Free, Brave, and…Banned?

Closeup of a human eye in shadow with the words “2025 Words Pt. 2”

Back in April, I wrote a piece about words — their meanings, how some are being weaponized, twisted, and virtually outlawed in our current climate. And while I received some kudos about the essay, I also received some push back. Thinking about it now, three months later, I have to shake my head at the issue people took with what I wrote.

And so, in the spirit of conciliation, I’ve decided to write another piece about words. Specifically words contained in books.

More specifically, words that are contained in books that have been banned in the United States.

Over the past few months I’ve heard random reportings of books being banned in various states. I looked it up - according to PEN America, they’ve documented book bans in at least 29 states. More than half of our United States have some kind of ban in place. Doesn’t that worry you? Aren’t you gobsmacked by the idea of “book banning” in 2025? In South Carolina, we now lead the nation in the number of state-mandated banned books according to the ACLU.

How can the home of the brave and land of the free, also be the home of over 10,000 instances of banned books? How brave are we if we can’t stand to have ideas?

Because that is the problem - ideas. These books, many of which we grew up reading and were perhaps required to read, contain ideas that are provocative and make us uncomfortable. In these books we find concepts and perspectives that shock, appall, anger, disgust and perhaps run counter to our personal belief system, and isn’t that the crux of book banning — this conglomeration of words is offensive or scary to ME, so no one can have it.

How narrow. How incredibly selfish. How can we educate and prepare children for the world we live in if we take away the opportunity to learn about new ideas, new people, new ways of thinking, in a safe and instructional environment? Of course parents should decide what they want to allow their children to be exposed to. Of course they should, and that decision should not be made for other parents.

By banning books, parenting groups, school districts, and municipalities are telling parents that they will decide what ideas your child will be allowed to be exposed to, not you. Book banning is essentially parenting the parents, based on a religion that might not be yours, world views you may not hold, and a rewriting of history you don’t want to face.

Not shocking, George Orwell’s “1984” is often at the top of the banned book list. Why would a book whose central theme about government control, the eradication of individuality, and the suppression of truth, be on a banned books list I wonder?

I remember reading Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird” in school. I remember feeling afraid inside the ham costume with Scout, indignant with Atticus at the treatment of Tom Robinson, and profoundly saddened by the racism portrayed throughout the book. While it was set in the South, it held a mirror to the racism I was growing up with in my very small town in rural Upstate New York. The book made me feel and think. I saw the world differently after reading it, and perhaps that too is the problem, because this book is on many banned lists.

Books beg us to examine ourselves and the world around us. The words contained in them are treasures whose power is literally world changing. Again, that’s the vex.

Consider Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451.” In it, books are outlawed and “firemen” are called to burn them. This book is often found on banned book lists, and it’s a favorite of mine. I love that the author has upended what we think of as the role of a fireman. I love that I know that 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the temperature at which paper burns, and I really love the idea that ideas are rebellion.

Words are life.

When my daughter was in high school, I gave her Angie Thomas’ “The Hate You Give.” The movie was coming out and it looked powerful and important. We read the the book together and watched the movie. We had conversations that might never have occurred to white, middle class Americans to have. We talked about experiences Black people have that we never do, as written about in the book, experiences that are unimaginable. We talked about THE CONVERSATION that Black parents have with their children, especially their sons, that my heart could not imagine having to have. And then I talked to one of my best girlfriends, who is Black and has a son, and she told me that she couldn’t bear to watch the movie because it would have been too painful, too real. We talked, maybe for the first time, about what it was like for her to raise a Black son in the world we live in. There was so much I didn’t know.

My point is that I couldn’t or wouldn’t have known unless my daughter and I hadn’t read the book and allowed ourselves to ask questions and experience even the shadow of another life experience, so different than our own.

For someone like me, who teaches and illuminates the role of great communication, words are like air - impossible to do without. Human communication requires us to hear, and to listen; to seek understanding and to consider the breadth of human perspective. I constantly find new perspectives in books. I’m very good at what I do in part, because I am a voracious reader.

It seems to me that if an idea runs so counter to your belief system that you have to ban instances of that idea, then it’s your belief system that is frail and needs to be rethought.

LB Adams is the CEO of Practical Dramatics, LLC. She is a communication facilitator & public speaking coach, author and keynote speaker.