“Don't say,” said Carla Kaplan, a Northeastern professor of women, girls, gender and sexuality. “Don't say gay. Don't say trans. Don't say racism.”
“Don't say anything that might cause the least bit of discomfort to straight white men,” Kaplan continued. “Do not in any way make them feel uncomfortable with their enormous unearned privileges. You really carry those premium backpacks for them. Well, we say no way. We've been through it.”
The event, “Don't Say…: On Censorship and Organizing for Progressive/Feminist Speech,” took place during the ninth annual Women's History Month Symposium at the John D. O'Bryant African American Institute's Cabral Center on Friday .
The three panelists examined the implications of the right's attacks on trans, gay, feminist and racial initiatives and identities, while outlining how feminists can push back.
The panelists, Paisley Currah, Martha Hickson and Karsonya Whitehead, have a long history at the forefront of exposing these privileges and analyzing efforts to silence minorities, Kaplan said. They push back and refuse to be silenced, he said.
Kaplan quotes the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
Hickson, the librarian at North Hunterdon High School in New Jersey, noted the recent increase in book bans across the country.
Attempted book bans in 2022 nearly doubled from 2021 nationwide, setting an unprecedented 20-year record, according to the American Library Association. There was also a significant increase in Massachusetts, with 45% reporting challenges in schools and public libraries last year, targeting 57 titles. In 2021, the association reported nine cases with 10 targeted titers.
The books aren't just targeted at red-handed states, Hickson said. In New Jersey, parents attended a Board of Education meeting to complain about two books: “Lawn Boy” by Jonathan Evison and “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe.
Parents called Hickson a pedophile, pornographer and child groomer for allowing these books in the library. But after rallying the community and students, the school board voted to keep the books.
“They operate under the banner of what they call parental rights, which is an attempt to limit student exposure to only topics, authors and content that fit their narrow worldview,” Hickson said. “But along the way, they trample on the First Amendment rights of children, parents and families who experience the world differently.”
Hickson showed an old newspaper clipping of Robert Dalton, who was the paid censor in Lowell, Massachusetts. It was his job to remove magazines, paperbacks and comic books from the stands if he thought they would lead to “juvenile delinquency”.
Hickson and Dalton are related.
“He's not just the city censor,” Hickson said. “He's my great-grandfather.”
“We must not stop trying,” he continued. “I invite everyone listening today to become angelic agitators and join me in the effort to end book banning.”
Although censorship has happened throughout history, for many it is completely new, as if the country is in an unprecedented bad time, Kaplan said.
Why is that, he asked?
Highly organized issues that had not been discussed before are now being brought to the forefront of the national debate, participants agreed.
People feel like they have to take a stand, said Whitehead, a professor at Loyola University in Maryland and a member of the National Women's Studies Association.
“But it's an anti-black, racist and sexist, transphobic and homophobic attitude that this country has had since the founding of this country,” Whitehead said. “It's not new.”
Beth Treffeisen is a reporter for Northeastern Global News. Email her at b.treffeisen@northeastern.edu. Follow her on Twitter @beth_treffeisen.
