational resources is also explored.
Carlina Rivera
1:08:55
The ideological roll over our democratic institutions, I I think, is very well put in and I I hope that the council today also really underlined that, but also our respect for the autonomy of library workers.
1:09:14
What are some of the most common tactics you see to to banning books.
1:09:21
Do you see any signs of those tactics here in New York City?
1:09:25
I mean, and I just wanna thank you for your work and and and for your testimony today because you have really collected and put together these procedures organizations that are very accessible in terms of information and data, and so we're grateful.
1:09:40
So any of those tactics you see here in New York City?
Jonathan Friedman
1:09:44
So book banning takes place in a lot of different ways and in a lot of different levels.
1:09:51
When we're talking usually about the kinds of book baiting that we've seen spread across the country in the past 3 years, We are talking first about school boards and local activists, sometimes parents, sometimes people who our parents or not, but maybe they don't have kids in public schools and frequently just a very vocal but relatively modest number of people.
1:10:16
Who are trying to kind of extend their views on everybody else.
1:10:20
Now the system's surrounding schools are designed so that parents can play a role in children's education and many schools have policies that allow people to file challenges, you know, to say, I don't want my kid to read this book for a class or I would prefer that the library restrict, you know, some segment of books for my own child.
1:10:39
Now a lot of that happens all the time on a very microindividual level.
1:10:45
And I remember of Virginia, librarian, school librarian told me in 20 years of teaching, she'd had 2 parents ask for those kinds of recommendations.
1:10:53
But then in the past 2 years, she's had hundreds of books challenged by a small number of people who clearly want to kind of remove and prohibit from the library, all kinds of books that they haven't personally read.
1:11:07
And it's quite obvious when you see the same books challenged everywhere.
1:11:10
So is some of that kind of micro level challenging to school books taking place in New York?
1:11:17
It it it I think there are some stories of that happening, but I haven't seen the kind of bending to that will that we have seen in other states happen in New York City.
1:11:28
And at present, New York State has not seen a law the likes of which we are seeing in Florida, Iowa moving forward today in Idaho, in West Virginia, in Tennessee, in Oklahoma, those are the Missouri.
1:11:44
I'm sure I'm forgetting a number.
1:11:46
But there are many laws that have been put forward.
1:11:48
They work in different ways and a lot of them exert pressures on librarians to remove books.
1:11:53
We haven't seen that in New York, but that doesn't mean we never could.
1:11:57
And we haven't seen any of those laws yet advance federally, but that also is something that could be on the horizon.
1:12:05
And so what we have to be alert to is this sort of multifaceted effort.
1:12:10
That isn't really just one phenomenon.
1:12:12
It has a lot of different elements going on at once.
1:12:15
And although none of that is directly happening today in Manhattan in Brooklyn, let's say, the the influence of this on the culture surrounding schools, school libraries, and really meets our publishing industry on authors.
1:12:31
It can be felt in the air in the ways that people are saying they, you know, might not publish a story.
1:12:35
They thought of writing a certain way.
1:12:37
Might not circulate that book the same way.
1:12:41
Or librarians are sort of looking over their shoulders at the same lists of books that are being banned and wondering, you know, maybe they shouldn't bring them into the library.
1:12:49
So a lot of that is much harder to track.
1:12:51
But the reports that I hear is about this basically impacting the culture of education and learning through books and libraries everywhere.
Emily Drabinsky
1:13:00
And I talked to dozens of librarians, every week, dozens, and the school librarians in New York City will absolutely tell you that efforts to ban and sensor materials.
1:13:08
The school libraries is a problem in New York City.
1:13:11
And I would also add to what Jonathan said.
1:13:14
The pervasive sense of fear is something that it's difficult to quantify, but it's very real.
1:13:21
I am myself and out and proud New York City, lesbian, and the attacks on books about lesbians or attacks on people like me.
1:13:30
And I was just in Alaska visiting with librarians there, and some of them were literally too afraid to be seen with me.
1:13:38
They did not want me to even enter their libraries and take a look.
1:13:42
They're so afraid of what these forces can bring down, and we're not safe or immune from that in New York.