Banned in Utah - Shawn's Sense with Shawn Loughlin

In the event that you’re one of the many, many Utahns who read The Citizen, and, more specifically, my column, reading this week’s installment - guess what? You’re not.

 

This column is banned in Utah. Earlier this month, when 13 books were ordered to be removed from public schools, this column followed shortly thereafter. The ban was issued when Utah’s state government discovered my torrid and shadowy relationship with Margaret Atwood, one of the authors of a newly-banned book. The relationship of which I speak dates back to when I interviewed Atwood once when she was in Blyth. It might have only been an interview with several people around, but for Utah’s decision makers, that was enough.

 

So, what’s next? The Citizen’s retention department will be working hard in the coming weeks to replace the thousands upon thousands of now-defunct subscriptions that went weekly to Utah. With similar population figures, Iowa would make the most sense, but for that to happen, Citizen founder Keith Roulston would have to get over his burning, irrational hatred for that state. I wouldn’t hold my breath. It all began, supposedly, with a most unsavoury encounter with Des Moines native Cloris Leachman, but Keith refuses to elaborate. 

 

Uruguay has a similar population, but I’m on that country’s blacklist too - this time for some ill-advised soccer Tweets. I don’t know what the department can do, but surely... something.

 

So, while The Citizen flirts with closure, struggling to fill the Utah-sized hole in its subscription base, I might as well keep writing. This week, let’s talk banning books.

 

Just last week, in The Citizen’s “Looking Back Through the Years”, we had a Huron County Board of Education trustee trying to ban two books in 1977. I know from my own spin through the archives that there was work afoot in the 1990s here in Huron County to ban books written by Ohio - not to be confused with wretched Iowa - author R.L. Stine. 

 

There was the whole book-burning thing in Nazi Germany, of course, and now, somehow, here we are again. Last year, book bans surged in the U.S. to record levels, many of which took aim at books that dealt with issues of race or LGBTQ matters. Even Canada is seeing a sharp rise in calls to ban books, says an article published earlier this year by the CBC. 

 

Maybe I’m one with his head in the sand, but I really thought we’d evolved past this in society, but, there are a lot of bigots in Canada and, as they call to ban books for one reason or another (we all known what the reason is), they gain ground and they find more bigots and then they join Facebook groups for bigots with bigot memes and bigot spelling mistakes. 

 

In Utah, they have moved to ban 13 books, 12 of them written by women, including one by our beloved Atwood. The books are to be removed and “legally disposed of” in what many are calling a dark day for the state.

 

Any time a government, especially within a democracy in a supposedly advanced country, censors material from its citizens, it’s a shame. In this case, it appears to be a concerted effort from straight, white and male politicians to keep the U.S. straight, white and male. It’s really unfortunate at a time when “minority” populations are growing around the world, but, then again, maybe that’s why it’s happening. 

 

People of all stripes need to see themselves represented in what they read, see and hear, so when bigot gatekeepers limit that potential, it holds people back. Again, likely the point.

 

As right-wing, nationalist politics draw more people into their web, we can expect more of these, which is an unfortunate trajectory.