We’re All in Deep Trouble When Racial Books and Discussions are Banned

Same Playbook as the Nazis, Communism, and Other Totalitarian Regimes

A professor at the University of Florida who cares deeply about racial justice shared with me Labor Day weekend that not only have faculty been ordered to not talk about race, but they were asked to turn in any other professors speaking about race. Students are also now empowered to film and report any professor saying anything about race! I said, “It sounds like Nazi Germany.” 1 She said, “Yes, they come first for the intellectuals.”

May and June 1933, German students in 34 cities burned 25,000 books 2 including books by Albert Einstein, Helen Keller, Ernest Hemingway, Sigmund Freud and 14 other categories of cutting edge artists and thinkers. “Libraries were asked to stock their shelves with material that stood up to Hitler’s standards and destroy anything that did not.” 3 Then the Jews and artists were murdered.

I’d heard the eerie details about reporting people to authorities from a doctor who was a young adult in China during Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution. ? (I was running a medical research core facility at The Mount Sinai Hospital in New York. While the doctor was my client, we had several profound conversations.) Mao’s goals to elevate the Chinese Communist party had deadly consequences. ?

I believe the U.S. is on a similar, mean, totalitarian path. Speech, youth, education, black communities (for centuries), and female reproductive freedoms are now being controlled.

Read George Orwell’s banned books Animal Farm ? and 1984 ? about menacing authority in communist and capitalist societies.

Schools and workplaces were shut down for several hour indoctrination sessions, daily! Time was provided for attendees to report others who they believed didn’t follow Communist Party orders for thought and conduct.

Is curriculum control, teaching only what lawmakers deem acceptible, indoctrination? Like the Communists, turning in faculty co-workers and students’ teachers is now being encouraged in the US.

Intellectuals, elderly, and free thinkers were abused, tortured, publicly humiliated and killed, perhaps 2 million in total.

Talk and act!

A class war was initiated.

Certainly going on here too! Let’s bring back, or newly create, kind and respectful discussions of diverse ideas.

Youth were taught to follow the party line. Some of them killed their teachers!

Why are teachers targeted now? Raising a new generation of students to follow the party line seeds new lines of control.

At the highest level, an example was made of turning in a family member. Then people started betraying their own family members!

Many people can relate to having a difficult relationship with a family member. What if you lived in fear of retribution — them calling the authorities to pick you up?

Can you imagine the stress? Who could relax at home? For several years, my doctor client went through daily indoctrination, fear and isolation at work and home. How traumatic.

Why are we subjecting our teachers to the extra stress of being turned in? This stress translates to kids and limits their ability to learn.

Mao’s fourth wife Jiang was a film actress. She became the Director of Film in the Central Propaganda Department. First, she joined in the criticism of a film about a beggar who raised money to educate the poor. War against the poor, again. Then she “systematically purge[d] Chinese media and literature of everything but political propaganda.” ?

Taking an accurate history of slavery and racism out of US history books, banning books by black authors, thus whitewashing history, is a form of propaganda.

State laws requiring silence about race, or any topic, are a violation of the U.S. Consitution’s 1st Amendment granting us the right of freedom of speech.

Lawyers can we hear both an amen and see a raising of hands for taking this on?

The prospect of retribution by humiliation or job loss for discussing race, teaching black literature, black stories, or accurate history is, in essence, States behaving like the regimes the U.S. condemns.

As in totalitarian countries, people who don’t believe the ideas and propaganda of the people in power are threatened or punished.

“The [NC] House voted 68–49 along party lines for legislation banning public school teachers from compelling students to believe they should feel guilty or responsible for past actions committed by people of the same race or sex.” ?

This is convenient. If we white people don’t have to feel anything or take any responsibility, then we don’t have to act to make changes to create a better future. Our black brothers and sisters will keep experiencing pain and injustices. 1? If men don’t have to learn from the past, understand and respect women’s choices, men maintain control. Top dog.

“United in their opposition, House Democrats challenged Republican claims that the bill would reduce discrimination and argued that a comprehensive history education should make students uncomfortable.” ?

An honest look at the past brings up feelings. Let’s learn to process our national triggers and traumas. (More about that in an upcoming article.) Let’s find compassion, appreciation and love.

“Rep. John Torbett said the proposal, which now heads to the Senate, will prohibit schools from endorsing controversial concepts, including that one race or sex is inherently superior.” ?

Agreed, but that is not the living reality for many people. Let’s have discussions, and teach children the history of civil, women’s, labor and voting rights movements and let the kids decide for themselves.

“This great education state must have an educational system that unites and teaches our children, not divides and indoctrinates them,” said Torbett, the bill’s sponsor.” ?

Healthy discussions with many points of view is not indoctrination. It teaches respect and understanding. Listening to perspectives from many cultures enriches everyone and allows new ideas. In business, multiple cultural voices drive innovation.

It is easy for white people to take for granted the liberties we have enjoyed and stay caught in our distractions and silent, or numb and dumb!

I am writing another article with both simple to courageous actions to take. But right now, talk with your friends. Ask them questions to hear their points of view on book bans, the muzzling of teachers to stop children’s discussions, and changes to books removing many social issues such as George Floyd and Black Lives Matter. 11

Think how much taxpayer money they are spending for new whitewashed books!

You can donate money or time to beautiful causes such as the NAACP , The Poor People’s Campaign or heart-centered causes that speak to you. Read books by black authors to educate yourself. Buy children’s books by culturally diverse authors to read to your children. 12

Remember to vote! It is a priviledge that many people fought hard to obtain.

Do you agree with the laws your representatives enact? Make your voice count!

It has always been communities of passionate people working together that make progess. At lunch this week, a black friend said, “We make progress, they make progress, we make progress, they make progress.”

It’s our turn now.

Keep the faith.

Each person makes a difference.

With love, together we are strong.

[1] Intellectuals in Crisis: Historians Under Hitler

[2] Book Burnings in Germany, 1933

[3] Nazi Book Burnings

[4] Britannica — Cultural Revolution

[5] Wikipedia — Cultural Revolution

[6] Banned Books Week: Animal Farm

[7] More Banned Books at UC Press

[8] Jiang Qing

[9] North Carolina Passes Bill Limiting Racial Teachings

[10] 23 Ways You Could Be Killed If You Are Black in America.

[11] Florida changes textbooks

[12] A fabulous bookshop!

#bannedbooks #racism #blacklivesmatter #speakingup #strategiccommunication #listening