That talk with my neighbor about the library book ban changed my mind

My neighbor Frank stopped me by the mailbox last Tuesday. He said they pulled a book from the kids section about a family with two dads, and he thought it was fine because it 'protected' kids. I asked him what exactly it protected them from, and he just stared at me for a second. It hit me that he never actually read the book or talked to anyone who had, he just heard it was bad and went along. Has anyone else had a conversation like that where you realized the other person hadn't even looked at the thing they wanted banned?

2 comments

2 Comments

henry_palmer2411d agoMost Upvoted

Started nodding halfway through reading this because it reminded me of something that happened at my church potluck last month. One of the guys there started going on about how a certain book was 'dangerous' and 'not appropriate' and I asked him what page he got stuck on. The silence was so long you could hear the ice cubes clinking in people's tea glasses. He finally admitted he saw a Facebook video about it but never opened the book himself. It's like people think being loud about something makes up for not actually knowing what they're talking about, and that scares me more than any book ever could.

henrygrant10d ago

Four years ago at a neighborhood association meeting, a woman told me my kid's favorite graphic novel was "grooming material" and she'd never even flipped through it. I asked her if she knew the main character's name and she stared at me like I'd asked her to recite the phone book from memory. She eventually mumbled something about a pastor's sermon and changed the subject. It's wild how comfortable people feel making big claims about things they've put zero effort into understanding. I'm with you, the confidence in ignorance is way scarier than any story someone wrote down.