De-linked Tweet thread by Lisa Corrigan:
Wedge issues like book bans appear when fascists have no plan to govern and just want to direct white rage at public institutions like schools to erode support for the public good.
Predictably, they generally focus that white rage onto Jewish or Black people as a way of sharpening whatever aspect of whiteness feels to be in crisis (generally as a result of sustained public critique of white supremacy and colonialism.)
Book bans ALWAYS fail. And generally the books sell gazillions more copies, bringing more attention to the object of the white tears. But more than that, book bans and other local cultural wars show us where fascists think they have power to define the limits of the public good.
Book bans make white people feel IN CONTROL, so they can consolidate a narrative among their in-group. But the effect of that is also raising awareness outside of that in-group, so that people mobilize to defend institutions of free speech (like schools and libraries).
Another way of thinking about it: book bans emerge when white people feel so OUT OF CONTROL and WEAK that they must PRODUCE CONTROL over objects that center critiques of power.
Obviously, you should buy and read the banned books and leave them in little free libraries, share them with community members, and support teachers who teach them.
BORROW them from lending institutions to justify their purchase. REQUEST their purchase at your local library.
But understand that book bans work as PROHIBITIONS, which is the only way that fascists see power: as something to be centralized and hoarded, not something to be debated or shared.
Also, fascism works BEST in an ECONOMY OF SCARCITY because people feel social PRECARITY (economic, social, political) and so they don’t want to produce ABUNDANCE (of support for public goods).
PRODUCE ABUNDANT SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC GOODS.
Invest your TIME and POLITICAL ENERGY into public: schools, libraries, museums, historical societies, parks, etc.
Any scarcity that happens in the US is an intentional political calculation (generally, systematic racism) that helps justify austerity and brutality.
Fascists are counting on you to stay quiet about the erosion and privatization of public goods (LIKE SCHOOLS AND HOSPITALS). So. Don’t. Do. That.
Related: book bans are about the convergence of RACE PANIC and SEX PANIC. That nexus is what has mobilized white rage since Brown v. Board (unsurprising since all of white America’s racial guilt/shame get played out in the realm of PUBLIC EDUCATION).
The white tears over the 1619 Project and Maus reveal that white supremacists perceives THEMSELVES in CRISIS (over social control, historical meaning-making). The only way out of that crisis is the destruction of non-white knowledge bases (public education, publishing, etc.).
When white people (hetero men, esp.) feel like they are in crisis, they SEE NO PLACE FOR THEIR WHITE SUPREMACY IN THE PRESENT OR FUTURE so they resort to 1.) NOSTALGIA to REPRODUCE older forms of white identity/history and 2.) terrorism to REGAIN CONTROL.
This is b/c KNOWLEDGE CAN NEVER BE TAKEN AWAY. So if fascists can prevent knowledge (of fascism/racism/colonialism) from being shared (or distort it, via Fox News and conservative media ecology), they can control politics. This is why public ed will always be central to FREEDOM.
Also, public ed & libraries were FEMINIZED b/c of the way that the workforce managed sex/gender in the 1960s. So, if you care about fascism in the US and you are a (cishet)dude invested in FREEDOM, you need to work alongside librarians & teachers to safeguard public institutions.
Book bans are a failure every single time. (People will continue to read Beloved.) But they demonstrate the limited political repertoire of fascism. Which means that they also show us HOW PREDICTABLE fascism is and how fascism can be thwarted.
That is, a book ban is not about the ban itself. It’s about the process of activating the fascist in-group to coup at the school board meeting and reassert control over education and over white fascists who might be flirting with liberal thinking/reading/speaking.
Book bans also teach people to snitch on one another to destroy solidarity and community trust.
Snitching undermines public trust in PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS and create an atmosphere of FEAR which creates an illusion of scarcity through profiling and reprobation.
Flood tiplines. With nonsense. BS. Actual complaints about white supremacy.
