10 OctOber 26–NOvember 1, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents You Do Talk About this Club Meet the Grapevine teen who started a banned- book reading club in school. BY DANNY GALLAGHER T he Grapevine-Colleyville Indepen- dent School District has enacted some of the most sweeping changes to its curriculum and materials policy in North Texas. The changes insti- tuted under the Classical Social and Emo- tional Learning (CSEL) policy sought to exclude books that discussed topics the board deemed to be objectionable. The CSEL, originally proposed in April 2022, targeted materials that discussed “criti- cal race theory and systemic discrimination ideologies” and “gender fluidity and gender theory,” and it broadened the definition of what the district could label as “pornography.” Book bans have been on the rise in the last few years, and most school districts usu- ally start from a list of reviewed titles, but GCISD’s policy worked the other way. It laid out the themes that teachers couldn’t teach and removed books from its libraries based on broad terms. Some were placed in what the district calls “parental consent closets,” meaning students must have the consent of a parent to access them. One of the more ironic choices was to ban Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, a profoundly important satirical novel about the dangers of forced conformity in which emotions and individuality are suppressed. Tommy Rogers, then a Grapevine High School junior, loved Huxley’s novel and de- cided to speak up at a board meeting in Au- gust 2022. Comments from the public that night lasted almost four hours. “I was upset about this, and I decided to give a student’s perspective on it because I didn’t know any other students who intended to speak,” Rogers tells the Observer. “We read it in my sophomore English class, and one of the scenes really connected ... [is] they raised children and electrocuted them to give them an automatic disdain for books. I thought that would be good to bring up at the meeting.” “Some of you are so afraid of your chil- dren having their own identities that you stop their learning,” Rogers told the school board. “You tell them lies and don’t let them think for themselves. You steal freedom from teenagers in your desperate attempt to stop the world from moving. You try to fit people in boxes they don’t fit in because people who are different scare you. I don’t care if you live in a world of ignorance but don’t force it on the next generation.” Rogers’ words didn’t get much attention that night. Instead that honor went to a loud, angry guy named Scott Western, who went viral by bellowing about how “teachers shouldn’t be forced to use your frickin’ made up, fantasy pronouns” and “We’re gonna keep coming so hard, the only thing these woke-tards got to figure out is whether it’s on their face, back, butt or thigh! Whooo! Get some!” The following month, however, Rogers found a way to focus attention on the school board’s policies by starting a banned book reading club as an extracurricular activity. “I figured if I could appeal to [students’] desire to stop the book banning from pro- gressing that I could get members to join and get some momentum,” Rogers says. The club started meeting to read books that the district had removed, and “there was some pushback.” “It showed how we could read these books anyway even if we don’t read them in class,” Rogers says. “We could still read them anyway, but for the most part, parents com- plained and were very upset children were taking part in the club.” The pushback even elevated to personal at- tacks on his parents, “especially on Facebook.” “It was more so after my parents because they raised me to love reading,” Rogers says. “It wasn’t threatening or anything, just [say- ing] how horrible parents they were.” The club met to read and discussed the theme in novels removed by GCISD and by other districts, including Brave New World, Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go and Narra- tive of the Life of Fredrick Douglass. Rogers says more than 30 students joined the club. The creation of the club attracted local and nationwide attention to GCISD. “I was highly concerned because we were removing books with topics about racism, sexual identity or any form of discrimination really ...,” Rogers says. “It’s like they’re teach- ing us not to think any more.” Rogers, now a high-school senior, is no longer a student in the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD. Asked if the club was still active, he re- sponded, “I’d like to just not talk about that.” Rogers says he’s unsure whether his ac- tions had any meaningful effect on a school board that seems determined to push its own agenda, but says he spoke up because he’s not afraid to use his voice. “Reading is everything to me,” Rogers says. “I’m an autistic teenager who has a hard time understanding what’s going on sometimes. I’ve been able to grow and learn, and I don’t want to let anyone stop books from meaning something to anyone else in the world like me.” because “if there’s any LGBTQ+ representa- tion, that gets conflated as being obscene.” “The Handmaid’s Tale has been a canon classic for years,” Meehan adds. “It’s on high-school reading list material. Something is happening now where this book is being suddenly questioned and challenged. Part of the new effort of this movement we’re watching unfold is to restrict any sexual content in books or LGBTQ+ representa- tion, none of which is porn.” Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur Banned by Belton and Keller ISDs Kaur’s book of deeply personal poems began popping up on the list of banned books over the last year or so. According to PEN Amer- ica, Milk and Honey has been banned in five states including Texas, where it’s been flagged in 10 separate schools or districts. Moms for Liberty, which also did not re- spond to requests for comment, says on its website that the book was removed for its “illustrations depicting non-sexual nudity” as well as “sexual activities including sexual assault.” “You pinned my legs to the ground with your feet and demanded i [sic] stand up,” Kaur wrote in a passage also cited by the mom group. They neglected, however, to include the passage immediately following this line, which speaks to Kaur’s themes of courage and strength to overcome the trauma of sex- ual assault. “The rape will tear you in half,” Kaur wrote, “but it will not end you.” The ban of Kaur’s book became so wide- spread that the author felt the need to ad- dress it on Instagram last April, saying that removing books like these will only make it harder for students to speak out when they become victims of sexual assault. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, rape is the most underreported crime in the U.S., with 63% of adult cases go- ing unreported. Only 12% of child sexual abuse cases are reported to police. “I remember sitting in my school library in high school, turning to books about sexual as- sault because I didn’t have anyone else to turn to. This is the reality for many students,” Kaur wrote. “We all find comfort in literature that reflects our experiences. Now that books about sexual assault and other topics are be- ing banned. I worry for students who rely on school libraries for access to literature.” The Breakaways by Cathy G. Johns Banned by Keller ISD This graphic novel is a middle-school story about a shy, sensitive, bisexual girl named Faith who finds friends when she’s relegated to the lower tier of her soccer team, the Bloodhounds. If you survived the hell of middle school, then you can easily relate to Faith, who worries more about fitting in than becoming even a middle-of-the-road soccer player and dives into her talent as an artist to escape her confusing world. Some parents in Keller, however, wanted the book away from the eyes and minds of younger students because it showed (wait for it) depictions of middle schoolers (oh, no) in bed (auuuuuugh!) kissing. (Wait, that’s it? Really?) On page 159, both characters are having a sleepover and lying in bed together. Sammy comes out to Faith as trans and asks if they can kiss. They are fully clothed and the kiss is consensual. “Visual images make people react differ- ently,” Meehan says. They sure do. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe Likely banned by Grapevine-Colleyville ISD GCISD doesn’t have an official list or even an online registry of books it deems inappro- priate for students. Parents like Trevino say they have tried to get the district to be more transparent about its policies and the books it deems unfit for students but they get “no response or if I get a response, it just says, ‘Thank you for your email.’ If we do any- thing, we get stonewalled.” Tommy Rogers formed a banned book reading club at Grapevine High School last year following the GCISD school board’s sweeping policy changes that led to the can- cellation of the school’s annual book fair and the removal of several books from classrooms and libraries. One of the books was Things Fall Apart, one of Rogers’ favorite books. Pub- lished in 1958, the debut novel by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe examines the effect of European colonization in Africa, and Rogers suspects it had something to do with “the de- piction of the European colonizers.” “The white man is very clever,” the charac- ter Obierika says in an exchange with the pro- tagonist Okonkwo toward the end of Chapter 20. “He came quietly and peaceably with his religion. We were amused at his foolishness and allowed him to stay. Now he has won our brothers and our clan can no longer act like one. He has put a knife on the things that held us together and we have fallen apart.” Rogers conjectures that Okonkwo’s sui- cide toward the end of the novel also con- tributed to the decision. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 4 in 10 students in the U.S. felt “persistently sad or hopeless” and more than 1 in 5 reported “seriously considering attempting suicide.” “What mostly connected to me was Okonkwo’s despair throughout the book,” Rogers says. “I’ve had struggles with mental health, and I connected with some of Okonkwo’s pain.” And Still I Rise: Black America Since MLK — An Illustrated Chronology by Henry Louis Gates Banned by Texarkana ISD Two years ago, former Texas Rep. Matt Krause released a list of 850 books targeted for expul- sion from the state’s school libraries. The list, obtained by The Texas Tribune, included only the books’ title, author and year of publication. “There was never a specific objection filed,” Meehan says. “There was no substan- tive complaint and no due process followed in removing the book. We just know this book was on a bigger list of books from Matt Krause’s office.” Some other titles on the list covering sim- ilar themes include Me and White Suprem- acy: Combat Racism, Change the World and Become a Good Ambassador by Beck Alber- talli and They Called Themselves the K.K.K.: Fahrenheit 214 from p8 High school student Tommy Rogers Mike Brooks
