Bandits and Banned Books

St Joseph, Missouri

St Joseph, Missouri is the home to the starting point for the Pony Express and the town where the bank robber and bandit, Jesse James, lost his life while adjusting a picture frame on his mantle. You can visit the Pony Express Museum and then the Jesse James house where the frame directs your attention to the bullet hole that traveled through the house after killing James.

The Pony Express Statue, St Joseph, Missouri.

St Joe was a bustling outpost and rough frontier town, serving as a last supply point and jumping-off point for travelers on the Missouri River toward the "Wild West". It was the westernmost point in the United States accessible by rail until after the American Civil War.

St Joe still has a little bit of the feeling of a Wild West town. There are about 72K people who call St Joe home. I am very familiar with the town as it is the one of the only big cities nearby to do my shopping. I was also a teacher there. I worked in the South End — a section of the city that has more than once threatened to secede from the rest of the city. True story.

But, for as long as I have lived in Northwest Missouri, St Joe has had the reputation of sort of a rough place. A place with a lot of folks living in poverty. Part of the reputation is earned...part of it is the stigma of poverty.

I had never had so many students with a parent in prison as I did when I taught in St Joe. One of the first parent/teacher conferences I had was with a parent in the throes of addiction.

The free and reduced lunch rate was around 65% in the school I taught…poverty was a matter of fact in my building, and so was the lack of resources.

I worked on the side of town that had several industrial and meat packing plants, and there were days when odor in the air would take your breath away. My building had no air conditioning — except in the administrator’s office — it was a constant battle deciding if I should open my windows to avoid a heat stroke, or keep them closed and be able to breathe without a pungent smell attacking your nose and lungs. The kids would become so lethargic on days when the temps were over 90 in my classroom, that I often just let them read while they fought for space in front of one of the box fans.

So, I have been keeping up with recent developments in the St Joe School District with a lot of interest. The poverty in the district seems to make it a perfect target for the “school choice” movement.

Come in with millions in school choice propaganda, add a few lawmakers who do the work of their school choice donors, throw in some agitators, and voila! You have the beginning of the decimation of public schools in St Joe.

Bandit, noun: an outlaw who lives by plunder, especially a member of a band of marauders.

When I speak of the word “bandit” you may think of Jesse James and the like, but I think we should expand that definition to those who would plunder our public schools for resources and send them to line the pockets of private school profiteers. In my opinion, anyone who steals, cheats, or exploits public schools would fall into this category.

So, what’s going on in St Joseph? A few weeks ago, there was a Sunshine request for every single library book title in the St Joe School District. The weird thing? The person who requested all of the book titles has no children in the St Joseph School District.

*The man who requested the titles is Kyle Phillips. He is a Senior VP for a corporation associated with “accelerating the development of Christ-centered K-12 education.”

After the Sunshine request was returned to Kyle Phillips, a printed list of over 3,800 pages, he published the list to Facebook.

From there, the challenges began.

The books being challenged likely weren’t chosen by accident…these titles pop up on sites like Moms for Liberty and right-wing, Christian nationalist groups opposed to LGBTQ books and “CRT.”

A list of the 10 challenged books in SJSD:

— Looking for Alaska by John Green

— All Boys Aren't Blue by George M. Johnson

— If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo (this book was not found in any SJSD library)

— The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison

— Crank by Ellen Hopkins

— Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

— 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

— And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson

— The ABCs of LGBTQ+ by Ash Hardwell

— This Book is Anti-Racist by Tiffany Jewell

This is where things get really odd…the ten books were challenged by just a few folks. One of the men challenging books is also a school board member of the St Joseph Christian School. Odd indeed.

But, there’s more.

Through another Sunshine request, the names of the folks who objected to the books were listed, along with this question on the form: Did you read the book?

There are 12 people challenging the 10 books, and only one claimed to have read the books they want removed from libraries. Way to go, Frank! I guess…

Photo credit: “Herzog-free SJSD” via Facebook.

The point? The people who want to challenge or remove books from school libraries often don’t have children in the district. Some may have ulterior motives. Some may want to privatize public schools with vouchers, and some may just be misled by political rhetoric. Some may really think that “And Tango Makes Three”, a story about two male penguins raising a baby penguin, is just too much for children to read.

St Joseph is a living piece of Wild West history, and represents a time I thought we had moved past. I don’t want to go back to the Wild West. I don’t want 12 people making decisions for 72,000 people. I don’t want wealthy school privatizers creating hot-button culture wars that only serve to harm our children, especially those already experiencing poverty and addiction at home— children who really could use a literary mirror.

My students in St Joe? The kids fighting for a position in front of a box fan? They read what they wanted to read.

“Crank” is a book that tells the painful story of addiction that too many of my kids lived with. “The Bluest Eye” tells a story of a vulnerable girl who is the victim of incest…a story a few of my students understood intimately.

These books are important, and not appropriate for all students, which is why we have librarians who place them in age-appropriate libraries.

Diverse books are important…kids need mirrors and windows. Literature can help a child see herself or it can be a window into the life of another. My students learned to walk in some else’s shoes through literature. They learned what walking in their own shoes looked like. They learned tolerance and empathy.

And, this is why some want to ban books. They don’t want children to learn tolerance or empathy. They are scared of children learning to think critically about themselves and others and the world. They are scared that children will learn truths they can’t unlearn.

Taking books out of libraries for everyone is not acceptable. The folks who ban books are never on the right side of history. The folks who want to ban books in St Joseph, especially those who admit to not even reading the books, fall into that category.

I stand with the banned.

~Jess