To governors and state legislatures in states like Florida, to school boards in conservative areas across the country, to those who believe it’s wrong to acknowledge any view beyond white supremacy, I have three words for you. Ban my book.
If you don’t, it means I must’ve done something wrong, because in writing Ten Lives, Ten Demands: Life and Death Stories and a Black Activist’s Blueprint for Racial Justice, I pointed out the systemic injustice in our criminal justice system. I challenged the racism within that system. I pointed to ways to change it. So, ban my book.
If The Florida Department of Education can reject more than 50 math books from next school year’s curriculum, citing references to critical race theory as one of the reasons for the ban, you must ban my book, too.
Otherwise, I must be a bad writer. I must be an awful storyteller. I must be a terrible activist, because if multiplication tables are more offensive to conservatives than a book that details the racism behind the murder of George Floyd, then I’m doing something wrong. If long division is an attack on racism, but my call for reparations is not, then I need to go back to the drawing board. If y’all are afraid of fractions, but you’re not bothered by my call to end qualified immunity, then I have failed in my fight against injustice.
Ban my book, because if y’all so racist you would ban a math book by claiming it’s somehow challenging the sin of white supremacy, then you might as well ban all books, and you can start with mine.
In trying to control ideas, you only promote them. In trying to squash a struggle, you only make it stronger. In trying to kill a movement, you only give it life.
So, ban my book, and then stand back and watch it change the world.
Ban my book. Then stand back and watch it change the world
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