Ever since the Jan. 6, 2021, attempted takeover of the U.S. Capitol, journalists have been trying to find some kind of national nexus for “White Christian nationalism.”
The term, which I’m putting in quotes because its meaning is all over the map, needed a locale.
About two months ago, national media thought they had one: tiny Bonners Ferry, Idaho, where there was a dust-up between a local library and a cadre of locals who wanted certain books banned. That the locale was — in the popular imagination — is Ground Zero for conservative crazies, was no surprise.
A CNN story made the case for the book burners being newcomers with an agenda:
And who are these newcomers she speaks of? Well, we reached out to a number of the people pushing the recall and demanding that books be banned. None of them would talk to us.
But they have made their feelings known at library board meetings. “Things need to change,” one man told the board at a meeting in late August. “Otherwise, you bring curses upon yourselves. Period. From the Most High.”
Definitely a religion angle there.
And at a meeting in July, Donna Capurso, a local realtor, said this: “My job is to protect our kids from sexual deviants, who will be drawn to our library if inappropriate sexual material is on our library shelves.” Capurso is an occasional contributor to a website called Redoubt News, which caters to a growing group here in northern Idaho of self-described, “God-Fearing, Liberty-Loving Patriots.”
“The American Redoubt” is a term coined in 2011 by a Christian survivalist. The idea is that Christian patriots should retreat here from modern America to live their truth and defend themselves. The Redoubt is a large chunk of land encompassing all of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming as well as eastern slivers of Washington and Oregon.
What’s curious now is that the right-wing banned books movement (as opposed to Big Tech leaders who fight the sales of conservative books) has spread around the country — with some extra PR poured on the flames during the recent Banned Books Week. And the narrative has changed; instead of the book banning being the work of a demented few in northern Idaho or parts of Texas, it’s now the brainchild of the dreaded “White Christian nationalism” army.
I don’t think one can compare banning controversial books with storming the U.S. Capitol, but a lot of folks out there are, seeing it as a slow-motion effort to turn this country into a Gilead-like country from “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
There is another way to look at this. II see it as the Religious Right’s answer to Drag Queen Story Hour. When your local library goes woke on you, it’s time to fight back, with some form of symbolic activism.
The New York Times’ recent magazine piece on book bans in Texas linked the censors to Christian groups — somewhat. A sample:
Over the next few weeks, calls to restrict the books only intensified, spreading through churches and on social media. Another Llano resident, Eva Carter, who owns and manages local rental properties, remembered friends from the group, mostly mothers, showing her the illustrations that had troubled them. “There was a little kid bent over with his bare butt,” Carter told me. “An adult painting on his behind.” (“Why not an arty-farty butt?” the book reads. “One not to be forgotten, with watercolors on the top and a mural on the bottom.”) Carter became a Christian in 1996, after hearing a Billy Graham sermon on television. “Getting the filthy books up out of their reach,” she said. “That’s what I’m about.” Carter, who is active on local boards, connected the group with a judge and other members of the county commissioners court.
Question: Would you read that? Would you want your kid reading that? This is, for journalists, a subject that pushes parental rights buttons on both sides.
As a result of these nationwide efforts, both school and public librarians have felt under attack, their names shared on Facebook or published in newspapers. In Michigan, after some residents in Jamestown Township complained about L.G.B.T.Q.-themed books available in the library, the community voted to slash its operating budget in August (outraged supports have raised roughly $250,000 to keep its doors open, but the library’s future remains uncertain). In Illinois and California, Proud Boys have shown up at meetings or gatherings dedicated to discussing specific books.
Once again, there is clearly a parent uprising going on here.
Are all the opponents religious? Are all of them Christian? Are all of them active in religious congregations? The depth of quotes from the book banners themselves is quite shallow, so you never quite know who they are and what they believe.
I encountered a bunch of blogs on the topic, which were emphatic that “White Christian nationalism” was behind it all. Whatever you want to call these book bans, “White Christian nationalism” is not the bogeyman here. I see it more as parents not wanting their kids to have access to these books.
A blog on Medium.com blog set out the problem:
Is this a story about Mama Bears Rising, a new pro-censorship “moms” group, more explicitly Christian than Moms for Liberty, that has burst onto the scene in the suburbs of Houston and is following M4L’s roadmap for taking over local school districts?
Is it a larger story about the nastiness of education-focused private Facebook groups, and how they’ve attacked teachers and librarians while simultaneously grabbing for power in Texas school districts?
In other words, is this about religion or politics?
It’s clear that reporters covering this aren’t sure where all the missiles are originating. The Texas Tribune basically blamed “religious and conservative groups” for targeting books about race and gay issues but did not support that contention with hard facts in its story.
Texas banned more books from school libraries this past year than any other state in the nation, targeting titles centering on race, racism, abortion and LGBTQ representation and issues, according to a new analysis by PEN America, a nonprofit organization advocating for free speech. …
Florida and Pennsylvania followed Texas as the states with the most bans, respectively. Florida banned 566 books, and 457 titles were banned in Pennsylvania, where a majority of books were removed from one school district in York County, which is known as being more conservative.
Interestingly, Florida and Pennsylvania are not classically Bible Belt states, which shows this is not something drummed up by folks in the Deep South.
Unfortunately, the Tribune only repeated PEN’s talking points with no feedback from any opposition.
One book these groups are set on taking out is Maia Kobabe’s 2019 book “Gender Queer.” I wish reporters would actually quote, within reason, some of the contents of this book — and others that have been banned — so we can see what parents are upset about. I don’t have a copy, but here’s the description I lifted from Amazon:
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
Then scroll down and read the comment about what’s actually in the book from “BernieC.” He is a progressive reviewer who liked the book — but would not give the “oral sex fantasy” to his kid to read. And there’s even more graphic stuff I’ll not repeat here but can you see why parents might have a problem with this?
Right now, coverage is all over the place, so it’s hard to quantify, but religion is clearly a key factor in these debates, along with other factors. But little reporting has been done on the kind of religious opposition other than slapping the “White Christian nationalist” label on it, which tells us nothing.
I hope future reporting will be more honest as to the content of some of the banned books, which might explain the problems parents have with this stuff.
Also, journalists need to remember that there are two types of libraries being covered here: School libraries and public libraries. Do the banning advocates want books simply out of the reach of their kids or out of all libraries. There’s a big difference.
The CNN piece mentioned that there were Christians out there who supported the libraries. I’d like to see better sourcing on this: Pastors, academics from Christian colleges, adherents from other conservative religions. Are there Black parents objecting to any of this?
This is a grassroots story with legs and news hooks at the local, regional and national levels. A few more details would help tell this story.