← All Of It with Alison Stewart
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- [00:09]
A
You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. On today's show, we're featuring some of our most liked conversations about movies, according to our Instagram followers. Our next selection is a documentary. It's titled the Librarians. Recently there has been an organized and focused movement to ban large groups of books from a particular place, the school library. And that has been aided by partisan groups running candidates for the school board who are funded by political action committees. The librarian spotlights the effect of these campaigns by telling the story of librarians whose lives have been turned upside down. While some of the most aggressive efforts to remove books from shelves have been in red states like Texas and Florida, the effort is national, including here in New York and New Jersey. Joining me to discuss the librarians was Oscar nominated and Peabody Award winning director, Kim Snyder. I was also joined by one of the subjects of the documentary, Martha Hickson, who works in New Jersey and listeners. You might hear some callers in this segment, but because this is an encore presentation, we won't be taking your calls today. I began by asking Kim how she found the librarians and featured in the documentary.
- [01:31]
B
Well, it started back in the fall of 21 when I became aware of the Kraus list, state senator in Texas, who put together a list of 850 books that school districts should scour their shelves and recommending to take them off. And I quickly became aware of a small group of librarians calling themselves the Freedom Fighters who were speaking out about this and organizing and learning from all kinds of librarians, not just in Texas, but throughout the nation about attacks. And so that was completely new to me. The book banning part of it we've been hearing about. But this very organized siege attack on our librarians was shocking to me. And that was three and a half, four years ago.
- [02:17]
A
You focus mostly on Texas and Florida. What's unique about those states in terms of their efforts to remove books from shelves?
- [02:27]
B
Well, I think in talking to a partner that we're working on the impact PEN America, we were talking this morning about the fact that a lot of this did get catalyzed at that time in Texas because that list, and I would argue a lot of this happened coming out of the pandemic when vaccines and masking became so politicized and groups like Moms for Liberty started to divert attention to the books and the culture wars. So at that time in Texas, before that, around the same time, was the Virginia governor's race with Glenn Youngkin. That race, all of those ads ran around Basically, the book Beloved. So that, I think was something like, well, that's working. And that became something that took root out of that in Texas. And then, as Martha sitting here aptly puts together in the film, this organized effort that began to. And so we knew that a lot of things were happening in Texas coming from that unprecedented wave that started, and it was different than in the past. And then we started to realize this was national and follow and eventually got to New Jersey with Martha.
- [03:45]
A
One more question. I told Martha, she's really cool. I said, I'm gonna ask you three questions, and I'm gonna get to her. You mentioned the Crouse list. Would you please explain the cross list for our listeners?
- [03:54]
B
Sure. It was a list of 850 books that this state representative put forth, and then the governor doubled down and said, you know, we have to look at pornography in the shelves and used that word. It was sort of the first time, I think, that there was this idea that librarians could be criminalized for choosing to. For what they chose to put on their shelves and doing their jobs. So the Kraus list, very quickly, a lot of the librarians that I came to know right away saw that these were really targeting LGBTQ issues of race, race, history, and sexuality.
- [04:38]
A
Martha?
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C
Yes.
- [04:41]
A
Why did you become a librarian?
- [04:44]
C
Ah, I had a corporate career, very lucrative, comparatively low stress, but I didn't find it particularly rewarding. And I'd always had this idea in the back of my head that I would like to teach. And the short answer is, after the events of September 11th, I really took stock of my life and inventory and decided I was gonna pivot in a more fulfilling direction. I am someone who has been enriched my life through by books. It's not something that you age out of in terms of your appreciation or your ability to hold them, read them, use them. And I wanted to give other students that same gift.
- [05:23]
A
What was important to you about being a librarian before this happened?
- [05:28]
C
Before this happened? What was important to me was this focus on literature, literacy, and also, especially in these times, the ability to gather, use, determine high quality, credible information. Bonus. I was a high school librarian, so I got to do that with teenagers. A lot of people say high school, who could stand to be in a high school? They're fantastic. I never had a job where I laughed so much every day.
- [06:00]
A
Have you ever been in a situation where a parent has asked you about a book? A very honest and a very true question about why is this book present in our library? What happens when that normally occurs? Not in this Circumstance. But normally a parent comes in and says, hey, I have a question about this book.
- [06:19]
C
Right. Prior to 2021, certainly that had happened a handful of times in my 20 year career as a school librarian. And before 2021, that always started with this ye old fashioned thing called a conversation that's lacking in the current environment. But one parent would contact me, or perhaps an English teacher or the principal to express a concern about the use of that book with their child. The great thing about a conversation is that that parent can then explain their concerns and then I and, or the English teacher or the principal can then talk about, well, here's the value of this book, here's why it's in the library, what it contributes to the collection overall. And if that's not persuasive to you, that's perfectly fine. I have 20,000 books in that library together we can find another option for your student. And in those handful of cases prior to 2021, I would say there were maybe five or six cases max. In every single case, a compatible resolution was achieved. No books were banned.
- [07:28]
A
So Kim, what seems to be the difference?
- [07:32]
B
Well, what we began to see taking off from what Martha just said is at that time it became explosive and exponential. The amount of challenges, and not just the amount of challenges, the fact that this longstanding protocol was being brazenly broken and, and unconstitutional and, and, and, and a lot of it was happening in state levels under the guise of state penal code. And you started to hear the use of the word pornography and suddenly the librarians themselves were being called groomers. And horrifically in the case of Martha, pedophiles. It's hard to believe, but that's what started to happen then was this breaking of protocol, no due process, for the manner in which these books were just summarily removed in hundreds. And that is still happening. So that's what really changed was the scope. And we always say, and Martha can chime in on this, that parental rights had always been in place. The way she just described that was never in question. There were always parental rights. And this was this complete breaking of policy around these more, I think, organized other kinds of agendas that we reveal in the film.
- [08:59]
A
Martha, can you describe what your town is like?
- [09:02]
C
Sure. I was working in Hunterdon County, New Jersey, which is in the northwest corner of the state. It is a relatively affluent county. And if you're a person who divides the country into blue, red and purple, it's a fairly red county. I was in a high school with approximately 1500 students and almost all of those students graduate to go on to college.
- [09:27]
A
When did you realize that things weren't quite right?
- [09:32]
C
September 28, 2021. She knows the exact date that my life is divided into before and after. Yes, that day my principal entered my office during lunch. In fact, I was sitting there eating a sandwich, reading the New York Times Book Review, as I did every week. The fact that he entered my office was a rarity in and of itself. But he said that he had heard a rumor that there was going to be a complaint about a book at the board meeting that evening. Therein ensued a conversation about which book I prepared him for how to handle that what we do in the event of a book challenge. And I believed that he had it handled. I went home that night and said to my husband, gee, something weird happened at work today. Described what I just described to you. And instead of watching Jeopardy that night, as we normally did, we fired up the board meeting to watch it via livestream. And my life kind of crumbled at that point. A group of parents had gathered at the board meeting, and when it came time for public comments, one after another, they took to the podium to lambaste not only the library, but the librarian and called me by name, a pornographer, pedophile, and groomer of children.
- [10:41]
A
I don't even really know what to say after that. What was your response?
- [10:48]
C
My immediate response in the moment was all the feels, absolutely racing, heartbeat, sick to my stomach, difficulty breathing. But eventually I did compose myself. And in the moment, as this public comments period was still ongoing and these people were still calling my name, I was already. I had my cell phone out. I was texting my union representative. I was getting in touch with the American Library Association. I was doing the things I knew I needed to do to not only protect myself, but to protect the library and students. Right.
- [11:26]
A
To read your corporate background came in healthy.
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C
Well, my corporate got a little bit there.
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A
You're like I knew to call.
- [11:32]
C
Yeah, my corporate background comes in handy in terms of compiling and disseminating information. But I had had a prior book challenge experience in 2019, when the superintendent in the school district demanded that I remove Alison Bechtel's fun home on his command. And I refused to do so. That led to a very protracted situation, and I thought that was the worst thing that had ever happened in my career back in 2019. In hindsight, I'm now grateful that that had happened because that was a dry run. It taught me the steps that I was able to employ so quickly. On September 28, 2021.
- [12:06]
A
Let's take a call. Alan is calling from Brooklyn on line one. Hi, Alan, thank you for making the time to call. All of it. You are on the air.
- [12:14]
D
Thanks so much. I thought I would give a little perspective because my mom used to teach in the New York City system, actually, she taught at Brooklyn Tech, and she shared with me and the rest of my family a story about Langston Hughes. And I'm sure everyone knows who he was, and she felt it was important for her students to learn about him and sort of his take on America. And my mom left before she died, a series of letters in which she began, after being told not to, to. She argued the value of this to her principal, and it went to the superintendent, and ultimately they said, you know what? Tough. And they transferred it to a really difficult school. Later, she became a librarian in my hometown on Long Island. And I know as a librarian, even though that was somewhat of a liberal area, she did have to argue to keep certain books. She was a children's librarian and an adult librarian. And, you know, there were lots of choices that she could make. And I know because, you know, I was. I was a younger person then, and I know she did that. And, well, those are letters that she wrote in the. In the 40s, for me, were just an amazing statement about. About her. But I just thought people might want to know that, well, this is not new, and, you know, you have to keep fighting for it because it won't continue unless you do so.
- [13:50]
A
Alan, thank you so much for sharing that story. I love to get your response to that. Kim.
- [13:56]
B
Well, I think certainly I've been really struck since I entered this new world of beloved librarians, that there is such an incredible integrity around commitment. And as a storyteller, I had to think, well, what are the stakes for them? And the stakes are upholding, I think that the most important tenets of democracy, of freedom of expression, freedom to read, but they're also about protecting kids and knowing that these books do, in fact, save lives. Also, the literature, as Martha said, an attachment to this, you know, to think about books like Beloved or Toni Morrison being taken off the shelf or important history, black history, being erased. So I know that Martha and so many of these people stand on the shoulders of so many people. But I also hear that although it's happened in the past, this is an unprecedented wave that we've never seen quite.
- [14:58]
A
Like this, because there's danger involved in this wave.
- [15:04]
B
Right?
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A
You can see in the film, and.
- [15:07]
B
One obviously can't help but think about McCarthyism. But I think right now, at the beginning of the film, when I started filming, they would say three and a half years ago, they were the canaries in the coal mine. And now sitting here, no spoiler. But toward the end when our librarian says, now this is everyone's story, I think now about what we're seeing in our museum, in our institutions of higher education, in our mass media, our late night television. And it is everyone's story to think about censorship and how un American it fundamentally is.
- [15:40]
A
You have been listening to director Kim Schneider and librarian Martha Hickson about their new documentary the Librarians. We'll have more after a quick break. This is all of It. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guests are director Kim Snyder and librarian Martha Hickson. We're talking about their film the Librarians. It spotlights the effort to ban books from school libraries and penalize librarians who fight back. Let's dive back into the conversation and listeners, a reminder to you we are not taking live calls for this segment.
- [16:32]
B
When I started to traverse the country, I would say to my friends when I'd return here, you really can't get a sense of the pulse of what's happening in the country until you go to a school board meeting somewhere in the heartland or somewhere. And it could be right here in New York City. I suppose we covered less of that. But as we reveal in the film, school boards became sort of battlegrounds. And one of the things we're encouraged about is right now in rolling this out, starting right here in New York City tonight, how many art house cinemas are taking this on? And I say that because I'm hopeful that there is a return to a yearning to be together as community around issue based films like this that sometimes have a harder time getting out there and being in places because school boards have become weaponized. They're the last place where these constructive, sadly, these constructive conversations, they're scripted, people are sent in, it's organized. They read the same thing over and over. And it's just divisive. There's no, as Martha said, real conversation that happens in that space. So we're experiencing something very different as we roll out with the film that does feel like there's a middle. So many Americans don't feel partisan about this, it turns out. So that's my feeling about the school boards. But we hope that people get engaged in voting for school boards. Someone told me that there's an average turnout of about 6% to school board elections that are coming up. Really important to show up at them because they determine so much of these issues around censorship and freedom to read.
- [18:15]
A
We have a fan of yours on line one, someone named Allison calling in. Hi, Alison. Thank you for calling all of it.
- [18:24]
E
Hi, Allison. And hi, Martha. I'm a former school librarian from New Jersey. Martha, I have followed your ordeal. I'm a huge fan of yours. As for all of the school librarian community in New Jersey, I'm sure you know that we all have your back and we have. Yes, your community is behind you and we've followed you and we support you. I'm a former school librarian because I made a career change few years back, not unrelated to what we've been going through over these last few years. My career change was somewhat related to this culture war that we found ourselves fighting. But before I made that career change, I was lucky enough to be working in an independent school that allowed me to develop a course called Do Not Read, where I built a curriculum around reading banned books or formerly banned books, or often frequently banned books. And the students were reading frequently banned books. We read Judy Blume, we read Sherman Alexie. We read Fahrenheit 451. And something that we talked about frequently.
- [19:43]
C
Was.
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E
The lines around obscenity and profanity and how much obscenity and profanity.
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A
In.
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E
This literature, the dividing lines of obscenity and profanity and how much of that is actually just carried on in the news.
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B
Right.
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E
Like in our everyday world.
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B
Right.
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E
And the dividing, like what these laws and what people were trying to protect children from, or.
- [20:18]
A
It's an interesting point you bring up. Martha and I wanted to get your response to that. And we were talking about this earlier. A bunch of people on the staff was going through the children is really, really difficult for people because everybody wants to protect their children. And if you put the children first, even as a front for what you were doing, it makes it really, really tough to fight.
- [20:46]
C
It does. Especially when children are being used as the frame to manipulate the perception of what's happening. Take, for example, a book like this book is Gay, and you'll hear those who want it removed saying, this should not be in a first grade classroom. I have wonderful news for you. It is not. So they're taking books intended for young adults and high school students, positioning them as being distributed, handed off, promoted to kindergartners and first graders, and using that false frame to demonize librarians and the profession as a whole.
- [21:24]
A
Were you ever in fear for Your life, Martha?
- [21:28]
C
I was definitely in fear. I don't know if it has gone so far as to be in fear for my life. But. But things did get to a point where I installed security cameras on my home. There were strange vehicles idling for, you know, 30 minutes, 45 minutes at a time in front of my house. Doxxing went on. In fact, it continues. I retired last November. The harassment on social media continues, the doxing continues. So much so that I've had to install those cameras on the home that I retired to.
- [22:09]
A
I'm not going to give too much away, but would you explain who Patriot Mobile is?
- [22:15]
B
To my knowledge, they are a mobile cell phone company in Texas that has a pack and a certain percentage of all the revenues that come to them go to basically back certain school boards and put a lot of money behind flipping particular school boards and again, not giving away too much. But we do have clips of certain notable people saying that school boards are the key that picks the lock. So what starts to become apparent through a very interesting character that changes her mind about the whole thing and realizes, as Martha says, that there is no there. There's that this is fake news. There is no pornography in the first and second grade shelves. So that is where you start to see a different agenda that is white, Christian nationalist based, that is anti public schools. And that character says, I didn't sign up for that and realize that she's been manipulated by some of these organized forces.
- [23:26]
A
This text says Listening to the Show As a 2012 graduate of the high school in Hunterton County, New Jersey, I hate to hear about the experience your guest Martha had. I'm so grateful to the high school teachers I had exposing me to different books, authors and voices that shaped my.
- [23:42]
B
Perspectives on the world.
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A
Librarians and teachers are crucial in helping young people think critically about their world and to think for themselves.
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C
Agreed. Hunterton county graduate, Agreed.
- [23:56]
A
You decided to go on camera. Other librarians chose not to be on camera. Some did, some didn't. What went into your decision to be on camera?
- [24:05]
C
That was a difficult decision. And it started in 2022 when school library Journal asked me to write an article about my experience being the target of a censorship effort. And at first I was going to decline that opportunity because I said to myself, I do not want to be the poster child for censorship. Thankfully, I'm not. That's Amanda Jones. However, I decided to write the article for School Library Journal because I was one of the earliest attacked in this way. And I thought if sharing my experiences could help other Librarians navigate these very difficult waters, then it would be worth it. And then all of this just ensued from that article. Many media opportunities. And then ultimately, that's how I met Kim, was through that article. And again for the same reason. I want other librarians to know they're not alone. And now, through this magnificent film, I want the world at large to know what is happening when those outside of the library community have seen the film. I've been to probably a dozen screenings now. People are shocked. You know, people, the community in general has heard about book banning, most probably haven't been to a board meeting. When they see the behavior that is taking place at these board meetings, the abuse that is heaped on individual librarians, people are absolutely shocked. And I'm grateful, so grateful to Kim and her team for the care that they have taken in compiling these stories into a very, very compelling narrative.
- [25:36]
A
Kim, do you have any sense what the end game is for the backers of this movement?
- [25:43]
B
Which movement?
- [25:45]
A
The anti librarian movement. The anti books movement.
- [25:48]
B
Well, I think it's really akin to 2025 agenda. I think it's, you know, the foundations of it are racism and fear of changing demographics and wanting to erase history. So many things that we hear about. And that is, you know, that is. Yeah, I think in essence, the end game is to rewrite history.
- [26:19]
A
Yeah. Martha, somebody in our staff has a kid who's in school to be a librarian. She's getting her library science degree. Any advice?
- [26:30]
C
Stick with it. And if they're going to become, well, regardless of what kind of librarian they're going to become, it's essential that you know your library's policies for both selection and challenges and removal. That's something especially in a school environment. The librarian is probably the only person who will know those policies what should and should not be done. And that would be a key, key piece of information.
- [26:55]
A
That was my conversation with director Kim Snyder and subject Martha Hickson about their documentary the Librarians. And that is all of it for today. I'm Alison Stewart. I appreciate you listening and I appreciate you. I'll meet you back here next time. Hey, everyone.
- [27:14]
C
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