Book and getting it signed. Hello, my name is allison lee. I am the managing director of penn america los angeles. Penn america is a National Organization that stands at the intersection of literature and human rights, celebrating and uniting writers and readers and defending the freedom that may creative expression possible. Which is why i am pleased to moderate todays discussion on band books, defending the right to read. Joining me today are peter coyle , the Library Director and ceo of the sacramento public library. President of the freedom to read foundation. Recipient of this yearss Los Angeles Times innovator award. Next to peter is angie thomas, whose latest novel is nick lake and the remarkable manifester prophecy. She is the author of the awardwinning number one New York Times bestselling novel, the hate you give, on the come up and concrete road as well as find your voice, a guide to writing your truth. Angie will be appearing in another panel today on the y stage at 2 00 p. M. On middle grade fiction. Also joining us is george m johnson, an awardwinning, black, nonbinary author and executive producer located in los angeles. They are the author of the New York Times best telling author of the young adult men wire, all boys are not blue, discussing adolescents growing up as a young, black, queer boy in new jersey through a series of powerful essays which were auctioned by gabrielle union. [applause] george, i would like to start with you. If you can tell us a bit about all boys are not blue, which has been described as this memoir manifesto. The book is in your story and your truth. In the context of todays discussion, the attempt to ban and remove access to it is an attempt to ban and remove your expanse, which i imagine must be difficult. Can you share about that, how you cope and why you decided to become a public defender of the freedom to write and Read Movement . Can you hear me . I was getting nervous. These mics are short. [laughter] ok. So, yeah. I guess the first thing i will say is, one, it is not an attempt at my story personally, because they have not read the book. So, you cannot be trying to attack my story if you actually have not read the book. I say that and i know they have not read the book because the parts they are upset about come in chapter 11, but i know they would have been more upset if they read the book and saw what i said about Abraham Lincoln and thomas jefferson. So. [laughter] so, i note that it is not an attempt at blocking my story, as much as the ideology that they are trying to protect. And ideology around white supremacy, ideology that says that lgbtq people do not have the right to exist in this country, that we should be looked at as a lower class of citizens. My biggest reason for defending not just my book, all the books, just the right to read, when you look at generation z all of this is stemming out from 2019 that said gen z was about to be more nonwhite than white and that gen z was already identifying as wendy percent lgbtq. 20 lgbtq. People got scared because this country has always been based on fear, not faith. So. Because of that irrational fear, thinking like, oh, wow, if this is the next population in power, that means lgbtq people will be in power. That means more nonwhite people will be in power. That means white kids within generations he will have empathy for the rest of the people because they got to interact with people who did not look like them and got to read books about people that had different experiences. When they become the next governors and people in power, they go into these systems wanting to dismantle them, understanding that you may have to abolish, not reform, and go into it with the mindset of thinking about everybody all encompassing of the communities that they exist in. That is why i chose to be a fighter in this, because it is that important and it is that important that the younger generation, the young adults now know they have the law on their side, and yall have the power to change this world and we are watching in real time. I want to be a part of that change. [applause] angie. Your book has been consistent bestsellers, even more than that, they have been powerful conversation starters in engaging dialogue with young people about Racial Injustice against black people. I am curious how your relationship with your readers have changed since were brooks were First Published and how it has changed in the political environment we are now in. The most interesting thing is that i have seen the readers themselves, how diverse they are. I have had readers from all walks of life who have told me they have read the hate you give or watch the movie. I am not mad if you just watched a movie. [laughter] my own cousin told me, i did not read the book, i watched the movie. [laughter] i have seen people who are 80 who said they love the hate you give. I have kids who are eight who said, i want to read the hate you give. My relationship has not necessarily changed, i would say more so it has grown. And b conversations the book has created have grown. I think that is one reason why people are fearful of it. I will say, i do not think when george and i were sitting down to read our books, we were not writing them to have a political agenda. We were writing about experiences, real people, things that actually happened that affect people. We were writing about personal, emotional things. I do not sit down wondering if this is a political agenda i want to instill in any child. I have yet a reader to come to me and say, this shifted my political agenda. No, what they say is, i have had 16yearolds tell me, 16yearold white whittle america tell me, i do not know any black people, this book allows me to learn what black people have gone through and be more aware. I have 16yearold black kids say, this oak has shown me me for the first time. I have had 80yearolds who say, i had no idea black parents sit down and talk with their children about what to do if they are stopped by police. It has crated conversations and awareness. I have learned that books have the power to do that. I have also learned that books have the power to scare people who do not want to understand people unlike themselves, who do not want to take the time to put themselves in somebody elses shoes. That is their problem, not mine. [applause] peter, lets talk about this scary people. [laughter] there is a 2022 poll that found over 70 of parents opposed book banning. Yet, the movement to ban books is getting larger and larger and it is led by a vocal minority demanding censorship. Librarians are often on the front lines of this issue. I am curious if you can share how book banning is impacting librarians and what resources they have available to them. How much time do we have . [laughter] i think first of all, it has been this book banning has slowly ramped up since the pandemic. I think the pandemic gave some parents more insight into what their children are learning in school. Having parents in homes while that was happening, i think really spurted this. This is an active, organized effort. It is really impacting librarians. Usually, we have parents and caregivers come with sincere questions. They are curious about why we have a certain book. These are orchestrated temps. There are lists of books that are spread through the internet and they tell people, go to your library, ask about these books. They have this playbook they follow. We librarians have been threatened. They have in some cases lost their jobs in some states and cities, the funding has been pulled. We are being in some cases being called groomers, i am being accused of a number of things that are not true. It is a scary time to be a librarian. But, we do our job because this is about sharing information. If we stop sharing information, then other people win. And i think im going offtopic of what your question was. I think that if we as a community are supported, support your libraries, vote in your elections. When they ask you to pay more taxes for libraries, please do so. [laughter] [applause] libraries are not an amenity, they are a necessity in your community. It is not a swimming pool. You need your library to have an educated citizenry, and anyone. If you are interested in supporting libraries efforts, a whole host of publishers, there is a toolkit you can go and find out what you can do in your local community to support your library and fight these efforts. This week, penn america released its updated index of banned books in the 20222023 school year. Our findings recorded more books banned in the fall 2022 semesters then each of the prior two semesters with most bands affecting young adult ya books. Ya books are understand they serve as a tool for developing empathy. We have talked about it a little bit, what do you think is the most dangerous aspect of this troubling trend . Is that to all of us . Any of you. I was not sure. I mean, is this how fascism begins . I do not want to put it lightly, but that is the start of fascism. You know, there is this interesting story about how, oh, these books are indoctrinating our youth. It is like, yes. The problem with that is exactly, what . Yes, it is indoctrinating them with resources and with empathy and to know that other people exist outside of them. There is nothing wrong with that. The biggest thing is, it is indoctrinating them with the truth. Living in the United States of america, we have all been sold an alternative history of what this country actually is. I grew up and i write about it in my novel, i thought Abraham Lincoln was a savior almost in comparison to Martin Luther king. The way he was taught to us was and the reason you get to sit with these white students, they freed the slaves. That is how he was taught to us. I often think about when they talk about indoctrination, that is what indoctrination is. It is giving you this false narrative of how we came to be where we are today. When you start to go back in time, research and look at the actual history of things, it is like, yall wrote something talking about we the people, but you had people you didnt consider people. Yall freed the slaves and said, look, we are the party that freed the slaves. It is like, yeah, but why would you need a Civil Rights Movement if the freeing of the slaves was not the ultimate thing that got us here today . It is like starting to be able to be able to connect those dots. That is what the danger is, that they are trying to a race dots. They are trying to erase how we got here today. They are trying to say these things are not systemic. Every Single Police shooting is a oneoff thing. We have to find were good cops. You know, we fight School Shootings with more guns. Right . You know, because my book has killed so many people. [laughter] right. We have to ban these books because my book is walking into so many places and harming so many people, but we will not ban assault rifles. We will not ban the actual things that are killing people. [applause] but we want to ban the things that make us greater, the things that give us the power and the tools and knowledge to fix the problems in society. I think i always laugh anytime i hear them say antifa did it. Yes, people that are antifascist. That is literally what antifa stands for. How could you be upset about a person who does not want fascism . That is where we are. That is where we are, that is the road we are going at. It is fascism. I was just poking about this the other day. When you are mad at antifa cists, that means you are not good at fascism. I think it is funny we are moving at a place with fascism when people do not know what fascism is. They should read more books. Right. They should read more books. [laughter] power and control, right. Power of books to change lives and what that change will mean, they will lose the power they have as we dismantled these structures put in place and it really is a fight because there is this tension that is happening because of that. I think that is a powerful motivation for both sides on the issue, that we have to make sure that we do not let that power overtake what we are trying to do, which is trying to share information with people. [laughter] angie and george, you talked about the fact none of you sat down and said, i am going to write a book that is going to get banned. Yet, we are all about risks making the a list in l. A. You have the dubious honor of in the 2021, 2022 school year, i think george, your book was number two. The hate you give was number five. Give it up for that honor. [applause] [laughter] but, as writers, that was not your intention. What you wrote were deeply personal and real stories. I am wondering in the face of that, what gets you writing . What keeps me writing . The kids who come to me and say, thank you for this book because this is the first time i saw myself. The kids who say thank you, it helped me understand. The kids who say thank you for this book because it led me to want to pick up the baton of optimism activism. I had this young man in philly, yo, ma, i hate reading but i read this in a day. That was built. Dope. As someone who did not see herself in books a lot, i take issue with why adults, white adults, who say black kids should not see themselves, iac issue with that. You should take an issue with that, too. It is not just about them keeping the books from their kids. They are trying to keep them from all of your kids. They are trying to keep them from kids who need them. I need parents who recognize that. A lot of talk about parents rights, parents rights. Cbs did a segment this morning talking about book bans and talked to a group of parents or parents rights. They were all white parents. I want them to Start Talking about black parents who come to me and say, thank you for this book, because it helped my child. I want them to talk to parents of lgbtqia kids, who say, thank you, george for my book. It helped me and my child have a conversation. We are not talking about the kids who need the book at all. They are being ignored and have been ignored for so long. As someone from a demographic ignored for so long, a young, black woman in poor mississippi, i am angry you are now trying to push kids just like that to the side and act as if the things they go through are not important. Act as if their lives, their dreams do not matter. Their aspirations do not matter. That is essentially what you are telling them and it pisses me off. [applause] do not laugh. What was the original question . [laughter] why do you write . I think you got that, right . What we would say is, keep writing, because clearly, we need it. [applause] it is like, how do you follow that . [laughter] i keep saying that every time you answer. How do i follow this . I will start by saying, i made a list with toni morrison. It is dope to be on a banned book list with toni morrison. Iconic. Have a quote on my arm by toni morrison. If there is a book you want to read and it has not been written yet, you must write it. There are books i want to read that have not been written yet. If i am still yearning for these books and i know there are other young adults who are yearning for these books, in writing all boys are not blue and having so many people say, this is the first time i have ever felt seen in a book, and it was not coming from the demographic i thought it was going to come from it was coming from people who were 60 and older. That was so bittersweet to me. It was like, i am so glad that you now, for the first time, get to feel seen. How many years did you go not feeling seen and heard for this moment to have to come . At the same time, this moment comes and we are watching the restriction be put in place on, well, you cannot say gay, you cannot do this, you cannot do that. Like it is automatically going to erase the young adults or teenagers. My philosophy has been, they cannot ban all the damn books. If i keep writing black, queer books, they cannot ban them all. That is primarily one of the reasons i keep writing. I keep writing because there is so much history and legacy that has been erased. The fact that when i grew up and i knew who Langston Hughes was and Josephine Baker was and these iconic figures, but i had no idea they were clear queer. I had no idea i did exist, i had creative side should have had the right to look up to. That is another reason i keep writing and keep putting these things out into the world. I do not want us to keep going generation after generation where we do not have that history thanks preserved. I think that is the other thing. Banning books does not mean history is being preserved. This just becomes a time capsule, so we all can remember what was happening right now. It comes a time capsule so 50 years from now, we know who was on the right night of history and who was on the wrong side of history. It never gets recorded, then the narrative can be flipped and turned into whoever at the time is in power. The final reason is, i get these messages. I got one from a kid in pennsylvania who was at a School Board Meeting fighting the book ban and said to the panel that reading my book helped them name their abuser. I get messages about the fact that, i grew up not knowing what my first name was. It is a long story. It is in the book. I went by my middle name. There are now people i mean cis people, trans people, changing the names. Saying, i never thought about the fact i do not like my name, and i can change it. Watching it be a tool to empower people. James baldwin said, writing is the greatest form of liberation. It is the greatest tool to liberate people. I think that is why me and angie do the work we do. We continuously, with each book put out, watch a person be liberated. [applause] so, we are sitting in los angeles and i think that most of us think of book banning as something that is happening someplace else. Our educational censorship is happening someplace else. We know the big three in terms of florida, texas i do not think there is three. Florida, texas, utah. Tennessee. Iowa. We think it only impacts writers and readers in someplace else, we are protected here in our bible. Peter, i am wondering if you can give examples of look bans that hit closer to home so we can understand if this is happening someplace else, it is happening here in the state of california and why we should be worried about it from where we sit today. A couple months and Alameda County, the Alameda County library had a drag queen story time that was disrupted by a group of proud boys. The fbi treated it as a hate crime. Because they showed up and they were threatenin