Mid-Holiday Miscellany
Seasons greetings, music suggestions, book bans, Nazis on Substack, and a wish for renewal and rest.
Happy holidays! Here’s a short check-in, in case you have time for that kind of thing right now.
First, music:
As I did last year, I made a playlist of new music I liked in 2023. This isn’t a best-of or an attempt at objectivity, just some music I liked. (Content advisory: artist liked using four-letter words in their lyrics and nudity in their album art this year.)
(Have I mentioned that I released an album this year, as well? It will be on streaming platforms on January 5, but you can listen to it on Bandcamp now.)
Next, some thoughts about the kind of censorship many on the right support. This was originally published, in shorter form, as an op-ed in The State newspaper. (You can read the published version here, via The State, or here, without a paywall.)
South Carolina officials continue to fiddle while Rome burns.
According to CERRA, vacancies for teachers (which includes school librarians) have increased to a record high of 1,613, a 9% increase from last year, and more than double pre-pandemic highs. 7,353 educators quit last year. School librarian vacancies increased 77%.
Many factors are driving this turnover, but a few struck me in speaking with SC educators:
Loni Lewis, SCASL Lowcountry Regional School Librarian of the Year, said that for librarians, school censorship is “the thing” causing many to leave. At least one librarian in Berkeley quit during this school year; the position will evidently not be filled until next year. “I’m sure a lot more will leave at the end of the year. It’s having real consequences because everything we do is a moving target,” Lewis said, referencing pressure to remove texts and show “transparency” to the community, in the midst of incidents of librarian harassment and doxxing.
Mariel Taylor, a former elementary teacher, pointed out that librarians have rigorous standards and procedures for selecting texts. While she said she primarily left teaching because of an excessive focus on testing young children, seeing educators painted as “indoctrinators” also made the profession less attractive.
Other educators described a high-stress education culture that damaged their mental health, and said officials were more likely to listen to their concerns as private citizens-- after they had quit-- than when there was still an opportunity to retain them.
Yet state leaders continue to waste time fighting a culture war most of the state-- according to recent Winthrop polling-- doesn’t support.
On the one hand, it’s unlikely the average legislator believes teachers are “indoctrinating” students, or that there is “pornography” in school libraries-- which is already illegal under state and federal law. But on the other, many of those legislators stoke these fears if it helps win them reelection or financial support from national organizations. Many have stood aside and watched as their Freedom Caucus colleagues badmouth teachers and librarians, sue school districts, and generally jam up the process with dilatory, ridiculous, or dangerous proposals (including their attempt to make abortion a death penalty offense for women).
Radicals seem to believe their colleagues won’t stand up to them because they’re afraid to lose elections to people arguing they aren’t “conservative” enough-- as if government censorship and state control of local districts were conservative values.
Some moderates seem to hope someone else will solve the problem, banking on Superintendent Ellen Weaver’s proposed regulations, which create an even wider definition of age-inappropriate books than states like Florida, Texas, and Utah, and could lead to even more extreme book challenges. Others hope for some kind of not-so-bad censorship bill, perhaps a version of H.3728, which failed to pass last session after more extreme censorship measures were added.
But H.3728 would have to be finalized by a committee of six that includes Adam Morgan, the chair of the SC Freedom Caucus. Moderation seems unlikely.
The focus on imaginary issues has real costs: educators are clearly stressed, overworked, and undercompensated. But not only are our leaders failing to address those glaring issues, they are playing political games at our expense, instead.
According to research on school censorship from the National Education Policy Center, released recently, “Even for educators yet to face formal sanction or organized attack, the threat is real—and helps to explain increased vacancies in states with harsh discriminatory censorship laws.
“As one Florida-based teacher put it: ‘We’re in Hell and nobody is coming.’”
And finally, some thoughts on the kind of restrictions on content many on the right don’t like (namely, restrictions on Nazi content):
I don’t have a lot to say here which other writers (including Margaret Atwood) haven’t said better, but I continue to support calls by many writers for Substack to de-platform or demonetize Nazis (as in, people who label themselves explicitly as Nazis, openly use Nazi rhetoric, and espouse Nazism as a political goal). Nazism, by definition, is a violent, fascist, and anti-democratic ideology. Protecting it does not protect free speech; it threatens free speech.
Nazis, famously and obviously, oppose free speech and burn books. As Atwood writes,
What does “Nazi” mean, or signify? Many things, but among them is “Kill all Jews.” This is not an opinion. It’s a call for actions, such as blowing up a synagogue with people inside or murdering 6 million people who are Jews. If “Nazi” does not mean this, what does it mean instead? I’d be eager to know. As it is, anyone displaying the insignia or claiming the name is in effect saying “Kill all Jews.”
It would be— and currently is— extremely dumb and disingenuous to equate violent destruction of opposing ideas and groups with a choice not to pay Nazis to espouse hateful views, or a choice not to intentionally profit from the dissemination of those views.) And calls to remove it from a private, monetizable platform (or, at the very least, to stop allowing Nazis to raise money through the platform itself) is not equivalent to, or even similar to, government censorship.
I don’t really know what the future of this newsletter is on this platform, but I will certainly give subscribers and readers a heads-up if I move elsewhere, and I would love to hear from you if you have thoughts. I do rely on income from this writing as a supplement to my other advocacy and writing, but there are ways to make money without supporting the platform if its owners choose not to do the right thing. If you feel you need to stop or pause a paid subscription while Substack’s owners dither around and pretend to care about “free speech” while platforming Nazis and ignoring their own prohibitions against inciting violence (you know, the thing you do by expressing Nazi rhetoric), that’s totally understandable.
If you’d like to continue to support my research and writing in other ways, please consider a direct donation (through Venmo or Paypal) or share/ listen to/ buy some music.
Anyway, happy holidays!
I hope you are getting some time to recharge. If these issues concern you, your energy is needed. Please check out what groups like ACLU and Freedom to Read are doing to protect us from government censorship (you know, the kind that is actually— unlike voluntary de-platforming of hate speech by private businesses— prohibited by the First Amendment). I’ll see you in the new year!