Student’s View: Removing books from schools erases us
by Jaden Guo
Often we students let the adults make decisions for us without question.Why? Because we are still minors, and we trust the grown-ups to do what is right and what will benefit us in the long term. And yet when decisions border on threatening student rights and begin to affect the well-being of students–especially students that are part of diverse marginalized groups such as the LGBTQ+ community, African American community, Asian American and Pacific Islander community, and such–we are forced to ask: Are the decisions being made in our best interest?
Across the United States, parents and community members have rallied under the goal to ban some books from schools and public libraries because they deem them “inappropriate” or describe them as depicting “pornography.” Some have even claimed that the books in question are a ploy to teach CRT (Critical Race Theory) and indoctrinate kids into thinking one way.
However, make no mistake, none of these books contain the slightest bit of what these people claim. Now analyzing why these books don’t contain porn or contain inappropriate material is another story. I am here to explain, in the nicest and least aggressive way possible, how these book bans affect high school students like me.
As a gay male, the attempt to remove books, especially LGBTQ+ books, is an insult to my existence. Having books that aren’t just the status quo of straight couples allows me to relate, but also allows me to validate myself. It helps me to know that I am not the only one to go through this and that others share my story. When we ban books, we are telling students that they need to stick to the group they were born into, but that mindset is what led our country to be so divisive. Adults are silencing, SILENCING, minority communities because their lives go against the adults’ beliefs. Books are supposed to enhance our understanding of topics, different people and cultures, and history. They are supposed to give readers a sense of belonging and enjoyment in this world. Banning these books will give students like me nowhere to turn. We will be forced to abandon our identities and degrade ourselves to balls of nothingness, with no sense of belonging, no sense of identity, and no sense of comfort, knowing that our community doesn’t care.
Having access to books I identify with truly made a huge difference in my last few years in high school. One of those books was written by Dashka Slater and called The 57 Bus. The protagonist of The 57 Bus is named Sasha. Sasha is agender, meaning they don't identify as either male or female. The entire story talks about the discrimination the LGBTQ+ community faces. There is even a page dedicated to LGBTQ+ terms and their definitions. From the surface level, it may seem unimportant, but it allowed me to be seen in this world. It allowed me to feel comfortable knowing the communities’ lived experiences, stories, and perspectives were told in this book. And it gave me a good feeling knowing there are friends and thousands of books like these, not just for the LGBTQ+ community but so many communities.
So why is it so important for kids to be making our own decisions about whether or not we read these kinds of books, especially high school students who are on the cusp of becoming adults? I’m not saying that students should be given the choice to make every decision, but a majority of choices should be given to students because, at a young age, rational decision-making and self-confidence are most important. Allowing students to make impactful decisions beyond the menial “Which seat should I sit in today?” enables them to gather experience from their past choices and use that experience to aid them in making better choices. While one may argue that students are already presented with decisions multiple times each day, those decisions rarely have a lasting impact on the life of either the student or others. Decisions such as choosing the classes for the current year or what book I should read may seem trivial and limited in their scope, as the impact of that decision rarely extends beyond the student’s own life and rarely affects others. However, these decisions allow students to grasp problem-solving and to think not just about the past and present, but the future we want for ourselves, for our lives without the control from other people. Look, I’m not asking for students to handle major financial decisions or make decisions that have life and death implications. But when all freedom– including something as small as what books we are allowed to read–is taken away from us, it makes us non-free thinkers and stops us from being able to explore the world.
Students are the ones most affected by these book bans. When books that have characters and stories we relate to are removed, the community is telling us we don’t exist and that we need to prevent ourselves from being our true selves to the world. Books inspire, motivate, and encourage us. These book bans may seem insignificant to some, but without these books, we fail to find anything to relate to, and we crumble. We feel as if the world is telling us we don’t belong, that we aren’t normal. It pushes us to question ourselves more and to second guess ourselves. It breaks one’s creativity and free thought and creates a barrier to critical thinking. As teenagers, we are still trying to find our way in this world–who we are, and what our goals in life are. Removing these books stops that dead in its tracks. Erasing people of different marginalized groups and experiences from literature creates a sense of otherness for us, especially for people of color.
But having these books doesn't just help students of marginalized communities have something to relate to. It allows every student access to learning more about people’s perspectives and helps us become more open-minded in the real world. We as students are often forgotten in discussions of book banning. Parents and community members forget that these bans negatively affect real students in the schools. We are the ones harmed in the end.
I will conclude with this quote as a plea from a high school student for you to speak up and stop any effort to ban books in your community:
“Submitting to censorship is to enter the seductive world of ‘The Giver’: the world where there are no bad words and no bad deeds. But it is also the world where choice has been taken away and reality distorted. And that is the most dangerous world of all.”
Jaden is currently a senior at Rochester Adams High School and has lived in the Rochester area since 2019. Jaden is a student activist fighting for the LGBTQ+ community and envisions a day when LGBTQ+ equality is enshrined into state and federal law. In the summer of 2021, Jaden became the president of the GSA at Adams and later joined the leadership team for the Social Justice Club at Adams. They soon became the Free to Read Student Liaison for Adams and in the summer of 2022, founded a new LGBTQ+ organization called Forever Pride dedicated to helping LGBTQ+ youth and hosting more pride events in both the county and state. Jaden continues to fight for what is right in the community each and every day.
(All opinions expressed in blog posts are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Free to Read Rochester)
