“Smokescreens” or not, it would be impossible to document and trace the increase in challenges to #BlackLivesMatter literature. “Defies authority,” “excessive police force,” “anti-police” and “racist to whites” all start appearing in ALA infographics as terms most used to challenge books in 2015.
Other times, challenges are made more directly. This practice is doubly disturbing when you consider that the way someone makes up a reason that a book is dangerous as an excuse to silence a Black voice is the same way someone makes up a reason a person is dangerous to silence a Black life.
Monster walter dean myers racist piece of evidence trial#
For example, a complaint is registered about a book’s “mature themes,” not that it is a story about a young African American on trial by an unjust justice system. “Often the cited reasons for book challenges are smokescreens for the real reasons - reasons that might not always be socially acceptable to state publicly” wrote author Malinda Lo. How are these books being challenged? When someone is seeking to censor Black voices without appearing to be outright racist they will come up with an alternative reason as to why the content of the novel is offensive.
This is an issue of our time.” - Jason Reynolds There have been widespread attempts made to silence these Black authors and remove their books from the shelves of schools and libraries and out of the hands of young readers. However, just like the BLM movement itself, these books and authors have also faced backlash and criticism from those unwilling to hear or accept their message. This is an issue of our time,” said Jason Reynolds. Many of these books, such as The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas and All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, have received national acclaim and attention and have even been adapted or optioned for film. I can say it was a foreshadowing of the challenges this new wave of #BlackLivesMatter literature would soon face in American schools and libraries. Now, I can’t draw any conclusions about the motivation behind the 2013 “request for reconsideration” to Monster in Illinois. There was also a renewed interest in classic literature dealing with the same themes, such as Monster, a fictional courtroom drama about an African American teen boy in the juvenile court system accused of murder. This cry was taken up by YA authors and in recent years we have seen a wave of YA books published that deal head-on with racism, police violence and the institutionalized racism of the American justice system. Martin’s death sparked a movement and set the stage for the rallying cry #BlackLivesMatter. When Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old boy, was shot and killed by George Zimmerman in 2012, it set off a nationwide conversation about race, a conversation that demanded the inclusion of the perspectives of young people.
‘Monster’ by Walter Dean Myers (Scholastic Inc)