Ban The Books
The Assault on Free Speech
When I was a young boy, I was given a book to read on General Armstrong Custer, an American hero and a martyr who fell defending the frontier at the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876. I read the book, saw the movie – They Died With Their Boots On – an Earl Flynn classic, and I drank the Kool-aid. I was taught that the American Indians were savages who slaughtered American Soldiers and who should be despised and shunned. All my early life, I believed Custer was an American Hero and Indians were savages, just as they were portrayed in every TV and movie of the era.
Now I know the truth, Custer was a two-time courts-martial renegade officer, sent to the West not as a savior but as an outcaste. His tenure in the West was one of murder and death, leading to attacks on innocent Indian women, children, and old men.
I was a soldier, and as such, my heart and respect goes out to the men in the 7th Calvary who died on that day; neither the loss in battle nor the killings led by Custer are on their heads. Also, as a soldier, I equally respect those American Indians who fought to save their way of life, who, despite their bravery, eventually lost to overwhelming numbers.
So now, I know the truth, and the truth does not make me feel ashamed of my race or of being white. It makes me angry that the truth was kept from all children of my age, that we were fed falsehoods about the American Indians for the sole purpose of hiding the truth. Books were written by white men for white children and for the sole purpose of rewriting history. Ignorance is not bliss, and prejudice is not born. It is learned.
There is a serious movement now by members of one political party to ban books that make “Our children uncomfortable about their history.” This year, as tracked by Pen America, 1,477 books were banned this year, 30% of which are about racism, and 26% have LGBTQ+ characters or themes. In Utah, the King James version of the Bible was removed from the libraries. In Pennsylvania, the Dolly Pardon song, Rainbowland, a song about living together in harmony, was banned because its lyrics "could be deemed controversial.” Also, in Pennsylvania, I Am Martin Luther King, Jr. and I Am Rosa Parks were banned. The Bible and a story about Rosa Parks, banned, really?
So, again, we hide the truth from children to have them believe “We” are better than we are and the errors of the past never happened. All in the name of making kids feel better about their own race or history. In a word, prejudice.
If you want the children of today to feel unashamed about their history, then let them learn from it. Let them know the truth, learn from all our mistakes and all our victories, not just the ones that make them feel good.
To me, it is strangely ironic that those who say they love America clearly do not love Americans.
Do you want our children to feel good about being who they are and who they came from? Then, teach them the truth and let them make their own informed judgments. Teach them about the successes and victories of all Americans.
Teach all the facts. Thus ends the lesson.