Page 31 - BCALA Summer 2018

Should Librarians Also Champion the Freedom to Not Read?
By Jason Alston, University of Missouri
So. All of us know that librarians champion the freedom of people to read. ALA has a statement on this (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/ intfreedom/freedomreadstatement). The Freedom to Read Foundation (https://www.ftrf.org/page/About) is an organization affiliated with ALA that “protects and defends the First Amendment to the Constitution and supports the right of libraries
to collect - and individuals to access - information.”
What I am struggling with right now is whether our support of freedom to read means that we must support the inverse: the freedom of individuals to not read things they do not want to read.
Earlier this year, the Duluth Public Schools district in Minnesota removed two critically acclaimed works of fiction – “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” – from the district curriculum. While school libraries in the Duluth district will thankfully still have copies of these works available for students, reading these works for class will no longer
be required.
Initially, press coverage seemed to suggest that the Duluth branch of the NAACP led efforts to have these two books removed from the curriculum. The Duluth NAACP, in turn, released a
statement that clarified their position on and activity regarding the issue (http://duluthnaacp.org/2018/02/12/ statement-duluth-branch-naacp- regarding-isd709s-decision-remove- books-kill-mockingbird-adventures- huckleberry-finn-curriculum/).
While others in the community had reportedly gone before Duluth’s school board to request these books be removed from Duluth’s curriculum, the Duluth NAACP maintains it
never did this. The Duluth NAACP states that it did not want these titles removed from school libraries, but did support replacing these books as “classroom requirements” because the books, “confound the painful history of racism in the United States and provoke negative behavior (such
as hate speech) towards African Heritage youth.”
I was glad to learn that the Duluth NAACP hadn’t advocated for the books’ removal from the curriculum based on racial slurs, which is what some initial reporting seemed to suggest. But I was still disappointed that the Duluth NAACP stated
that these works provoke negative behavior and confound the nation’s racist history. I’d guess that fictional depictions of Black youth in contemporary entertainment provoke negative behavior toward Black youth far more than these two particular
titles, which actually seem to me to be criticisms of racism.
I read both titles in high school and believe them to be important literary works that compliment and color the at-times watered down depictions of racism in K-12 history texts. Because
I want all students to understand the sheer ugliness of historical American racism and what people are capable of, I opposed the removal of these works from the curriculum. I think when students learn about racism only through watered-down history texts and “safe” literature, they don’t gain an understanding of how venomous racism can potentially be.
So the fuddy duddy in me believes Duluth schools did their students and this society a disservice by removing these works from the curriculum. What I don’t know is if the librarian in me who champions the freedom
to read, should also champion the freedom to not read. In general, I’m sure librarians would never vocally encourage people to not read. But should librarians advocate for those who feel compelled to not read a particular work? I’m not there right now. Particularly, when it comes to children, I’m sure doing so could lead to some children vying to not have to read anything at all.
BCALA NEWS | Volume 45, Issue 3 | 31