Before We Lose Our Minds

“If you want to hide something from a Black man, put it in a book,” so the saying goes. Put it in a book!? As if we don’t read. As if we aren’t authors, poets, rappers, and screenwriters.

It’s already a common misconception that Black people aren’t “intelligent enough” or “too lazy” to read. So why not just take the books? It’s not like they will ever notice that they are missing. It’s not like we need distraction from a society that seems to be pinned against us. It’s not like at least one of us would like to learn or dream. We don’t have imaginations. We don’t wish to be any greater than we are now. No one does.
 At this point in time, when taking away books has become an option, we really have to re-evaluate who we are as a nation. Without our books, our children will never learn how to dream, they’ll never learn about the past, and they’ll never learn how to think for themselves.

Imagine this: It’s 3045 and we’re in a first-grade classroom. The kids sit at plain beige desks perfectly aligned from row to row. They learn by word of mouth now, seeing as the book ban has evolved from just little non-fiction books to important historical and literary texts. If we let book banning happen now, there’s no stopping people from taking more later. We have to pull the weed out before it becomes a full plant during pollination season, otherwise the situation will be far too overwhelming to deal with.

How would taking away books written by non-white authors and authors who are part of the LGBTQ+ community benefit a child? Especially a child who is a person of color and queer? We’ve already been through this before. Why are we not evolving? What place will our kids have to live in a world where only white, cisgender, heterosexual voices matter? I would say to do some research and read books, but they’re probably already banned.