Maus

I have been trying to pay less attention to the news. This is a difficult task these days. Any time I open Chrome on my phone there are numerous articles presented there to hook my attention. I am powerless over them. I end up getting distracted and going down wormholes. Then I forget why I opened a browser window on my phone to begin with. Something has to change.

I couldn't help hearing about the Tennessee school board banning the graphic novel Maus in their school district. This news is deeply unsettling to me. Here we are in 2022 reading about book banning. In the United States of America? It can happen here after all.

I realized then that I have never read Maus. It has been on my reading list for ages. The importance of this work cannot be understated. Why hadn't I read it yet?

My wife and I were talking about this book. She has mentioned that she wants to teach it to her middle school students. My wife is a general education teacher in a small Jewish School. There is no danger of such a book being banned in her school. I asked if she could bring a copy home so that we could both read it. It turns out that banning a book has the unintended consequence of making it a popular title. Copies of Maus are scarce. It has been selling out in book stores.

She brought home a copy and I set aside my other reading to spend some time with it. I was surprised how gripping a story it is. I always had a hard time understanding how an event like the holocaust happens,. How do humans behave such that they start rounding up other humans and sending them to the gas chambers? This book illustrates the deterioration of life for Jewish people in Europe. You read about their stories and see how unfair and cruel their treatment was. These are people with children, trying to make their way in the world and build businesses. Everything was taken from them.

One thing I enjoy about Gemini-space is that politics are muted. When thinking about what I want to write about in my own little corner of smolnet I decided that I would avoid political subjects as much as possible. I am torn now because I look at the current world around us and I see trouble brewing. We read about book banning and censorship that is happening today, in 2022. How can I not react? How can I stay silent about this?

To really drive home how alarming this trend is I saw another horrific image in the news this week. A book burning. That event was sponsored by a Baptist Church in, once again, Tennessee. The image shows people throwing Harry Potter books into a massive pyre.

This is a spectacle to see in our lifetimes. History is doomed to repeat itself. I was always flippant when reading about censorship in the past. I thought these were the lessons of history that would be impossible to repeat in modern times. It cannot happen here. Then the Trump era occurred and I started noticing fissures in the foundation of our democracy.

I feel very anxious about the future of the USA. That is why I think it is important to read banned books, and to promote them. It is also IMPORTANT TO PAY ATTENTION AND CALL OUT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE BANNING BOOKS. Or burning them.

These are strange times my friend. Let us help each other to build the world we want to live in.

The mice will ultimately prevail. We hope.