Friends:
I just became a grandma again this week for a third time. It's beyond glorious, as any grandparent knows. It also fosters that deep sense of concern over, and responsibility for, where our country is headed with toxic school board politics, censorship, and book bans.
Consequently, grandparents, along with parents and anyone concerned with our fledgling democracy, need to step in the gap in this fight over book bans and censorship. I am happy to see the timely emergence of this organization, Grandparents For Truth. I just signed up here and hope you consider doing so, as well. As you can read for yourself, you don't have to be a grandparent to join.
Relatedly, the American Library Association also has an initiative that is organizing readers everywhere to fight against censorship. Censorship is what authoritarian regimes do so that they can limit and narrow the thinking and imagination of their people.
What I find to be cognitively dissonant or discordant is that these extremist politics are playing out at a time in human history when knowledge is multiplying at an unprecedented rate. What we should be focused on instead is helping youth make sense of information, managing distractions and informations overload while learning how to be judicious over credible, as opposed to less credible or questionable information or data.
We must all push back on censorship wherever we see it playing out. Consider running for your local school board or alternatively, for your State Board of Education. A free society depends on access to the truth combined with an ethic and practice of lifelong learning. As for children themselves, they need to be able to see themselves in literature and history in order for them to be able to heal from their own traumas, or alternatively to expand their horizons and sense of self, as well as to navigate the complexities that life invariably brings, while also discovering the awe and beauty of lived experience and the natural world that becoming a grandma makes palpable and profound. Feeling blessed. ❤️
-Angela Valenzuela
#GrandparentsForTruth @peoplefor @UABookBans @ALALibrary #UniteAgainstBookBans
#TeachInclusion #TruthInSchools
‘Grandparents For Truth’ Mobilizes Against Book Banning And Censorship
This blog post is from Miranda Jayne Boyd with People For the American Way – a Unite Against Book Bans partner.
People For the American Way—a proud partner to Unite Against Book Bans— has been fighting authoritarian attacks on the freedom to learn for more than 40 years. Now, with book-banning and censorship on the rise, and attacks on education becoming more and more aggressive, People For has launched a new campaign to fight back—Grandparents For Truth.
Grandparents For Truth is a voice against censorship and for the freedom to learn, mobilizing members who are grandparents, have grandparents, or know grandparents to join up and oppose book banning and censorship. Through on-the-ground rallies and petitions, as well as online organizing and activist trainings, Grandparents For Truth advocates for inclusive education reflecting the lived experiences of people with diverse identities, while helping members fight for truth at their local schools, school boards, and more.
Right now, there’s a coordinated assault against education in this country, especially against communities that have historically been marginalized. The vast majority of banned and challenged books are written by or about members of the LGBTQ+ and Black communities. Honest and diverse education is vital to an inclusive society and a thriving democracy, and authoritarians are doing everything they can to deny that education to our young people.
Under the guise of parental rights, groups like Moms for Liberty and their political allies are imposing their ideology on students, schools, school boards, and libraries and trying to control what other parents’ children can read and learn. Grandparents For Truth serves to counter groups like Moms for Liberty and combat these attacks on our children’s future.
Grandparents are the perfect people to push back against the tide of censorship we’re facing today. They’ve seen how censorship and book banning have played out as tools of authoritarianism in the past, and they have a stake in building the world their grandchildren will inherit. But it will take everyone to stand up to authoritarian assaults on education.
Regardless of age or whether someone is actually a grandparent, everyone who believes in the freedom to learn can be a part of Grandparents For Truth and take a stand for honest education. Backed by People For’s proud history of opposing authoritarianism and the determination of People For’s members to make their voices heard, Grandparents For Truth is a powerful force in the fight against book banning, censorship, and all other attacks on education.
Featured Image: People For National Field Director Alana Byrd rallies the crowd at a Grandparents For Truth event in Philadelphia. Photo by People For.
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