Is  Anyone Who Claims to Oppose  Removal of Books From the Library Ever For Books Being Removed From the Library? 

 I hope that if Samuels had children and young adults’ books promoting the idea that one race is intrinsically superior to another race  [no such race exists]; books calling for a violent race war, books promoting  killing children, or books glorifying cannibalism, or books that glorified bestiality [do we have those, just not in the children’s section?], I hope that all of those who are so against “book banning” would be for “banning” those books from the children’s and teen sections of the Library, not just removing them to a “separate section.”   There has been no published letter to the Editor of the Royal Examiner taking the position that NO BOOK EVER should NEVER be removed from the shelves of Samuels Public Library.   Will such a letter arrive?  Will the case be made?  Will those so upset with the idea of CERTAIN BOOKS being removed from the children’s and teen sections of the Library defend the position that no book should ever be removed,  for any reason, from any section once it is shelved at Samuels Public Library because doing so is “book banning”?

I would like to see someone who is so upset about the actions of CSL (Clean Up Samuels Library) write in and DEFEND the idea that NO BOOK EVER should be removed, for any reason, from any section of the Library, or at least not the Children’s and Teen Sections.   Would that honest person, with such a bold and undifferentiated position, please stand up?   If no such letter ever arrives, I am going to assume that anyone who is so upset with CSL’s actions is just as much for some form of censorship in a civilized society as I am. If this is the case, could the representatives of  people who are calling everyone who disagrees with them “book banners”  please write in and define their real position:  “We are fine with “censorship” and “book banning” when it is a book exhorting children of one race to go out and kill the children of another race in the children’s section: just clarifying.” And I am just asking.

If there were a book in the library, as I facetiously suggested in an earlier letter, entitled, “You Can Only Marry a Person of the Opposite Sex And Other Cautionary Tales” in the children’s section (by the way, if there were, I would have asked for its removal from the Library, not just that it be segregated off to a “separate section”) would all upstanding “no book ever banned or removed” non-banners please stand up?  Please tell me they would defend that book’s presence too.  Then I would be the one arguing with you.  Of course, maybe you expect that because I am not defending the position that any and every book, once published, once placed on a library shelf, should remain there, no matter what its content, no matter what it’s message.  To be honest, I don’t think anyone wants to defend that position.  So we are all in good company: the entire town is on “our side.”

So until Mr. Roger Bianchini (who just wrote a letter to the editor implying that anyone who supports the idea that some books should be removed from the Library has thereby earned the dreaded intolerant title of “book banner” and needs just to own it: there, I’ve said it: I own it) to resume, until Mr. Roger Bianchini also makes the claim that he would never ask that any book be removed ever, no matter what its content, from the Library, I am going to assume that Mr. Bianchini is a “book banner” of sorts too, which anyone who has a moral compass is.

To all of those who think CSL is so awful, could you stop attacking us and just start writing letters defending “Lawn Boy,” “This is Why They Hate Us,” and “Kiss Number 8”.   Write in and tell everyone why you think these are such great books.    Feel free to quote the passages that all the people who asked for their removal are concerned about. If we leave out “context” in expressing our concerns, give context to our lack thereof. And please stop calling us book banners until you are willing to own the position that you would never, ever, no matter what the content or message, no matter what shelf housed it, be for the removal of any book from Samuels Public Library.

Laura M. Clark
Warren County

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