Young Poet Of Biden Inauguration Latest Target Of Florida Censors
“You may burn my books and the books of the best minds in Europe, but the ideas those books contain have passed through millions of channels and will go on.”
The year was 1933, the writer was author, disability rights advocate, political activist and lecturer Helen Keller; the situation was the book burnings by Nazis in Germany.
As the 19th century, French critic, journalist, and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said, “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” interpreted as “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”
As evidence of Karr’s prescient aphorism, the reactionary, authoritarian, right wing, Republican administration of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues its rampage against books that don’t fit the Republican model. It is a situation frighteningly similar to the 1930s, when the Nazis targeted books for burning for being subversive or as representing ideologies opposed to Nazism.
The latest target of the blacklisting of books in Florida is “The Hill We Climb” by Amanda Gorman, 22, the youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history. Included in her book is a single, 32-page poem, titled “We must fight back.” The book was published in March 2021 with a forward by Oprah Winfrey.
Gorman read the poem at the Jan. 20, 2021, inauguration of President Joe Biden. It is about the trauma the young poet felt after watching the bloody, Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by trump supporters. It reads, in part:
“We’ve seen a force that would shatter our nation rather than share it,
would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded.
But while democracy can be periodically delayed,
it can never be permanently defeated.
In this truth, in this faith, we trust.
For while we have our eyes on the future,
history has its eyes on us.”
The poem is subversive, but only to those who would try to overturn the nation and twist it into an authoritarian state, which is apparently the aim of DeSantis, trump and others.
Gorman also read the poem in a recorded video before the coin toss at Super Bowl LV in Tampa, Fla. She delivered the ode in honor of the three honorary Superbowl captains, James Martin, a Marine veteran; Trimaine Davis, an educator; and Suzie Dorner, an ICU nurse manager.
In dedicating the poem, Gorman said, “Let us walk with these warriors, charge on with these champions, and carry forth the call of our captains. We celebrate them by acting with courage and compassion, by doing what is right and just, for while we honor them today, it is they who every day honor us.”
The book banning mirrors recent laws passed by the Florida legislature that prohibit teaching material that might trigger student feelings of guilt about the histories of their race and restrict instruction on gender and sexuality.
The Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, which teaches pre-K to eighth grade, said that Gorman’s book wasn’t banned or removed, it was just shifted out of the reach of elementary school students. Parsing of words but still the same meaning, the book has been banned for many students.
A school review committee said in early April that the book was appropriate for middle school students because it had “educational value because of its historical significance,” citing Gorman’s reading of the poem at the inauguration. The committee didn’t note why it deemed the book unsuitable for elementary school students.
Gorman’s publisher, Penguin Random House, and the advocacy group PEN America, filed a federal lawsuit against Florida’s Escambia County School District, for restricting access to 10 books about race and LGBTQ+ identities. PEN America reported that Florida is just behind Texas in the most number of books restricted in schools. Thirteen school districts in Florida banned books between July and December, the most in the country, PEN America noted.
Gorman tweeted in response to the Florida action, “So they ban my book from young readers, confuse me with @oprah , fail to specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read any reviews, and offer no alternatives…Unnecessary #bookbans like these are on the rise, and we must fight back 👊🏿If you’d like to help, donate to my fundraiser to support @penamerica as they protect literature, spread the word, and follow great grassroots orgs like @flfreedomread 📒📕💥✊🏿”
The vote to ban Gorman’s poem and four other books came after complaints were lodged by one parent. The other books, also banned, include “The ABCs of Black History,” “Cuban Kids,” “Cuba: Countries in the News “and “Love to Langston.” The parent objected and the school district evidently agreed that Gorman’s poem contained indirect “hate messages” and served to “cause confusion and indoctrinate students.”
The complaining parent, Daily Salinas, has said she fled Cuba for the United States when she was 21 years old. She goes by the Twitter name of Daily Rego, and is linked with the right wing Proud Boys group and is an activist with the far right, anti-LGBTQ hate group, “Moms for Liberty,” which has been active in promoting book bannings around the nation and in electing local school board members with similar far right beliefs.
In March, Salinas shared a Facebook post that promoted the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” a notoriously anti-Semitic forgery that claimed Jews were conspiring to take over the world. It was published more than a century ago in Russia.
Salinas complained the Florida books contained references to “CRT and gender idiology” and “indoctrination.” CRT is short for critical race theory, a cross-disciplinary examination by social and civil-rights scholars and activists of how laws, social and political movements, and media shape, and are shaped by, social conceptions of race and ethnicity. The theory is taught on the collegiate level but Florida has taken the lead to bar instruction on CRT in schools. Many other states have followed with similar prohibitions.
In 2022, Salinas and other members of “Moms for Liberty,” were removed from a Miami-Dade school board meeting after protesting two sex education textbooks. The board voted to remove the books.
The other books deemed unfit for young eyes, ears, hearts and minds include:
* “The ABCs of Black History” is by Rio Cortez, narrated by Bahni Turpin. The 55 minute audio book, a New York Times bestseller, merited the maximum five star by Audible.com, a subsidiary of Amazon.
“Letter by letter, ‘The ABCs of Black History’ celebrates a story that spans continents and centuries, triumph and heartbreak, creativity and joy. B is for Beautiful, Brave, and Bright! And for a Book that takes a Bold journey through the alphabet of Black history and culture.
“It’s a story of big ideas — P is for Power, S is for Science and Soul. Of significant moments — G is for Great Migration. Of iconic figures — H is for Zora Neale Hurston, X is for Malcom X. It’s an ABC book like no other, and a story of hope and love.”
The book also includes information on the events, places, and people mentioned in the poem, from Mae Jemison to W. E. B. Du Bois, Fannie Lou Hamer to Sam Cooke, and the Little Rock Nine to DJ Kool Herc.
* “Cuban Kids Hardcover” by George Ancona, published in 2000, won 3.9 out of a possible five star rating. The book includes “fascinating information, a timely and remarkable photostudy of the children of Cuba documents and brings to life the Cuban culture, history, and spirit, showing the similarities and differences between American and Cuban youngsters.”
Ancona, who died in 2021, was a photo essayist and creator of photo-illustrated children’s picture books. He was born and raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., the son of immigrants from Mexico.
“He is renowned for creating vivid photo essays that invite children to immerse themselves in new places and cultures, to appreciate the work of everyday life and to accept themselves as well as others,” says a bio of Ancona.
* “Cuba (Countries in the News II)” by Kieran Walsh was published in 2005. The book is a collection of photos portraying the geography, culture, people, and future of Cuba.
* “Love to Langston” is by Tony Medina with illustrations by R. Gregory Christie. The biography in poems was published in 2002 in honor of African American poet Langston Hughes (1902–1967) on the anniversary of his 100th birthday. Each poem explores a significant event or theme in the life of Hughes. Young readers learn about his lonely childhood, the racism he faced, his decision to become a writer, his years of travel, his love of New York’s Harlem neighborhood, and his success as a poet.
Medina wrote the 14 poems in this book “through his (Hughes’) voice as I would imagine it.” The 40-page book was published in 2002 and is recommended for children in grades two to six.