I receive the Persephone Letter each month. Persephone being a bookshop in Bath. It is always interesting and informative: books, art, history, architecture. It tries to avoid politics but doesn’t always succeed! At the end of this letter (with an apology) there is a link to a programme about the current goings on in school libraries in the southern states of the USA. So, I clicked and went via iPlayer to this film (The Librarians) about book censorship. It was both disturbing and distressing as school librarians were interviewed who were being vilified and even criminalised. There had been threats of physical violence and many, mainly women, were in fear of their lives. Far right groups had infiltrated school boards and were demanding the withdrawal of any books that had any sexual or racial content. The USA must not be shown to have done wrong in the past; so eradicate slavery for instance. Do not note or admit that some children have same sex parents. Even, withdraw a book that shows that people have different hair and different skin colour.
At one point in the film Nazi book burning was shown, then the same thing being done by the Klu Klux Klan and then suddenly I noticed the date in the corner of the screen had changed to 2024 and once again a group of screaming, hysterical people in Texas were doing the same, burning books, books that had other ideas than their own.
I watched for about half an hour and then switched off. Depressing and distressing and happening today.