If you weren’t aware, last week was Banned Books Week, a national movement to educate people about the disturbing trend to ban books based on political or personal beliefs.

In a democracy, few things could be more frightening.

Reading and educating oneself is fundamental to our way of life in this country. We have always prided ourselves on our First Amendment and the broad freedoms it allows us to absorb any kind of informational material we want.

Tales of banned or burned books and media censorship are for other countries — countries where we know freedom does not exist like it does in our land.

But sadly, we’ve seen too many movements here in recent years to ban books.

According to the American Library Association, in the past year, there were 695 attempts to censor library materials in which 1,915 unique titles were challenged.

That is 20 percent more from the same period in 2022, which had already seen record numbers of attempts to ban books.

Startling.

This movement comes from political factions that are concerned about our youth being indoctrinated into believing what they see as all kinds of horrific behavior.

Most of it has to do with sexuality and the fear that someone might actually learn that sexuality can be a complex element to navigate for some and that it manifests itself differently in many cases.

For these types of complex issues, banning books about these topics is not the way to go. We have trained and experienced librarians that are responsible for supplying appropriate materials on all subject matters, and they take that responsibility seriously.

It was the librarians who stood up for books and other reading materials during the “Red Scare” of the 1950s when McCarthyism sought to ban books as part of their effort to rid the nation of so-called communists.

The American Library Association issued this “Freedom to Read statement on June 25, 1953:

“Most attempts at suppression rest on a denial of the fundamental premise of democracy: that the ordinary individual, by exercising critical judgment, will select the good and reject the bad. We trust Americans to recognize propaganda and misinformation, and to make their own decisions about what they read and believe. We do not believe they are prepared to sacrifice their heritage of a free press in order to be ‘protected’ against what others think may be bad for them.”

Dictators burn and ban books because they are afraid of a public that is exposed to new ideas and can think for themselves. True leaders know that they are strong enough to lead everyone, including the dissenters and those who have different ideas.

Information in and of itself is not the enemy. That is why it is crucial that we all — librarians, educators, parents and friends — must take the responsibility of reading and learning seriously and help guide each other.

Banning and burning books is not the answer.

In the 1970s, when television was still a relatively new media phenomenon and was branching out into more controversial and even risqué programming, a popular saying was, “if you don’t like it, turn the channel.”

A similar sentiment is appropriate now toward the idea of book banning: If you don’t want to read it, leave it on the shelf, but no one should be able to tell others what they can and cannot read from a public library.

Valdosta Daily Times