As more schools target ‘Maus,’ Art Spiegelman’s fears are deepening by Greg Sargent

Art Spiegelman has been here before, so when he intimates that the right-wingers’ frothing eagerness to ban books is at a higher level than before, and showing no signs of abating, it’s worth paying attention to his assessment. Writing for The Washington Post, Greg Sargent shares Spiegelman’s response to the recent targeting of his acclaimed work Maus, which has been consistently built on the flimsiest of pretenses so those complaining can obscure their real goal, which is the erasing of history.

What the Censors Want by Sarah Jones

For New York magazine, Sarah Jones is even more direct in calling out the practiced, strategic disingenuousness of all this aggressive purging of books from schools and libraries fomented by the right. They purport to protect children from overly mature material, but the real concern is an exposure to the hard realities routinely faced in this nation by oppressed races, classes, and other social groups underrepresented in the power structure. The proud pursuit of an ignorant populace is dismaying.

I wrote a trans-friendly kids’ book. The Internet called me a filthy groomer by Mel Hammond

Because those on the right have so adrenalized their anger, these attacks on books often include attacks on authors, too. Mel Hammond in a writer living in my current city of residence. When a book Hammond wrote under the American Girl line was the outrage du jour of the right, she herself was named by the toxic media apparatus that props up that toxic ideology. The result was a flood of harassment, including death threats. In every way, this campaign against simply acknowledging difference is hurting innocent people. This piece is published by Tone Madison.