Among my peers, I have a unique vantage point regarding cancel culture. I graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1982, when memories of the Free Speech Movement were still fresh. After retiring, I went back to school and earned an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State in 2019. During this time, I witnessed how free speech, a concept that had been revered in my undergraduate days, was actively being suppressed. One could never be certain what might raise the ire of fellow students. I had many awkward moments when the culture of political correctness won out over the right of free speech and self-expression: one time I was chastised for including a few words of Spanish in a play because it was not my native language.

In contrast to my undergraduate experience, it now felt as though speech had become weaponized, vocabulary circumscribed, and the promotion of free expression minimized. Students were censoring themselves, afraid to use language or take positions that might offend. I began to act the same way. Even at my advanced age, retired after a successful career, I wanted to get along and make friends with other students. Who wants to be a pariah? It’s not surprising to me that the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (F.I.R.E.), an organization that surveys students regarding freedom of expression, states that across universities in California today:

• 37% of students say they have self-censored on campus at least once or twice a month.

• 72% of students say shouting down a speaker to prevent them from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.

• 34% of students say using violence to stop someone from speaking on campus is acceptable, at least in rare cases.

For anyone curious how this radical transformation came to be, a fantastic new film has the answer. Speechless is a documentary by Canadian filmmaker Ric Esther Bienstock. The film chronicles the emergence of cancel culture across a swath of college campuses over the last decade. It has screened in Canada and the U.K. but has yet to open in the U.S., which is why FAIR’s upcoming screening on October 28th at 7pm ET is so special!

Based on Bienstock’s interviews, early reviews, and podcast transcripts, the film seems to track what I experienced. The power of telling these stories is that they give everyone the opportunity to witness the cultural shift that has so radically transformed the college experience.

Bienstock, a self-described “lefty,” is an accomplished filmmaker. She has won an Emmy Award, two Edward R. Murrow Awards, and multiple Canadian Screen Awards. Her previous works include a documentary about the transatlantic slave trade hosted by Samuel L. Jackson. She also graduated from university in the early ’80s and begins her exposé by telling viewers:

“For me, university was a place where you wrestled with new ideas. Sex, politics, religion, war – we argued about all of it. But somewhere along the way, the climate changed. Students didn’t just disagree with ideas. They felt harmed by them. And the only way to feel safe was to silence the people expressing them.”

In 2015, after reading the essay The Coddling of the American Mind, by Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff, which described alien concepts like “safe spaces,” “micro-aggressions” and “cultural appropriation,” Bienstock wondered what had caused university life to change so much. It appeared to her that, in an effort to include and protect, we had inadvertently created new, more easily twisted forms of exclusion and censorship. That her own children were of university age added extra urgency to her concern. She decided to put her camera to work, hoping to document this alarming cultural phenomenon.

Speechless captures the rise of cancel culture as it emerged from left-leaning politics and began to spread across the political spectrum. The story begins in 2017 at Evergreen State College in Washington, where a white biologist objected to the school’s “Day of Absence,” which asked that white people stay off campus for the day in recognition of the contributions made by people of color. His resistance ignited a firestorm that reportedly sizzled on camera. According to one review, Bienstock herself is branded a white supremacist for asking a student basic questions. At York College in Pennsylvania, a black rhetorician was vilified after challenging a colleague who insisted that forcing students to learn standard English is a form of white supremacy. The colleague states his case, not surprisingly, in standard English. And at Stanford Law School, Tirien Steinbach, the associate dean of diversity, stepped to the podium as protesters drowned out—effectively canceling—a conservative judge. We hear her side of things after her resignation, having been blamed for her handling of the situation.

But Speechless is no left-wing hit piece. After exploring the impact on campus of the Hamas attacks of October 7 and Israel’s subsequent response, Bienstock moves on to reveal the reactionary intolerance on the right. She brings us into the present moment as she and her team trail conservative activist Christopher Rufo while he carries out Governor Ron DeSantis’s crusade against progressive pedagogy and dismantles various DEI programs at New College in Florida.

College campuses today appear to be as polarized as ever. Speechless doesn’t set out to offer solutions, but instead shows how we got here. The film promises a front-row seat for anyone interested in this aspect of the culture wars. Those wondering how we went from lionizing Mario Savio on the steps of Sproul Hall to widespread self-censorship, and then to the defunding of DEI programs, will want to see it. I know I do.

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It’s no surprise to many that there is a crisis of mental illness sweeping those largely born after 1990. Young people are reporting substantially higher rates of anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation than previous generations. Better reporting, destigmatisation and advances in psychological medicine account for some, but not all of these changes. Declining social connection is the more serious factor at play.

According to the World Health Organisation, one in seven 10-19-year-olds experiences a negative mental health condition. Suicide is the third leading cause of death among those aged 15–29. This is a crisis of disconnected youth, not only of diagnosis.

Mental illness is nothing new. Sylvia Plath, Vincent van Gogh and Virginia Woolf are infamous examples of artists who suffered from mental illness. Anguish existed long before smartphones; what has changed is the scale. In several wealthy countries, rates of poor mental wellbeing rose sharply in the early 2010s, as smartphones became ordinary. The crisis is exacerbated by the breakdown of social order in family, religion and community. Civic life had already been thinning for decades. The phone emerged into a social world weaker than it looked.

One of the ways humans have historically found community is through religion. Belief in a god offered a larger purpose, and a reason to ‘keep showing up’ among similar demographics. As the Western world moves away from traditional religious practice, fewer shared sources of meaning remain. Nietzsche was ahead of his time when he declared that “God is dead.” If a shared story about how to live no longer holds, people are left to invent one alone — a heavy task, especially for the young.

In many ways, we are living in the aftermath of isolationism. People now organise their lives around individual pursuits — personalised technology, social media, ideology — instead of community or a shared moral belief. The problem is not that individuals matter. Individuality inside a community is not the same thing as isolation with a social feed.

It is nearly impossible to navigate life today without a smartphone. Algorithms present polished and unattainable lifestyles, lock people inside political echo chambers, and push them into pointless, vitriolic arguments with strangers. People spend hours trying to be right on Twitter and Reddit rather than working with their fellow humans. While this speech is technically free, it is not collaborative, and so it offers little to any actual community.

Religion provided a framework for how to live well: an ethic, a sense of duty, and an explanation for how the world came to exist. According to the Pew Research Centre, people who attend religious services regularly are more likely to describe themselves as ‘very happy’ than those who are non-religious or only nominally religious. The ‘happiness-gap’ is not proof that metaphysics produces wellbeing. It suggests that practice matters: showing up, being known, and being answerable to other people. If we reject traditional religion, what replaces its social functions? Peer support, discipline, community, mutual accountability and shared values. Alain de Botton seeks to address this in Religion for Atheists.

Religion has also brought real harms. Unscientific belief has often licensed hatred of people deemed “different” or “unholy,” and denominations have fought one another over the “right” interpretation of their holy texts. Such examples include Catholics and Protestants, Hindus and Muslims, or Israelis and Palestinians. The point is not that only religion produces cruelty, as secular ideologies have done the same; rather that a source of belonging can also become a source of exclusion.

As an atheist myself, I appreciate the community-based aspects of religion while remaining concerned by the superstition, dogma and closed-mindedness that come with it. There ought to be a way to enjoy social cohesion and feel purposeful without believing in things that are not scientifically proven. The Ancient Greeks sought eudaimonia, human flourishing, and Confucianism emphasised personal ethics and family loyalty. Both start from the recognition that we cannot be closed off from each other. In a world this interconnected, there is no good future in a life organised only around the self.

What the present, particularly in the West, needs is a philosophy that does not require belief in spirits and deities, but still gives young people structure, stability, purpose and discipline. Secular Alcoholics Anonymous is a practical example. Traditional AA asks participants to surrender their will to a “Higher Power.” Secular meetings, and books such as Jeffrey Munn’s Staying Sober Without God, keep the fellowship and personal accountability without the prayer. The machinery that helped was never only the requirement for prayer.

Loss of religion is not the only reason for this unease. In the past, there were cows to milk, wool to spin and fields to plough. Comfort is not a moral failing. But as Western society has become more comfortable, more of us are free to ponder the meaning of life. That can bring joy — and dread. Affluence did not cause the crisis by itself. It left a space that community used to fill.

Social media then filled that space poorly. Young people have grown up glued to their phones, comparing themselves to filtered lives online. Jean Twenge, Jonathan Haidt and others have shown that adolescent distress rose after smartphones became ubiquitous, and that teens who spend more time on social media and less time in person report worse mental health. The US Surgeon General has called loneliness an epidemic. Among Americans aged 15 to 24, time spent in person with friends fell by nearly 70 percent between 2003 and 2020. A social media feed is not a substitute for reality.

News and culture have fragmented in the same way. People now build personalised information environments, and algorithms show them more of what they already engage with. Political disagreement becomes more hostile when people operate from different (and potentially inaccurate) pictures of reality. Two people of the same age can now inhabit completely different cultural worlds.

I am not in favour of banning social media. That would not only be a serious free-speech violation, but also damage networking and information sharing. YouTube, for example, has personally had a fantastic impact on my life. But it is hard for vulnerable young people to stop doomscrolling, or to avoid material that encourages them to see themselves mainly as victims, or to develop prejudice against those who do not share their worldview. That returns to the lack of a unifying philosophy in the West, and the abundance of divisive political identities.

The strain between young men and women belongs to the same story. A male loneliness epidemic, and Gen Z women decrying a hatred of men, cannot be good for anyone’s wellbeing. When old scripts for courtship and family collapse faster than new ones are built, dating becomes another arena of comparison and withdrawal. A 2022 Demographic Research Study found that parental divorce can have a larger negative impact on a child’s long-term educational attainment than the death of a parent.

What, then, can be done? No single hobby will reverse a cultural shift. A practical place to start is to rebuild the unglamorous thing religion and civic life once supplied: repeated contact with the same people. Meetup groups, sports clubs, book groups, volunteering, congregations or a shared hobby create face-to-face life for people who spend their days on screens. A group that meets once is an event. A group that meets every Tuesday is a community.

Individuals can construct meaning from what they find worthwhile and what requires sustained effort: reading, creative work, loved ones, physical activity, intellectual pursuits. Lives can be meaningful without superstition. That will not happen automatically. The substitutes for religious and civic life will have to be as regular, as demanding and as shared as the things they replace.

People need community to feel connected to something greater than themselves. We need not return to superstitious beliefs to achieve this. What we need is a philosophy of how to live well, how to treat others, and how to take responsibility for ourselves and our communities — without asking the individual to disappear, and without leaving the individual to invent a whole moral world alone. The Society Project has proposed “societism,” which seeks the wellbeing of society without sacrificing the significance of the individual. It illustrates the thinking secular societies will need if they want purpose and belonging after the old sources of those things have faded.

The mental health crisis among the young is not proof that modernity was a mistake. It is proof that a life rich in options and poor in belonging is harder to bear than we pretended.

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“Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools” – Thomas Hobbes

A few days ago, I walked into my local public library to pick up some books and I saw the seasonal display of so-called “banned” books. I laughed out loud, and then I took photographs so that I would have a record of every book that the library calls “banned”, since none of them are.

Then I went online and I saw the same old tedious argument by redefinition going on around the word “banned”.

There are two competing definitions of this word “banned”, and while the verbal combatants thrust their competing definitions at each other like two hoplite phalanxes in a permanent deadlock, the real problem of ongoing systemic censorship in public libraries is obscured by this relentless rain of verbal chaff.

Here are the definitions:

1. This is the ALA’s definition, which is often the one appealed to. It has an extraordinarily expansive definition of “banned”, which defies common sense.

“A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”

2. The second definition is a restrictive definition with a common-sense ordinary meaning and no official wording; your best source is probably an older dictionary of reasonable quality. A book is “banned” if the government of a geographic region has made it illegal to possess, sell, or publish a book in that region. This is an excellent definition, because it is common or ordinary, and because it has for centuries been a common practice of governments to ban books in this sense and to cruelly punish those who possess them.

These definitions are mutually exclusive. If a book is “banned” by Definition (1) it cannot be “banned” by Definition (2), and vice-versa. If it is illegal for a person to possess some book (2), no government library will carry it, and so it cannot be removed from that library (1). Hence the argument of definitions.

I prefer using common ordinary words with their common ordinary meaning. Definition (1) is obviously meant to confuse and obfuscate. Definition (2) is precise, clear, and useful. I’m sticking with Definition (2).

Those “banned” (1) books I saw in the library can’t possibly be banned (2), they are in the library!

It seems that those who use this excellent Definition (2), possibly because they are so exhausted by the people endlessly reiterating Definition (1), are not prepared to think further. Having played the word game to what they feel is a tie, they are unwilling to enter the reality game; they are unwilling to acknowledge that it even exists. But the reality game does exist, and it’s just as important as the word game, because it is reality.

The reality is one of systematic bias throughout the publishing industry and in public and school libraries throughout the United States. Rather than describing the many mechanisms of this systematic bias, since there are many articles that cover it, some referenced in my previous article for FAIR, I’ll talk about just one “banned” book in my library’s display of “Banned” books, “The 1619 Project”.

First, the basics. We know this book is not banned, because the library is displaying it. Has someone somewhere objected to its presence in some government run library? I think that’s very likely; it probably is “banned” in the sense of Definition (1). Perhaps it has even been removed from a school library somewhere. I’m unwilling to be distracted by this possibility because what I care about is the extreme political bias displayed in my local public library system’s collection.

It turns out that there are “counterweight” books available, books that seek to counteract the narrative of “The 1619 Project”, but in my local library system of about 35 libraries they are mostly unavailable. The library catalogs throughout my state are dominated by one point of view; the political bias is extreme.

There are 45 copies of “The 1619 Project” in my local public library system, counting every format. This is more than one per library. What about Mary Grabar’s “Debunking the 1619 Project” which offers an explicit counter-narrative? It is available as an audiobook on Hoopla, that is it. What about “The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History”? There is an ebook on Hoopla that I can check out. “1620” by Peter Wood? I can check it out from Hoopla either as an audiobook or as an ebook. “The 1619 Project Myth” by Philip W. Magness? Hoopla offers it, but my library has removed the book from the list of books it is offering through Hoopla, so it is not available to me. The public libraries are promoting one point of view aggressively, and the other point of view is being hidden from the sight of patrons.

I experience forebodings, because the public libraries are always hinting that they’ll drop Hoopla from their offerings. If my public library drops Hoopla then not one of these books is available to me in any format whatsoever from my local library system; the bias within the system is not just enormous, it is infinite.

Here is my challenge to readers who believe that since they know what a banned book is their work is done. Go into your local library and look at the books in your local library’s “banned” books display. We already know that there will be lots of copies of that book available throughout your library system. Now see if you can think of a book that presents some different point of view. Can you get that book from your local public library system? Likely not, or only with great difficulty.

Be an active patron and citizen and request that your library purchase the book. If it doesn’t, let FAIR know all about the circumstances using the FAIR Incident Report Form, as without evidence there can be no accountability.

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If you, like me, are a resident of the United States and visit your local library frequently, you will have noticed that every year your library will do some sort of observance of the American Library Association’s “Banned Books Week”. Likely there will be a display of “banned books” in the library and on its social media. Obviously, the books are not actually banned, since they are on display at your local library. So the point of the exercise seems to be to convey the following message:

What a lucky person, you, our patron, are! You live in a place where everyone, librarians especially, are dedicated warriors in the great ongoing battle against the vile spectre of censorship. Hurray for us (librarians and all other good people) and hurray for you!

Sadly, none of this is true.

When I was a child, it never occurred to me that political biases might determine a library’s purchasing choices. Even as an adult I did not worry much about this, since I assumed that even if there was some bias, it probably would not restrict my reading choices. Having served several years as a library trustee in Massachusetts during the great derangements of the COVID shutdown and ensuing years, I have realized that I was wrong to be complacent. There is so much to be concerned about.

I began writing about this problem more than two years ago, on Substack and for my local online newspaper. One of my articles demonstrated bias in public library collections. I’ve examined library-related legislation in Massachusetts and reported on an incident where library staff were bullied into cancelling a proposed talk at a Massachusetts library. In a previous article for FAIR I examined the dilatory response of public libraries to the suddenly increased demand for Charlie Kirk’s then most recently published book in the weeks after his murder.

And that’s just me! Many others have tried to address the censorship problems, by many means. In contrast to the ALA (American Library Association), the ALP (Association of Library Professionals) takes a clear and unambiguous stance on library neutrality. Others have contributed by examining and challenging the beliefs that undergird this problem of library censorship. An organization in Salado, TX has posted an excellent article about the bias in the entire book selection process of public libraries. A Canadian librarian has examined the extreme bias that public libraries display in their collections in support of gender identity ideology. There are many more examples.

I have also taken action beyond simply examining, documenting, challenging, and reporting: I launched the “Make Every Week Freedom to Read Week” project in October 2024. This project’s goal is to identify books that are not in public library collections but would be if libraries better represented their communities, and to change that situation by purchase requests, repeated as necessary. Last year, I documented the successes and failures of that effort in another Substack article. The project is turning two years old this month. I think every community could use a “Make Every Week Freedom to Read Week” project.

This year, FAIR in Libraries is ready to help make that vision a reality by collecting instances where a library excluded a book from its collection via its Incident Reporting page. We ask that you report instances where a public library has resisted clearly expressed community demand in its purchase decisions.

FAIR in Libraries welcomes incident reports from anywhere in North America. Different regions run their library systems in different ways, so library bias can be made evident in a number of different ways. The digital collections that a library may offer vary; I am familiar with Hoopla Digital and Overdrive/Libby. Here are the mechanisms that I have observed in Massachusetts:

• A library may simply refuse to purchase a physical item even when a library patron has requested it, or may simply ignore a patron’s request. (Some libraries do not have purchase request forms on their websites, in that case, an email to the director is the way to make the purchase request.)

• With Overdrive/Libby the situation is much the same as with physical books in terms of how purchasing is done. Libraries buy (or rent) a specific book from the Overdrive/Libby collection. You can request specifically an Overdrive/Libby copy. In this modern age, some people prefer to read books or listen to audio via a digital service rather than make use of a physical copy, so it is probably correct to view a digital copy as having equal stature with a physical copy. The responsibility for having made the purchase of a particular book is more diffuse with a digital service like Overdrive/Libby and so, where the book is controversial, a library may prefer an Overdrive/Libby purchase. Further, if an item is purchased for its Overdrive/Libby collection by any public library in any of several Massachusetts library consortia, that item becomes available to any patron in any of those consortia, via a sharing arrangement among the consortia. To request an item via Overdrive/Libby you should do the same as with a physical item, and, of course, your request may be ignored or refused. However, the Libby App offers a Notify Me service via its smart tagging system, so, if an item you requested is purchased, you will be notified immediately via the Libby app if you use that.

• With Hoopla Digital, the situation is different again. Hoopla offers its whole catalog to every library that uses its service. The catalogs are not shared among libraries. In recent years, Hoopla has given individual libraries the ability to exclude items in the Hoopla catalog. The default search via the Hoopla app shows only what the library allows you to check out. In the app, you can change the selection from “All Titles in Catalog” to “All hoopla Titles” and you will generally see more items. If you see an item only when you select “All hoopla Titles” then your library has excluded that item according to some rubric of its own. To request an item via Hoopla Digital you should do the same as for a physical item. Hoopla has a “Requests” feature, but there is no reason to believe that libraries monitor your Hoopla Requests. Of course, the library may refuse to unblock the item or ignore your request.

When reporting an incident where a library has refused to purchase, or in the case of Hoopla Digital, unblock an item, it is important to document everything as fully as possible. Most book request facilities are a simple web form; you may not receive any record of your request to keep for your records. So it is important when requesting an item to make a visual record of your request. Modern web browsers generally have good facilities for taking screenshots of your browser window and mobile devices have good facilities for taking screenshots of your whole screen. Save that image in an easy to find place, like a separate, clearly named folder, so you can use it to follow up with your library and if you report an incident to FAIR.

When you are ready to report an incident, use FAIR’s incident reporting portal, making sure to select “Public Library” for the “Type of Institution”. Your “Relationship to Institution” is most likely “patron”. Upload all supporting documents that you have available, including the shot of your original request, with dates. Make sure to include a screenshot demonstrating that for you, a patron, the book is unavailable and does not show up in your search results. This is absolutely essential evidence for requests for digital items, as it is usually impossible for anyone who has not logged in as a patron to see what selection a library is presenting to its patrons.

FAIR in Libraries looks forward to your submissions and thanks you for your contribution to making our public libraries fair for all.

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For the past several years, watching a major entertainment awards show meant watching two events at once. First was the celebration of the actual talent - the performances, writing, directing, design, and hundreds of background artists and craftspeople who turn an idea into an event that connects with millions of people.

And then there was the politics.

Awards ceremonies have increasingly become platforms where artists are expected not merely to thank their collaborators and celebrate their work, but also to use their few minutes at the microphone to address the political issues of the moment and give audiences their passionate opinions.

But Monday night’s Emmy Awards was different. For the most part, the evening was about television. Oddly enough, an awards ceremony honoring television was about television, and the relative absence of partisan politics was conspicuous enough to make us wonder if the arts might be at a turning point. Has the principle at the heart of FAIR’s mission finally begun to catch on?

Art Was in The Spotlight !

Before the ceremony began, host Mariska Hargitay talked about television in a speech that could have been lifted from the website for FAIR in the Arts. Hargitay emphasized community, not ideology or activism. She talked about the remarkable ability of stories to bring people together, explaining that actors, directors, costumers, sound designers, and others participate in creating television that “unites us.”

The idea that art is where people with profoundly different lives and beliefs can join with one another through laughter, tears, a shared investment in a story, and ultimately our common humanity, is part of what makes the arts essential to a flourishing society. It seemed that on Monday night, Hollywood agreed. There was humor, gratitude, and nostalgia. Veteran artists were celebrated alongside newer talent. Writers, directors, and craftspeople behind the screen received recognition. In essence, what was finally being said is ‘it’s the work that matters.’

Politics stayed in the wings.

Stephen Colbert’s win for The Late Show was especially revealing. Few television personalities have been more closely associated with political commentary over the past decade. The cancellation of The Late Show became entangled in political controversy, and President Trump publicly celebrated its demise while repeatedly criticizing Colbert.

Clearly, the opportunity for a political broadside from the Emmy stage was great. But it didn’t happen. Instead, Colbert made a different choice: He thanked his staff, his family, the people who had appeared on the program, and the creative community that made the show possible.

Has Hollywood Changed the Script?

On Monday night Colbert showed that the Emmy Awards was not the place to share his political views with people who just want to know who won best actor in a comedy. This is not to say that artists don’t have the freedom to create political art and speak politically. They certainly do. But freedom of expression also means an artist should not have to adopt a political identity in order to belong to an artistic community, a point made by Pluribus creator, Vince Gilligan when he said “We will never agree on everything, but we can treat each other with respect.”

For much of the past decade, artists across disciplines have found that political assumptions were intertwined with artistic participation. Questions of representation and identity increasingly influenced not merely what artists discussed, but how institutions commissioned work, distributed opportunities, and even evaluated artistic achievement. Those sentiments weren’t evident during the ceremony.

While this year’s nominees reflected considerable racial and ethnic diversity, the winners in the major acting categories were predominantly white. In recent years, that outcome might itself have become a central storyline, measured against expectations for representation. This year, however, the emphasis seemed to remain largely on the individual performances and achievements being honored. Diversity in the pool of nominees suggests that artists from a wide range of backgrounds are being recognized for exceptional work. But genuine equality also leaves room for the results to be unpredictable. If identity should neither qualify nor disqualify an artist, excellence cannot be expected to produce a predetermined demographic outcome.

FAIR in the Arts exists to support a genuinely pluralistic artistic culture in which people who disagree, sometimes profoundly, can still make extraordinary things together. The Emmys presented something close to that ideal: an awards ceremony devoted to craft, writing, performance, and the creative magic that occurs when talented people create something exceptional.

Should we take this year’s Emmys as evidence of a larger cultural shift? Did producers recognize that audiences have grown weary of political speeches? Artists celebrating artists doesn’t seem like a remarkable thing, but right now it is. And if Monday night represented even the beginning of a renewed understanding that art can bring us together without first requiring us to agree, that truly is something worth celebrating.

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Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor considered a darling of academia and recently exposed for his many lies, plagiarism and fraud, is dead.

With this recent turn of events, we must turn our attention to the system that birthed, incubated and suckled his peculiar psychology to the degree that, in the end, he could not live with the public revelation of his true self. Or at least, of a self that differed too greatly from the mask he presented to the public to be endured.

Much is unknown as to the facts of Arday’s death at this time.

Here, though, are a few things we do know to be true: A man with a desperation for admiration and a propensity for lies was promoted unquestioningly to heights he was incapable of maintaining. An airless elevation that, when all the scrutiny missing from his early days was brought to bear, caused his tragic fall.

But the end of Arday’s story was written in its first paragraphs.

Arday had all the markers of the ideal symbol adored by the white intellectual academic left: He was handsome, charming, articulate, heroic, slightly feminine, and, with those locs, just a little bit dangerous.

He was perfect. Arday fit the Leftists’ bill, and they fit his. Thus a transactional relationship of mutual exploitation was born.

Academia adopted its favorite son. And its culture, specifically as defined by DEI policies, prohibited initial critical assessment, prevented scrutiny over time, and propelled Arday into scenarios where his con, his masquerade, his song-and-dance, had to continue at full speed.

We can ask ourselves who was playing the tune, but if we looked closely, we’d see Cambridge, its hangers-on and Arday at the instruments. This wasn’t a lone fabulist dreaming in an attic; this was a uni don, carried on the shoulders of dozens. Hundreds. A folie à beaucoup, performing hymns and anthems to the man.

The 21st Century tarantella went on, until it didn’t: Once Arday was found out, the music came to a screeching halt, and he was the only one left on the dance floor.

And there in the silence, Arday must have known–despite the university crowd that shot him, with his enthusiastic aid, to the topmost of its ivory towers–that he was now alone, exposed, and would never, ever be the lauded unicorn he had been again.

Nor would his former admirers come to his rescue.

That ballroom was empty, and echoing.

Something about that broke him.

Arday, it seems to me, was a full partner in his demise, just as he co-authored his best-selling life before he committed suicide.

And that’s a damn shame, and as sad as any death on a hot Friday in August can be.

But there is an inevitability to Arday’s end, set as it was from the start by who he was, and what academia and some ideologies are. And in some sense, it may prove to be his beginning.

There are many still alive who had a hand in this. And they are frantic to re-write his story now: Those who fawned over him. Who deliberately looked away from the many signs and portents signaling that the shaky credentials and the man himself demanded deeper scrutiny. The smug universities that treated him like both an exotic prince and a scalp brought home from the Indian Wars. The Marxists, who cynically turned him from a troubled man into a golden calf.

All of them put this man in the earth.

Arday himself, of course, conspired in this folly. But he is no longer his biographer.

As quickly as Brezhnev airbrushed Khrushchev out of the picture, Arday, both real and fake, is being removed from this moment, and replaced with a man fallen to racism, rabid right-wing politics, a ravening press. In this he will come to resemble George Floyd, Alex Pretti, Luigi Mangione.

To an extent, this ploy will work. But it shouldn’t.

Arday, and thousands of others like him, exist in our universities, companies, non-profits, everywhere from airlines to zoology departments, without the internal makeup or external accreditation required of the work. Hired to tick a box that has nothing to do with merit, this is as cruel to them as it is harmful to the businesses and the people they serve.

Downstream from this is a deluge of dangerous decisions, consumer loss of faith, lost profit, fraud, and death. DEI hiring practice is a wolf in feel-good sheep’s clothing, gnawing at America’s foundations. And in the ruin lie the men and women fetishized, pushed past their limits, and ultimately betrayed.

So, no. It wasn’t racism that killed Jason Arday. Not the kind now being offered as an excuse by some politics, anyway.

Now, once again, we will shake our heads, trying to bring the world into focus: We thought we had a reasonable idea of Arday’s story, and now down is up. He hasn’t fallen; he is quickly becoming a risen saint.

We must resist this temptation. The elements of this story are as stark as a Greek myth, and as enduring. A man riddled with hubris and a mental state we will never understand, slathered his wings with waxen lies, and with the aid of those who did not hire Arday on merit, was catapulted skyward.

Then the heat of revelation slowed his arc upwards, and brought him down.

Earth, with its relentless gravity and light, left Arday as naked and lonely and terrified as Adam.

Grounded, he gave up.

We have to leave him there, where he fell. And we have to watch carefully for those slipping away from the gathered crowd into the shadows, there to concoct the alternate fable for the fabulist.

Arday was no saint. But he had help.

We must hew to what is real, we must stand on character and merit. We must wrest this story, and all the stories they are writing now, from the hands of liars, and write a true one.

Telling Arday’s story plainly is where we can begin.

Attention must be paid.

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Check out the mission statement or strategic plan of most public or academic libraries, and you will swiftly encounter the near-universal assertion that libraries should strive to “create an inclusive environment.” For example, the Strategic Plan of the Brantford (Ontario) Public Library declares that “[a]n inclusive environment, where diverse backgrounds, identities and perspectives are valued” is essential to its role in the community. Some libraries have gone further and developed entire “inclusion policy statements,” such as the “Diversity and Inclusion Policy” of Hamilton (Ontario) Public Library. The library literature is similarly replete with commitments to inclusion, often in the context of providing equal opportunities for persons experiencing a disability, meeting diverse needs in facility design, welcoming seniors and integrating new immigrants.

These forms of inclusion are very positive and necessary. Most library professionals—and indeed the vast majority of the library-using public—will surely see nothing objectionable in such declarations. After all, who could oppose including all members of the public in publicly-funded libraries? If this is all the term “inclusion” means, then there should be no problem in championing it as a core professional value.

However, what few people understand is that the term inclusion is being used in professional and academic contexts to justify two rather different objectives. James Lindsay, writing at the New Discourses website, articulates the distinction between the two interpretations of inclusion as “not exclud[ing] anybody” on the one hand, and on the other a critical social justice commitment to welcoming marginalized groups by “silencing certain ideas like conservatism, meritocracy, or support for freedom of speech.” The first interpretation is integral to the mission of the public library; the second represents a potential conflict with laws governing free speech and the principle of intellectual freedom.

The first sense—being welcoming to everyone—has long been a core commitment of librarianship, and we see it articulated in the American Library Association’s 1939 Library Bill of Rights. The bill states that “A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.” Over the decades this recognition has expanded to removing barriers to accessibility, and ensuring that libraries are inclusive of persons with disabilities.

This historic view of inclusion contrasts with that espoused over the past couple of decades by critical and radical librarianship—which advocates for broadening the scope of inclusion to encompass matters of race, sexuality and gender identity in pursuit of social justice. This version of inclusion fuels a more activist approach to librarianship. For example, the Inclusion Policy of the Oakville (Ontario) Public Library vows to “actively challenge and break down systemic oppression,” while the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Policy of the London (Ontario) Public Library, commits to “apply[ing] an anti-racism and anti-oppression lens to our purpose, values [and] strategic plan…”

These opposing views constitute what Stephen Macdonald calls a “Values War” in librarianship between neutrality and interventionism. To establish the nature of this “war,” Macdonald cites a 2022 article I co-wrote with John Wright, in which we articulate two distinct definitions of neutrality: a mistaken ontological belief that libraries are neutral, and a normative ethical commitment that the library worker should strive to carry out their duties in a neutral fashion. Furthermore, we specified that neutrality referred to personal and institutional values, the library’s stakeholders, transparent processes, and respect for the goals of the user. It is this latter version that we recommended, arguing that in diverse, multicultural, and multifaith societies such as ours, activism on the part of the library worker to advance their favored socio-political cause or group risks alienating at least some of those diverse constituencies.

This sense of neutrality and universality is reflected in the Canadian Federation of Library Associations’ “Position Statement on Diversity and Inclusion” which asserts that “Libraries act to ensure that people can enjoy services free from any attempt by others to impose values, customs or beliefs.” However, the critical social justice version of inclusion risks excluding books or speakers to which favored groups might object, and adjudicating rights claims unequally.

Such was the case in an incident at the Mary L. Stephens Davis Library in Davis, California (a branch of the Yolo County Library) in August of 2023: A young woman defending women-only sports and sex-based rights (also known as gender-critical feminism) as part of a program entitled “Forum on Fair and Safe Sport for Girls” (a Moms for Liberty event) was ejected from the program room by the library’s regional director for referring to trans-identified athletes as “males” and “biological men.” The incident sparked a lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, resulting in the library agreeing to change their policy and allow Moms for Liberty to hold their event. Additionally, the library paid the claimants $70,000 in damages and legal fees. Earlier that same year, the London (Ontario) Public Library system cancelled an event sponsored by the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) because their speaker Dr. Joanna Williams was to deliver a free public talk entitled “Sex, Gender, and the Limits of Free Speech on Campus.” The Library claimed (with no small irony) that the subject matter would violate their commitment to “anti-oppression” and so the Society was forced to move the event to another venue.

Furthermore, (and as I’ve previously written at Heterodoxy in the Stacks), some librarians have been practicing “shadow banning” of works they find objectionable by refusing to purchase them at all or in sufficient numbers to meet demand. Academic librarians in particular have, in large numbers, publicly disavowed efforts to represent gender-critical perspectives in libraries, whether through adult collections (e.g., purchasing copies of Abigail Shrier’s Irreversible Damage) or public speaking events (e.g., Toronto Public Library hosting Meghan Murphy in 2019). I have therefore argued that

[a]cting with such prejudice towards a particular point of view risks our social license as professionals, the permission granted by the public to act in their interest. For…members of the public, shadow-banning controversial materials concerning gender ideology results in a situation where—as fired Niagara-on-the-Lake Public Library CEO Cathy Simpson argues—the “‘freedom to read’ has come to mean the freedom to read what certain librarians have decided you should have the freedom to read.”

These examples illustrate how “inclusive” policies can result, ironically, in a form of exclusion. In applying this social justice lens to library policy, librarians can end up imposing their own world views onto the craft and seeking to champion diversity and inclusion through the removal of ideas they view as harmful. All other things being equal, however, holding unpopular views–even those some find offensive–is not grounds for censorship.

The public library as an institution has always embraced and trained its workers to expect and accommodate conflicting views. As the Canadian Federation of Library Associations acknowledges, “an acceptance of differences can place individual and collective values in conflict.” For this reason, institutions like public libraries simply cannot embrace a particular political agenda or adopt and champion the grievances of one group, while at the same professing to provide a welcoming environment to diverse, multicultural, multiethnic, and multifaith communities–who will (inevitably) not universally share those priorities.

The problem is not that some public libraries are explicitly positioning their inclusion policies as either “neutral” or “interventionist,” but rather that this distinction isn’t widely recognized. As a result, it’s not difficult to imagine a public library inclusion policy stating both that it strives to be “welcoming to everyone” while also adopting an explicitly “anti-oppression” lens in order to “dismantle systems of oppression,” while not realizing how incompatible these approaches can be in practice.

To be clear, these do not, in policy terms, represent distinctly-articulated and mutually-exclusive approaches, but rather positions existing on a spectrum, whereby an institution leans either in the direction of neutrality or interventionist radicalism. For example, a library espousing neutrality is still capable of recognizing that not all users or user communities come from the same backgrounds, economic capacities, or abilities, and may require extra attention in terms of policies or facilities so that all are afforded equal opportunities to access information. At the other end of the spectrum, political favoritism for one constituency can end up excluding the interests of other groups, resulting in library spaces not only lacking in diversity of ideas but in actually physically removing people from the library for espousing those ideas.

The rights which librarians have always professed to defend, including the freedom to read and the commitment to securing the intellectual freedom of our users, stand jeopardized. If “inclusion” actually means excluding books, ideas, and legal speech that we believe one group may find offensive–or which we personally oppose for ideological reasons–then librarianship as a publicly-trusted profession risks becoming delegitimized in the eyes of the tax-paying public. If public libraries are to promote equal opportunities for users while avoiding being drawn into identitarian conflicts, it matters a great deal what principles libraries choose to include in their definition of “inclusion.” How these centers of knowledge and community understand inclusion can determine which worldviews are allowed to remain, and which are unduly silenced.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

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I first discovered FAIR four years ago when I witnessed the effects of identity politics, bullying, and cancellations across different spaces in education, medicine, and the arts. While volunteering on several initiatives in Los Angeles that aligned with FAIR’s work, I had the privilege of joining projects whose members were thoughtful, intellectually grounded, and genuinely wonderful people, committed to human dignity, freedom of expression, and civil liberties. Again and again, I found that the people who support and contribute to FAIR’s many endeavors represent a pinnacle in generosity and professionalism, and a willingness to stand for pro-human principles.

As I began to focus more on FAIR’s role in both education and the arts, I took on active roles reviewing FAIR’s extraordinary “Many Stories, One Nation” curriculum, co-hosting Fair in Conversation, facilitating FAIR’s Playwright’s Think Tank, its Novel and Poetry Writers Group, and leading one of their many chapters. Throughout, I came to appreciate something increasingly rare: a genuine diversity of thought. For me, especially as an artist, FAIR is a tribe that isn’t tribal. If you were to join one of FAIR’s monthly In-Conversation Zooms or listen to one of the writers’ gatherings, you’d hear disagreement, questioning, arguments, and also appreciation, compassion, and laughter.

In the artist groups, we understand that supporting the art is more important than agreeing on politics, and we are openly able to share our artistic achievements, struggles, disappointments, and convictions. What holds us together is not agreement on every issue, but a commitment to art for arts’ sake, and especially for the principles of civility and mutual respect that allow people who disagree to continue speaking and listening to one another.

This commitment is where FAIR in Arts comes into play and where the organization’s work occupies a particularly important place. The arts are often among the first subjects cut from schools and among the last endeavors supported by public and private institutions. Yet, the arts remain among the most powerful ways a civilization reflects on itself.

After more than thirty years working in theater and publishing, as well as teaching philosophy, writing and literature, I have come to believe that while politics may be downstream from culture, culture is itself downstream from the arts. Depending, of course, on the art.

I’m not talking about the art that imitates whatever ideas happen to be fashionable. Not art created to secure political affirmation or demonstrate conformity. And not art whose expression has been decided before the artist begins the work. I mean art that is deeply human. Art that is introspective, curious, unsettling, original. Art that finds itself in places its creator did not expect to go. Art that asks questions without knowing in advance the acceptable answers.

Today, as throughout history, that kind of art can be discouraged. It can be defunded, censored, ridiculed, and temporarily driven underground.

FAIR in the Arts is where I found the support that I needed to rebuild my own courage to be that kind of artist. It is where I found a community that encouraged me to do what the work itself required without constantly looking over my shoulder for censorship, cancellation, or ideological judgment. And it is also where I discovered that the artists and audiences I hoped were still out there–really are. I have come to think of FAIR in the Arts as a kind of home that is increasingly difficult for an artist to find, which is why I’m committed to supporting it as a space that gives artists the security to think openly and widely, and to make art without first having to demonstrate political usefulness.

There is enormous pressure today for artists to become activists and for works of art to affirm particular social or political perspectives. But activism is not the artist’s obligation.

The artist’s obligation is to the work. To follow an idea wherever it leads. To tell the truth as the artist sees it. To illuminate contradictions rather than conceal them. To explore the complexity of human beings rather than reduce them to categories. I believe that is the kind of art that needs to be protected and supported.

Your contribution, whether monetary or in-kind, helps FAIR create opportunities for artists who still believe in art that reaches us where identity and politics are subordinate to our shared humanity. I hope you will consider supporting FAIR in the Arts to help us preserve a place for artists willing to take the risks that real art has always required. And I hope you’ll subscribe to the FAIR in the Arts newsletter and join us in what comes next.

Warmly,

Karen Howes
Interim Director, Fair in the Arts

karen.howes@fairforall.org

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The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

A universal and ineradicable feature of the human condition is our fallibility. We can be, and all of us sometimes are, wrong about things. Even when doing our best to be attentive, intelligent, dispassionate, judicious, and honest, we can draw conclusions that are unwarranted and unsound.

Our fallibility extends not only to minor, relatively unimportant matters; we can be wrong about big, profoundly important questions, too—questions of meaning and value; questions of human nature, the human good, human dignity, and human destiny. Even while sincerely regarding and proclaiming ourselves to be on the side of justice and human rights, we can be wrong—deeply, even tragically—about what justice requires or what are, in truth, human rights. And we can be wrong even when we are supremely confident in our convictions.

Consider that each and every one of us, at every conscious moment of our lives, holds in his or her head some beliefs that are false. That’s certainly not because we want to believe things that are untrue. It’s simply a feature of the human condition.

People of goodwill, intellectually and morally serious people of every shade of belief, have in common a desire to know the truth and to live by the truth. We want to avoid falling so deeply in love with our opinions, whatever they happen to be, that we prefer them to the truth. If something we believe, even if it’s a belief we cherish, is in fact false, we want to know that. We want to get ourselves in line with the truth, even if it means abandoning an opinion we had deeply held. Even when the truth is a hard truth, we’d rather know it than continue to embrace a falsehood, even a comfortable and comforting falsehood.

If, however, we are to swap out at least some of the false beliefs we hold for true beliefs, then not only must we respect the right of freedom of speech of people who wish to challenge our opinions, we must also—and this is more difficult—be willing to actually listen to their challenges and criticisms and engage them in an honest, truth-seeking spirit. This is the upshot of what it means to practice intellectual humility—a virtue without which true civil discourse, and therefore true civic friendship, is impossible.

It is important to understand what civil discourse is—and isn’t. Civil discourse is not mere politesse. It does not consist of merely listening politely and patiently while someone makes the case for a view that is contrary to one’s own opinions. In genuine civil discourse, each party to the discussion or debate allows himself genuinely to be challenged by his interlocutor. Why? Because the goal—shared by the partners—is not winning a victory for oneself or one’s party or tribe; rather, it is getting to, or deepening understandings of, the truth. Participants in civil discourse argue, sometimes passionately, but not with the ultimate objective of winning—as in competitive high school or collegiate debate. And so, the conversation partners consider and assess the arguments presented by their ostensible adversaries in their most favorable light. Each sincerely entertains the possibility that the view he or she currently holds is wrong and should be abandoned.

Of course, this can be very hard indeed.

Why? Because of another feature of the human condition. We human beings do tend to fall in love with our opinions. There are beliefs that we deeply hold and, indeed, cherish—especially moral, political, and religious beliefs—that we come to regard as so integral to who we are that we experience challenges to them as personal attacks or assaults on our very selves.

In other words, we human beings tend to wrap our emotions more or less tightly around our convictions.

Now, that’s not necessarily a bad thing; it’s certainly not bad in itself. In a certain respect, it’s a good thing, and indeed a necessary thing. We need some measure of emotional investment in our convictions if we are to get anything done. And this is true not only when it comes to serving big, important causes that may require courage and sacrifices; it’s true of even mundane, but nevertheless important, matters. For example, it would be one thing to have the bare belief that it would be good to get the kids up in the morning, washed, dressed, fed, and sent off to school. But it takes some degree of emotional investment in that belief to actually get oneself to do the work of getting the kids up, washed, dressed, fed, and off to school. Those of you who are parents know what I’m talking about.

So, it’s not wrong—quite the contrary—to wrap our emotions around our convictions. Indeed, we should aspire to be people of conviction who are prepared to act (and sacrifice, and take risks, and bear burdens) for what we believe is good and right and true. And yet, if we wrap our emotions too tightly around our convictions, if we fail to leave at least a little distance between ourselves and our beliefs– enough to consider our fallibility and the possibility that we could be wrong and those who disagree with us and challenge us could be right, or at least partially right)—then we are on the fast track to becoming ideologues, dogmatists, and even fanatics. There are few vices that place freedom of speech and other basic civil liberties in greater jeopardy than ideology, dogmatism, and fanaticism.

What’s more, these vices are the great enemies of the very value that ideologues, dogmatists, and fanatics purport to be upholding, namely truth. They jeopardize truth and undermine the love of truth and the enterprise of truth seeking precisely because they neglect that central truth about the human condition with which I began these reflections, namely, the universal and ineradicable reality of human fallibility.

Truth and truth seeking are under threat today from two opposing impulses. One is the denial, be it formal or merely implicit, of the existence or possibility of objective truth. The spirit of relativism or subjectivism claims that there is no truth to be attained, and therefore none to be sought. Or that there is merely “your truth,” and “my truth,” but no such thing as the truth—at least about questions outside the domain of empirical inquiry—or that “truth,” so called, is simply the rule of the strong, of whoever can force his will upon others.

If there is no truth, then there is no reason to believe in or respect the rights of others, including their right to freedom of speech, or of thought, inquiry, judgment, conscience, and religion. Where there are competing or conflicting desires or perspectives, there is no point in having a conversation or trying to reason with one another, for if there is no truth there is simply nothing to reason about or toward. Contrary to what one hears at cocktail parties or in freshman philosophy classes, relativism—especially moral relativism—is the predicate not of tolerance, but of repression and authoritarianism. Where there is nothing to reason about, because there is no truth, there are no reasons for respecting liberty; there is only power.

At the same time, and now we get to the second great threat to truth, the belief in truth, when severed from an authentic, deep, not merely notional but genuinely existential acknowledgement of one’s own fallibility, poses no less a threat to liberty and to truth itself. Such a belief devolves into dogmatism. Those holding it see no reason to entertain challenges to, or criticisms of, what they deeply believe. They know the truth, or so they suppose, know it more or less completely and perfectly, and therefore have nothing to learn from those with whom they disagree. Their critics, as believers in and promoters of falsehoods, are to be regarded and treated as enemies of truth. They are certainly not to be engaged in the hope of learning from them; rather, they are to be defeated, even destroyed.

By contrast, someone who rejects both relativism, which denies the possibility of objective truth, and absolutism, which refuses to reckon with the reality and universality of human fallibility, will regard reasonable people of goodwill with whom he or she disagrees not as enemies to be conquered but rather as friends who engage each other with the shared goal of getting at the truth of disputed questions or more deeply understanding the truth. In the domain of politics, genuine truth seekers are bound together as civic friends, despite their differences of perspective or belief, by a common goal, a common good, namely the great good of truth. For the sake of this good, they respect and honor freedom of speech, even for those whom they judge to be profoundly mistaken, and engage each other in a truth-seeking spirit—that is, with a view not only to correcting the other’s errors, if, indeed, they are errors, but also learning from them.

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Robert P. George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. This is the text of remarks delivered at the 2026 ARC conference in London.

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Growing up, it never occurred to me that my Polish-European grandmother was White and that, by extension, my mother and her siblings were biracial. Even when I was forced to relocate preschools, suffer a mental breakdown, and eventually enter homeschooling (at my own request) as a result of racial bullying, it did not occur to me. My parents never taught me terms like Black, White, Asian, etc., and when I came home and asked what such terms meant—having heard them from others—my parents always replied, “They don’t matter. We are not a box of crayons; we are all just people.” (Back then ‘skin-colored crayons’ were not as common as they are today.)

I can still recall attending my school’s “International Week.” It was a celebratory week aimed at honoring the range of identities at our school, and yet I was told “you can’t be from more than one place” when I chose to honor my Polish, American, and Bahamian identities. Later in life, I recall a student of mine saying “oh well you’re not really American then” when I told her I had grown up in the Bahamas—I am a US citizen.

As a result of my parents’ attitudes toward race—or lack thereof—I grew up without a concept of race and with a concept of humanity centered on simply seeing others as people. I learned to judge people by their actions and not their race, religion, or identity. When I moved to the U.S. at 16, things changed. My relocation came during the BLM marches. At the time I didn’t know much about the movement and thus I felt great fear for mine and my family’s safety. I worried we would be ‘mislabeled’ as Black and face violence as a result. I also faced the classic immigrant experience: new culture shock and loss of the previous culture. I was told the uninspired jokes of “go back to your country” from White friends, to which I replied, “I am in my country. I am a citizen.” I went to a majority White private school. Even then, many “White” students were diverse ethnically, in language, or in religion. What I noticed was a culture of complete erasure of diverse identities and the perpetual retelling of ‘the single story’ rather than one that reflected the reality of diverse people coming in all shades, shapes and histories.

In hopes of feeling more accepted, I joined my high school’s Black Student Union (BSU) but left after one day. The club felt like a living stereotype, with fried chicken and watermelon served and a movie about the “hood experience” being played. We were in the middle of very wealthy downtown Boca. Rather than connecting to the experience of Blackness in front of them, the school created a narrative they felt the students should—even must—subscribe to. It is silly to honor one story of race while ignoring the one in front of you. It creates the idea that all people of a given demographic must have the same experiences and, therefore, beliefs rather than taking each person as an individual with unique experiences that don’t always have to be associated with their phenotype.

In fact, the only reason I attended the club in the first place was because another student told me, “You should join the BSU.” When I told her I wasn’t Black, she dismissed me and told me, “Well, too bad. You look Black.”

That was one of the first times I had ever considered race and had the sudden and horrifying realization that others saw me as Black first and human second. I became more aware of things said to me, of expectations placed on me, of the deviations from ‘the norm’ that I lived, and how my race seemed to wear me.

When I got to college, I had the unwelcome experience of having the N-word written on my dorm door in all caps. I reported the incident to my school’s counseling center, a place I had been visiting to help with the transition of moving halfway across the country from my family in a nation I was still adjusting to. I was effectively dismissed and told there was nothing to be done. I was livid, not because that word necessarily meant anything to me—another term I did not grow up hearing—but because I knew what it meant to others and that, yet again, my whole identity had been collapsed into just my race.

Most recently, I experienced racism in the workplace. My manager began a joke she called “Racism Fridays.” It entailed her berating me with subtle and not-so-subtle racist comments, criticism, and outright remarks. I was only a month or so into the job when it began, and I put up with it for nearly two months after. When—advised by friends and my boyfriend—I did speak up about it, nothing much was done. Our boss got both sides of the story, apologized, and then arranged for my manager to apologize to me. She did, although the apology was mixed in with excuses and passing the whole thing off as an ill-placed joke.

I would like to note, too, that not all my racist experiences have come from White people or non-Black people of color, but also from other Black people.

When my White Canadian boyfriend and I go out for dinner, we have to brace for heckling and comments implying that our “race mixing” is negative. We were once even yelled at during a concert and ultimately had to relocate to another side of the crowd. “Sista, how do you feel about being with this White man?” I was asked, among other harsher comments.

What did these experiences teach me? First off, that hate can come from anywhere. The idea that racism is always White people toward Black people is false. Anyone can be racist, and anyone can face racism.

I learned, too, that I myself will never identify as Black first and won’t allow anyone else to identify me as such. I am not your Black friend or a Black author. I am a friend and an author. My race already precedes me, but I can work to change that.

Standing up is hard and often fruitless, but not pointless. Standing up for myself as a child, when I was segregated from peers, denied recess, punished for no other reason than my race, and accused of bullying when I, in fact, was being bullied, looked like advocating for homeschooling. As a teen and early college student, it was reporting hate, speaking up, holding to my beliefs in crowds, and walking away when I realized situations weren’t for me. Sometimes things can’t be solved in the moment, but that doesn’t mean one should allow themselves to be subjected to mistreatment.

As an adult, standing up still looks like calling out injustice even when it doesn’t immediately create change, and, more importantly, accepting myself. I used to hold firmly to the identity of multiracial. I would suck in my lips, copy trends in Eurocentric fashion and never wear my hair out. Being multiracial made others more comfortable, and I experienced much better treatment when I was “exotic.” I have since accepted the racial marker Black, partially for convenience, but also because if that is what others already see me as, then fine—I will be Black, but I will be my version of Black.

I will wear my afro. I will have a story that goes against stereotypes. I will see myself and others as human first. I am an artist, an author, Polish, American, Bahamian, French-speaking, human... and yes, I am also proudly Black.

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The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

PBS is often seen as a reliable educational resource, which is why I was concerned when, days before the 4^th of July, they released “The Independence Day History They Don’t Teach You: How America’s Foundation was Built on Propaganda”, produced by Mahebe Media. This video preaches that America’s foundation was built on hardly more than genocide and associated propaganda while also claiming that our governmental systems mainly derived from Native societies. These questionable and conflicting claims lean away from proper context or nuance and also overlook the unique, complex, and successful aspects of our modern American nation. Journalistic standards for productions like this mirror those in education: accuracy, fairness, responsibility, courage, etc. Educators and journalists alike carry the burden of upholding these challenging standards as leaders in fields aimed at being sacred endeavors of truth-seeking and ethics teaching for a complex and controversial world.

Let’s begin with the introductory theme and crux of the video: “Can a national identity built on the erasure of Native genocide ever fully separate itself from propaganda?” This framing suggests that America is built mainly on genocide and associated lies, rather than the more complex reality of colonial war and conquest. Whereas genocide typically focuses on large-scale extermination, conquest usually involves both war and treaties, trading or the purchasing of land. The bad and ugly parts of this history shouldn’t be erased, rather they should be put in an appropriately broad context. We must consider the limits of our present-day perspectives and the reality that an ugly history is often an incomplete story. This oversimplified understanding of genocide vs. conquest occurs throughout the video, such as its portrayal of the Indian Wars. The narrow perspective ignores examples of justice and reparations for Native people and several other founding realities–such as the Founders’ pursuit of liberty–that are fundamental aspects of the “American Identity” worth highlighting and defending.

As the video progresses, the producers make a variety of claims regarding the Founding Principles and social systems of the U.S.: “America often frames democracy as one of its greatest achievements. The irony of it is that Natives were the ones to inspire it.” It is inaccurate to claim that Native people were the primary inspiration for American democracy , or that America brands itself as “the global founder” that “invented democracy”. There certainly were beneficial Native influences that are too often overlooked, but it remains wildly incomplete to ignore the important people and commonly established influences beyond Native people that draw on generations of equally valuable experience and deep debate.

In a related instance, the producers claim that: “When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he did not have Black or Native Americans in that vision.” More accurately, Jefferson’s original vision of the Declaration specifically included an anti-slavery component. This component was ultimately omitted to appease the colonies with the intent to create a more unified and hopefully improving nation. The Declaration and Constitution were written intentionally as ideals to be achieved over time rather than a finalized statement of progress. This long, slow march of progress has continued to manifest in remarkable ways that make America today a beacon of hope for many minds, hearts, and hands the world over. As a result, our imperfect Founders should be appropriately honored for their significant virtue and positive contributions. Secondly, Native people’s lack of inclusion in founding visions occurs mainly because they were involved in their own complex wars and diplomatic efforts. Many tribes wanted to maintain national or tribal sovereignty as any nation under threat would.

The Founders’ understanding of liberty is further critiqued: “I guess to them, liberty means freedom to embark on brutal invasions and occupation of Indigenous lands.” Upon further exploration we see the Founders’ philosophical and practical regard for liberty was significantly deeper as peoples who themselves were running from oppression. It must also be acknowledged that “brutal invasions and occupation[s]” were not uncommon and also conducted by Native people towards each other and their territories. Cycles of competition and cooperation are the norm throughout human history—an unfortunate aspect of our shared humanity. Ironically, the first example of Native conquest my research provided was the Haudenosaunee Confederacy during the Beaver Wars in fairly recent colonial times. This is the same confederacy celebrated in the video despite it being a largely undesirable moment in Native history that remained inadequately explored by the video. Despite the controversial history of the time, the narrator takes pride in stating his heritage as part of the Mohawk Nation and Haudenosaunee Confederacy, while simultaneously insinuating that the American national identity and pride is problematic despite having a similarly controversial history. A blatant double standard. Building on these observations, we reach some limits of the term “ancestral homelands.” Although at times, tribes forcefully or violently took territories from each other, including in fairly recent history, some still refer to these gains as ancestral homelands, which may be particularly problematic for some Land Acknowledgments. While we can’t turn back the clock, we can recognize that conquest is an undesirable part of many of our histories, and that today’s world would benefit most from a focus on our most practical options for moving forward united.

Exploring assimilation, the video features the phrase “Kill the Indian, Save the Man”, a slogan tied to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School. This phrase was not literally intended to mean “kill Natives to save colonists”, but rather it was a poorly executed effort to help create better social navigation in the increasingly dominant but often challenging new colonial culture. The hope was to avoid further conflict and distrust. The Carlisle Indian Industrial School is often conveyed as simply an inhumane or nefarious endeavor, but in its time, it had the support of some tribal leaders and mixed success in aiding some Native POWs and others in navigating the profound and fast-developing societal differences of the time. Despite this, it should be simultaneously acknowledged that the school resulted in confusion, despair, and significant hardship for many others. The ethics and realities of assimilation are challenging, but are also a feature of our common humanity. Moving forward, this dual understanding of assimilation in American history and a focus on seeking reciprocal respect, support, and the honoring of differing cultures will be most beneficial to us all.

Overall, there are myriad polarizing claims of truth and converse accusations of propaganda or lying throughout the video, for example: “As always, U.S. propaganda gets in the way of the truth”. Absolute claims like this do not promote healthy discourse or give credence to good faith efforts at representing history. We need to remember that with such statements there are often fingers pointing back at us.

In reflection, the producers brought up many important overlooked points, but an opportunity to promote a more solid and healthy representation of these important, intricate, controversial topics, alongside the time-tested virtues of America was also squandered. As an educator, I worry that videos like this may find their way into the classroom and further damage already declining rates of historical and civic literacy. Journalism and education alike can unfortunately be biased from many angles surrounding American and Native American history. But while American history has seen no shortage of bias, it must be maintained that replacing one revisionist history with another isn’t the answer. Such stark representations may instead create misunderstanding, confusion, distrust, or even resentment, while stunting efforts towards progress for all parties. Left unchecked, misinformation and revisionist narratives can be damaging to how people understand and act in the world, including in this case, by relying too heavily on oversimplified binaries of good vs. bad or right vs. wrong. What results is an undermining of people’s confidence in respectable virtues and systems, and a failure to understand the world in the context of both our diversity and common humanity…for better and worse.

A couple of important but also challenging remedies for this are to focus on informational literacy and intellectual humility by taking the time to be intellectually and emotionally open to the complex facts, circumstances, and ethics of the world. Overall, everyone should muster courage and responsibility to speak up in their arenas. We should be careful to leverage this truly fragile but very important opportunity for understanding and progress through healthy cycles of dialogue, debate, agreement, acknowledgment, and action.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

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My name is Natalya Murakhver. In 2021, a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, I sued Mayor Bill de Blasio to reopen New York City’s public schools. Today, I run Restore Childhood, and recently directed my first film: 15 DAYS: The Real Story of America’s Pandemic School Closures.

In the process of creating 15 Days I interviewed nearly 60 people over three years to answer one question: Why did American schools stay closed longer than almost any other schools the world over?

I came into this fight as a parent, not a filmmaker. I went to the hearings, I organized other parents, and I filed the lawsuit. What I kept running into was a decision-making process with no regard for the people it affected most. Parents demanded to be heard during a time of great social, health and educational turbulence and were placated – being told to ‘trust the process’. In all of this, children had no seat at the table. Somewhere in that fight I understood that no one intended to preserve this history honestly, so I picked up a camera.

Eli Steele, a writer, filmmaker and FAIR board of Advisors member, mentored me from the moment I had the idea. He still does today as the film screens around the country in theaters and online. He watched the early cuts. He told me the cameras and lights to buy, the scenes to keep, cut, and rearrange. I could not have made this film without him, and closing out FAIR’s Eli Steele Film Series is a real honor.

Eli makes documentaries that follow the evidence past the point of discomfort. He directed What Killed Michael Brown?, which Amazon banned before public pressure forced it back onto the platform, where it rose to number one in documentaries. He directed How Jack Became Black, a film about the cost of sorting people by group identity, and, after October 7th, Killing America.

15 DAYS digs deeply into what happened to kids when our schools closed. Two doctors in the film, Jay Bhattacharya, now Director of the NIH and Scott Atlas, argued in the fall of 2020 that schools could open safely and that keeping them shut would harm children more than the virus could. What happened next is a civil-liberties story as much as a public-health one. Bhattacharya co-wrote the Great Barrington Declaration on October 4, 2020, with Martin Kulldorff of Harvard and Sunetra Gupta of Oxford. Four days later, NIH Director Francis Collins emailed Anthony Fauci calling for a “quick and devastating published takedown” of three scientists he labeled fringe. Reporters accused Bhattacharya of wanting to let the virus rip. Strangers sent him death threats. Social media platforms suppressed his account, which he only found out about later when internal files surfaced. Whatever you make of his conclusions, a system that answers dissent with suppression instead of debate fails everyone, and children lost a year of school (more in some places) to that failure.

Older students like Garrett “Bam” Morgan paid too. He played high school football in Queens at a level that draws college scouts. New York City shut down public school sports for over a year while private schools kept theirs open. No games, no scouts. No scouts, no scholarship. He repeated his senior year. He rebuilt his life, became his community college’s student body president, and is now headed to Howard University. He will still tell you plainly that he never got that lost year back.

Institutions stopped reasoning from evidence, treated disagreement as a threat to manage, and made life altering decisions for millions of children who had no voice in the matter.

That’s what 15 Days is about.

Join me online on Wednesday, August 12 as FAIR closes its Summer Film Series with a virtual screening of 15 DAYS, followed by a discussion with me, Eli Steele, and FAIR Executive Director Monica Harris.

Register here.

15 DAYS is also streaming on Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Google Play, and the Restore Childhood Substack, where we publish regularly. More about the film at 15daysfilm.com.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

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“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm

Recently, everyone was buzzing about the latest Substack drama like flies around fresh waste.

Yes, it is true: Andrew Tate, a prominent misogynistic manosphere influencer, is on Substack. Apparently, he has been on the platform since 2024 but only now, after being booted from Meta for “harmful language”, has he moved his subscriber base to Substack. He instantly (and briefly) shot up to #1 bestseller, but has since gone down some slots.

Predictably, there was a furor about it and many argued for his removal from the platform based on his harsh ideas, strong opinions and sexual assault and abuse accusations.

However, they are only accusations. In America we have the rule of law and due process. Innocent until proven guilty. A process that helps provide time for investigations, protects the wrongly accused and better helps to ensure justice. This is a legal practice in any rational democracy.

So, whether you love or hate Tate, he should be allowed on Substack. Why? Because of free speech.

In my view cultural censorship, deplatforming, cancelling, online mobs, campaigns to prevent an author from even getting published to begin with, even book banning, is just as bad and in some ways perhaps even worse than legal censorship.

Free speech has one main purpose: To protect citizens’ unpopular speech.

The problem with people mobbing together and deciding who can stay and who must go is that we as a society don’t have agreed-upon understandings of what is “moral,” “good,” “safe” and “right.”

My point: Society contains multitudes. As a result, open forums like Substack will host many conflicting personalities, ideologies, religions, ideas, and posts that the mainstream may consider outdated, vile or offensive. But I support all people’s right to have bad, caustic ideas because I believe in free speech. We’re all diverse in ideas and word definitions change rapidly. As a result, it could be me or YOU caught by cancel culture next. The idea that we’d be able to be expelled from a platform for having an opinion should be anathema to everyone who cares about democracies.

The only exceptions, of course, are direct, specific calls for violence against an individual or group– “fighting words.” Look, I get it. Substack, like Meta, is a private company. They can technically expel anyone they want if that person violates their guidelines. That’s what Meta did, essentially for “Hate Speech.” Okay. Fine. Fair enough. And if Substack chooses to do that with Tate: Fine. I don’t subscribe to Tate. He clearly has an audience composed mostly of young, insecure men who feel unduly jettisoned by Feminism.

What then is the point? We as Americans and as defenders of Western democracies should use a very high standard for removing someone from a platform. Theoretically the “town square” is now on social media. Yet social media is owned by private companies, one of which, Meta, operates like a monopoly. The whole idea of a democratic nation is that we have the right to criticize our government for any reason. In autocratic nations dissent is crushed. But in democracies we have the right to speak out without fear of state retribution. This isn’t even fully true in some democracies today such as the UK, unfortunately.

As I mentioned earlier, cultural banning, cancellation, and deplatforming is just as bad if not worse than legal banning. No books in America are fully banned everywhere—as far as I know. Sure, some districts have banned certain books in libraries and schools (this is very bad and I hate it as well)…but you can still buy those books on platforms like Amazon. But, when you remove someone from a major platform their voice is actually gone from the public ‘square’.

Why defend someone with as reprehensible views as Andrew Tate? Simple: If you look at culture on both political sides over the past decade the definitions of what is moral, right, good, and normal have changed drastically.

Think about identity politics and ideology over the past ten years. Definitions change rapidly. In 2026 if you ask a cross-section of ages, nationalities, races and genders what racism, sexism, misogyny, capitalism, etc. are you’ll get a plethora of wildly divergent answers. My point: It could be YOU next that faces undue censorship or retaliation for voicing what you as an individual believe or espouse. Not that you will sound like Andrew Tate, but that culture changes, faster now than ever before due to tech and the internet. To be safe—to protect us all—we should protect free speech for everyone, both legally and culturally, unless, as I mentioned earlier, someone is specifically calling for violence. I do not see any other way around this Gordian knot.

If offensive ideologies aren’t banned, what is there to protect us? The answer yet again is free speech. It’s not that actions don’t have consequences or that words can’t cause psychological harm, just that being unpopular shouldn’t be a crime (figuratively or literally). We all have the power to ignore those we find offensive, to support speakers we align with, to engage educationally with opinions we dislike and most importantly—thanks to free speech—voice that dislike openly, publicly and safely.

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For most people, “where are you from?” takes three seconds to answer, but I need a moment.

As a kid, I never really knew what my mother tongue was. The first language I spoke was Russian. But we moved to Israel when I was six, and ever since, I think and dream in Hebrew. So which culture is the more accurate answer?

At 42, the question only got harder. I was born in Ukraine. I grew up in Israel. Now my wife Lital and I are raising our kids on an island in Thailand. If there’s a single clear answer, I still haven’t found it.

My parents left Ukraine for Israel with a box of vodka bottles, which they traded for bananas somewhere in Hungary along the way. They were running from a hard life toward a country that promised them safety and belonging–a tribe.

Thirty years later, their kid walked away from the stability they’d worked so hard to build.

I built my life on the foundations they provided, and I don’t blame them for the stability they worked so hard to create. But eventually, that stability started to feel less like a foundation and more like a ceiling. Everything was predictable, safe, and finished–and honestly, I was suffocating under all that certainty. I realized I needed a little friction just to feel alive. As it turns out, I’m not an outlier. I keep meeting other children of immigrants who are doing the exact same thing: walking away from the safety our parents fought for, not because we reject their struggle, but because it’s not the life we want to live.

For years in Israel, I could predict almost exactly what my life would look like ten years out. Not a bad life, just a predictable one. Same morning traffic, same supermarket, same news, same playgrounds, and the clarity, strangely, started to suffocate me. Apparently, I need some uncertainty to feel alive.

My wife Lital didn’t. She loved what we had. I understood that dragging her and the kids into an adventure she didn’t want wouldn’t end well, so I let the dream go.

And then a war started in our home, Israel. We flew to Thailand for two weeks, to spare the kids the worst of it.

The ability to simply leave, to seek refuge in a tropical paradise while the world we knew was consumed by conflict, is a privilege I know most don’t have. While others were huddled in shelters or facing the front lines, we were able to trade the sound of sirens for the sound of the ocean; a reality that carries a weight of its own.

Two weeks became two months. Two months became almost three years. Without ever intending to, we’d left our whole life behind.

A few months in, we had to fly to Cambodia for a visa run. I thought I was starting to understand Asia. Cambodia didn’t fit any pattern I had previously encountered.

Cambodia didn’t feel like another country, it felt like another planet. Even the airport was a ceremony: lines, entry fees, a police officer offering to move us up the queue with the kids for a little extra. I still don’t know if that was a bribe or an express lane. Even the money felt made up. Tens of thousands of the local currency for a coffee.

That sense of total disorientation–feeling like I’d landed on an alien world– forced me to see how much of my “clarity” was really just lazy pattern recognition. When everything from the money to the social codes becomes unreadable, your brain starts desperately scanning for any familiar anchor just to simplify things again. This is not to suggest one culture is superior to the other. As a multilingual, multicultural traveler, I have experienced the best and worst of many nations. Rather, in a world that often sends us out from our homes, away from our tribes and into places we can’t speak our mother language, familiarity becomes the ultimate comfort.

That was the hard part, actually: I couldn’t read the people around me. I came from a place where people mostly say what they think. Here, “yes” didn’t always mean yes, and a smile didn’t always mean agreement–sometimes it was just a way to keep the peace. Once I pressed my palms together and bowed to thank a taxi driver, the way I do in Thailand. He smiled, then shook my hand. I hadn’t broken a rule, I had just used the wrong cultural gesture. Living between so many shifting worlds meant I was constantly recalibrating, forever switching gears just to avoid stumbling over a cultural line I couldn’t quite see.

One night we had a Friday dinner with a group of Israeli travelers, and everything clicked at once. My people. Same humor, same codes, the same inside language you can’t fake. I felt safe before anyone had said a single real thing.

We all do this. We land somewhere strange and scan the room for someone who looks like us. Drop me into a world of aliens, and suddenly every human feels like family.

But the identity boxes aren’t fixed. That’s the part I didn’t expect.

Lital was sure no place but Israel could ever feel like home. Today she sings in Thai in the island bars, goes out dancing with Thai friends, trains Muay Thai, and has a Thai flag tattooed on her arm. She’s smashed every box that used to define her and built a life she couldn’t have imagined.
What does “where are you from” tell you about her?

It tells you perhaps where she was born or what her passport says, but it tells you nothing about her, who she is, or what cultures she truly belongs to.

And then there are the kids.

We recently got stuck in Vietnam for three weeks–another visa run. Almost every day we’d take the boys somewhere to burn off energy: a play zone, a roller rink, a park.

It never stopped amazing me. Every time I came to collect them, they were in the middle of a pack of Vietnamese kids, proudly introducing them to me: “Dad, I made two new friends.”

No shared language. No shared country. No passports checked. Just two new friends, in a city we were only passing through.

I went to Cambodia looking for my own tribe, just to feel safe. Lital learned you can belong to more than one. The kids don’t look for tribes at all, they just look for someone to play with.

Maybe that’s the real difference. Some of us have to understand a person before we’ll connect. Others connect first, and understand later.

When was the last time you met someone before it mattered where they were from?

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About the Author:

Vic Levitin built four startups, then stepped off the default path to rebuild life from the ground up on a Thai island with his family. Writing about the experiment at viclevitin.com

We welcome you to share your thoughts on this piece in the comments below. Click here to view our comment section moderation policy.

The opinions expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Fair For All or its employees.

In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

We are actively seeking perspectives on this topic and others. If you’d like to join the conversation, please send completed drafts to submissions@fairforall.org.

With America’s 250th anniversary having just passed, many conflicting opinions on the nation have risen to the surface. There are those who are enamored with our great nation and whose faith in the American dream is unshakable. On the opposite end of the conversation are those who see endless issues with the USA and can’t wait to emigrate elsewhere. While both stances are valid in their own rights, I feel the truth is somewhere more in between.

As a Bahamian-American raised primarily outside of the US, I feel uniquely able to bridge this gap. I have experienced life in a developing nation, and the hustle of modern American life.

Growing up on the tiny island of Nassau–147 square miles and less than the length of the average marathon–I was fortunate to have a two-parent household, a private education and enjoyed a middle-class lifestyle. Despite these privileges I was only partially shielded from the reality at hand. Many Bahamians can’t swim–which is dangerous when you live in a country surrounded by water, many don’t pass grade school, and have no post-secondary education options unless they leave the country. While Nassau has two hospitals—one private and one public, both lacking in many ways–other islands–such as Grand Bahama where I lived for three years–have no real medical facilities.

Food and water are also a national concern. The majority of food in the Bahamas is imported, as a result supply chain issues, governmental corruption and resource scarcity have increasingly devastating effects on the population. Water that isn’t bottled is unsanitary for drinking and alternatives, such as rainwater collection, are costly and hard to maintain.

Additionally , the nation operates on an insufficient power grid as a result of the government catering to the power needs of ever-expanding hotels. These touristic hubs take precedence over residential neighborhoods and the daily power needs of locals because tourism is the nation’s sole industry–there is an economic reliance on foreign comfort. Most homes, excepting those who can afford a generator of which my family was not one, are without power daily for substantial lengths of time. The frequent on/off of the power damages appliances, and interrupts business. It also makes it impossible to cool homes–the ones that have air conditioning–which is hazardous in a hot humid nation.

The geographical location of The Bahamas also makes it a prime target of severe yearly hurricanes. Candle light baths with salvaged water and cold rationed dinners were not uncommon during hurricane season. Coupled with high rates of violence, an astronomical cost of living, an internationally valueless dollar, a corrupt government and storms that can leave locals without adequate food and water for weeks to months, the Bahamas is a travel beauty but a living disaster.

Hurricane Dorian, for example, was a category five storm that decimated the nation after stalling over islands like Grand Bahama for three days (storms usually blow through in a matter of hours). Dorian flooded 80% of the island, left the island’s only airport out of commission and forced locals to rely on foreign aid. It also led to an unreported death toll in the dozens without any concrete plans to rescue people or rebuild infrastructure.

Despite the hardship of life in the Bahamas, I love the country of my childhood and celebrate its joys just as I love my present American home.

I moved to America after losing a lot: My parents gave up their dream of owning a house in their home nation in favor of moving to a nation of greater stability. I had to, in the middle of high school and in the months precursing covid, change schools which brought a total cultural whiplash. Travel is expensive and time consuming, as is filing mountains of paperwork to demonstrate that your family are decent law-abiding people. Paper work that often makes no sense without legal guidance becomes an all day task. Packing is busy and even busier when you realize you will have to sell or leave behind boxes of belongings that meant so much to you. Learning that the humane society you had spent years volunteering at had become a watery death trap for pets and the brave workers who stayed with them during the storm reminds you that you have lost a lot and yet still less than others.

Walking away with my life, family, pets and most important belongings was a sobering experience and has given me a deep appreciation of our American nation. While we can argue about the government, bicker about history, acknowledge that the American dream is fleeting or take issue with any number of things across the country, one thing remains true: This is a great nation. That doesn’t mean perfect or always unified, but it does mean great. We live in a nation where we can freely voice opinions, contact our leaders, demand representation, access any part of the country reliably through public transport, and receive medical care from a licensed doctor who is up to date on modern medicine (however expensive it might be). We can select our educational paths, shop online and in-person, and reliably expect both the availability of products and the consistency of pricing.

I will never forget the first time a package arrived at my door after I moved to the United States. It felt like magic. I will never forget my first time in a Super Walmart. I thought it was a mall—I couldn’t imagine such abundance. I will never forget my first time riding a train or visiting a library or museum, many of which are free in America. Having police that respond in minutes, a court system that takes its cases seriously, and being able to vote in ways that bring about impact are all things that as an American I am thankful for and as a Bahamian am amazed by.

So, as we move beyond July 4th and continue our celebration of the 250th year of this great nation, I hope that we can all remember that it is ok—and even good —to love your home nation, to love your American nation and to simultaneously recognize its faults. Our areas for growth should not detract from our greatness and do not detract from the value of celebrating 250 years of that American greatness.

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Allen Levi’s Theo of Golden is this summer’s go-to read for BookTokers and academics alike—and it broke every rule in contemporary publishing.

This past week, The Wall Street Journal ran a feature on Levi’s unconventional journey to literary fame following the publication of his bestselling novel Theo of Golden. While I tend to gloss over most contemporary fiction news (which often pertains, as The Wall Street Journal admits, to BDSM or vampires), this particular story immediately captured my attention: Since its publication, three years ago, Theo of Golden has sold 2.5 million copies—amazing for an originally self-published work.

That fact alone should give every editor in New York City pause: If a novel capable of reaching millions of readers could not initially find a home in the traditional publishing industry, then literary professionals have erroneous assumptions about what readers desperately crave today.

Upon its initial release, Theo of Golden sold three thousand copies—a more than respectable number for a self-published title. It continued to reach indie fiction lovers across the country until Simon & Schuster finally recognized what readers knew long ago: Our culture is in desperate need of serious literary fiction.

As someone who has spent the past few years analyzing trends in the publishing industry, I can only chuckle at the reaction of Levi’s literary agent, who felt like she was “walking into the woods and discovering a unicorn.”

No hate for Theo of Golden, which abounds with beautiful sentences and complex ideas, but the irony is, of course, that the book only appears to be a unicorn because the publishing industry has spent decades engineering a literary landscape in which slow, introspective, and profound books have become exceedingly difficult to find.

The rise of BookTok culture—a TikTok book community characterized by algorithm-driven content and bite-size recommendations—has increasingly conditioned readers to expect stories that deliver immediate gratification rather than those that require sustained intellectual engagement. Several “BookTokers,” in fact, admit to reading only dialogue in novels while skipping over “slower” scenes, creating a reading culture where books are almost literally reduced to screenplays. Publishers, in turn, cater to the BookTok community, and the cycle continues.

In other words, Theo of Golden has only earned its claim to uniqueness precisely because the publishing industry systematically turns away all other books like it.

Every year, the publishing industry churns out hundreds of new fiction titles that all sound the same. Teeming with short sentences and declarative phrases, these books no longer require readers to consider what a work of fiction means. The value of a book has been reduced to its ability to provide quick, digestible entertainment rather than to challenge its reader.

The result is an entire literary ecosystem that has surrendered its capacity for reflection—and a broader culture that has lost its ability to think critically about our world.

Let’s look at some examples from recent literary fiction bestsellers, starting with Sally Rooney’s Normal People.

Marianne answers the door when Connell rings the bell.

She’s still wearing her school uniform, but she’s taken off the sweater, so it’s just the blouse and skirt, and she has no shoes on, only tights.

Oh, hey, he says.

Come on in.

She turns and walks down the hall. He follows her, closing the door behind him.

Rooney’s sentences are simple to a fault. Her prose contains overly simplistic words and ideas, communicating only the bare minimum information required to advance the plot.

One could excuse the publishing industry if it were just Rooney writing in this infantile style, but such literary minimalism has infested nearly every single literary fiction title that lines our shelves today.

Let’s take a look at another bestselling example—Caro Claire Burke’s Yesteryear, the literary rave of the past few months.

THIS IS THE LAST DAY of the life I imagined for myself.

I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off, like usual.

Five fifty-eight and bing: eyes wide open, ready to greet the day. I’ve never had a hard time waking up in the morning. Never used the snooze button, either, not once in my life. Sobriety helps. I don’t drink. Discipline helps, too.

Burke’s prose follows much the same pattern as Rooney’s: short, declarative sentences move the reader rapidly from one assertion to the next. We can describe Burke’s prose as utilitarian, creating a novel that is easy to consume but difficult to contemplate.

Let’s contrast these examples with the opening of Levi’s Theo of Golden:

On his first full day in Golden, Theo woke early, pulled back the curtains of his hotel room, and looked out over the southern dawn. He had arrived the previous afternoon from his home in New York City, where winter, with a newsworthy late-season mixture of snow and ice, was in full fury. The flight to Atlanta (on a private jet) and the drive farther south to Golden (in a chauffeur-driven Lincoln Town Car) had transported him to a world of warmth, abloom in myriad shades of green, yellow, lavender, and pink.

The difference is almost immediately apparent. Where Rooney’s prose reports, Levi’s evokes; where Burke explains, Levi reveals. Theo of Golden demonstrates that language is not simply a vehicle for plot but an art form in its own right. Levi trusts his readers to slow down and savor the cadence of a well-crafted sentence—and the meaning of his ideas as a whole.

Theo of Golden therefore stands as a direct antithesis to the prevailing wisdom of the contemporary publishing industry. It challenges the broader orthodoxy that readers want fiction that reads like a movie script.

But if readers are clearly willing to embrace the thematic and stylistic complexity of Theo of Golden, why, then, does the publishing industry keep pushing out didactic and minimalist literature?

The fact is that the stylistic similarities among the novels we examined above are not accidental—they reflect an editorial philosophy that increasingly equates literary quality with accessibility.

In the contemporary publishing world, minimalism has become not only the norm but a hard requirement. Publishing professionals routinely claim that any sentence over fifteen words causes readers to “concentrate too hard.” Such language suggests that the publishing industry has not only become convinced that readers of contemporary fiction do not have the attention spans to digest long, flowery sentences but also that the industry itself has shaped the tastes of its own readers.

Operating in this paradigm, writers are frequently told to avoid “poetic prose and metaphors,” with one agent offering the following advice on her blog:

Often times the writers will focus on sounding “literary” and write meandering, prosy or metaphor laden sentences. While it is a style choice, it’s not usually a successful one… Flowery prose and metaphor often detract from your writing.

Thus, this type of “literary” voice becomes not only the less desirable writing style but an active faux pas. Writers who take after Fitzgerald or Nabokov face rejection, while writers who produce “legible” writing see their books line our shelves. Over time, these editorial preferences have created the very reading habits they claim merely to reflect: Readers are told they no longer have the patience for long, intellectually demanding books but are rarely given the opportunity to encounter them in the first place.

Despite this, the success of Theo of Golden offers hope for a civilization that has increasingly abandoned its capacity for reflection.

Publishing shapes our culture more than we like to admit. The very books championed by our publishing professionals become the books that we not only read and discuss but also aspire to write ourselves. If year after year the publishing industry rewards simpler, faster, and more disposable fiction, then readers inevitably become accustomed to “fast-paced” books that require no afterthought.

If, on the other hand, publishers start championing ambitious, intellectually rich novels again, then there is every reason to believe readers would rise to meet them.

As our literature loses its capacity to challenge readers, an entire generation of thinkers becomes less comfortable with complexity—but we can restore the critical thinking brought by complex stories by daring to publish difficult books again.

Perhaps, then, the real lesson of Theo of Golden is not that readers suddenly rediscovered serious literary fiction but that they never stopped wanting it.

So maybe it’s time for the publishing industry to take notes from Theo—and to believe in its readers again.

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Three years ago, July 13, 2023, I received the dreadful news that our friend, Richard Bilkszto, had taken his own life. Nothing prepares you for news like that.

Our friendship started through a FAIR meeting for Ontario educators and carried its course through our mutual concerns, commitments, and convictions. Those who knew Richard remember his belief in supporting the most vulnerable students, his efforts to stop the bullies, and his understanding of the needs of students who did not fit in some way or another.

The last time I was in touch with Richard was a week before this tragic event when I had messaged him. His response was brief: two-words, “thank you”. I assumed he was simply busy. I should have called. I should have asked. The “what ifs” and the regrets will not undo this tragedy. They will not bring him back to his family, to us, to the many people he was so passionate about helping or to those whose lives he touched when he didn’t have to. As a retired principal, he could have easily chosen to sit back on a beach, relax, and enjoy the well-deserved, hard-earned freedom of retirement.

But that was not who Richard was.

Even though we will never know exactly what or who pushed Richard to the edge, the fact remains that something did. Someone did. Society did. The system did. A system that claims to value diversity, equity, and inclusion — words I now loathe. A system that constantly beats the drum about the importance of mental health, yet has no qualms about blaming everything on the white man. Yes, that is what he was accused of being by a paid presenter, for expressing his opinions while numerous other administrators – principals and vice principals who attended that session – remained silent and went on with the flow. Appalling! They should have objected, stood up, walked out, denounced. Nope! They did no such thing. They approved the blatant racism by remaining a bystander. Ironically they are the ones running our schools. Go figure!

Openly blaming people simply for being white, specifically men at that time, was the prevailing trend. Now, the attitude seems more subtle, implied in job and admissions applications like an underlying disease that, instead of being treated, has simply been managed.

Richard’s tragic passing in July 2023 stirred an uproar not only in Canada and the United States but also globally, with coverage appearing across different media outlets and in multiple languages. The DEI mandates came under scrutiny and continue to be scrutinized, not only by some institutions and organizations, but most importantly by members of the general public, some of whom are gradually, but finally, beginning to question them.

Yet like any other news story, it is only “breaking” until something else breaks — and as we all know, things keep breaking all around the world. So, to not let Richard’s legacy be forgotten, a group of his friends who shared his values on education, merit, fairness, and equality of opportunity decided to recognize, encourage, and honour exceptional teachers, and future teachers in his honor. Friends of Richard Bilkszto was born. The group continues their advocacy for preserving and improving the education system including but not limited to policies regarding specialized programs.

Why things have to get really bad before they start getting better beats me—it is such an uncommon sense.

Three years ago, under the umbrella of DEI, the merit- and qualification-based admission process for specialized programs was revoked and replaced with a lottery system that considered historical backgrounds and, bluntly put, perceived victimhood as eligible criteria for admission. The community consultation meetings in which many of us — parents and teachers alike — participated and voiced our opposition to the idea, were simply a checkbox exercise; the decision had clearly already been made. A decision that was influenced, in no small part, by the loud voices of those who had the time and energy to accuse the system of racism and, quite literally, disrupt a system that was working and had proven successful. At the very least, it was not failing.

Like many of us, Richard was also opposed to this change. He recognized the social injustices that students in less fortunate families face, he was familiar with the barriers in their way, however, like me, he did not believe the new lottery-based admission policy is the solution. We both had ideas that would address the issue in the long term. He was vocal about his concerns and my proposed solutions received a written rejection and a verbal warning by the people above. Nevertheless, we worked together to try to prevent the change from happening or, at the very least, to educate the public and parents about the inevitable negative consequences of implementing such policies on a large scale without addressing the underlying causes of adversity. At a minimum, conducting small-scale pilot projects, or simply listening to us — the teachers who work with students day in and day out, those who know the lay of the land should have been better explored

That would have made sense.

There is a possibility that the entire process was a way to eliminate specialized school programs that required significant investment and funding by making them appear ineffective. The best way to justify getting rid of them would be to demonstrate that they were no longer successful. That is exactly what happened after the top-down implementation of the lottery system. Many of the students admitted through this process struggled to manage the workload, academic level, and intensity required to complete such programs. As a result, some schools adjusted their programs to better match students’ level. This effectively diluted and lowered the standards of programs initially designed to educate students at a much higher level. Once again, professionals who knew better went along with the flow.

There is something sinister about this approach.

Family and education are the foundations of a society. One would expect these two pillars to be treated as sacred and protected, especially by those entrusted with serving the public. Yet, instead of strengthening and preserving these pillars, there appears to be an insistence on making them irrelevant, fragile, or reduced to something resembling casual entertainment. Whether this is done intentionally or out of ignorance is ultimately irrelevant. The leadership responsible for this flagrancy must be held accountable. After all, we are the ones paying their salaries.

Three years have passed, and the lottery admission policy has now been revoked.

The students entering the specialized programs in the 2026–2027 school year have been admitted based on a centralized evaluation test. It is the closest one can get to merit-based admissions; however, it is still not the ideal approach. Different specialized schools offer different programs, each with its own requirements and standards for admission, which were designed based on the specific nature and demands of those programs. Those who deliver these programs are best positioned to establish the appropriate entrance criteria, and that is something a centralized test cannot fully accomplish. Nevertheless, it is a significant improvement over a lottery system and the consideration of victimhood as a determining factor in admission to specialized programs that require a strong foundation as a prerequisite.

During the past three years, instead of selecting the best of the crop and educating them according to their abilities so they could become the best contributors to their society, as one would expect to be the purpose of our schools, our education system ignored the professional judgment of its own teachers, wasted three years of students’ time, and misused publicly funded programs. The last cohort of students admitted to merit-based specialized programs graduated in June 2026. The next cohort of students admitted through a semi-merit-based process will begin these programs in September 2026. Over the past three years, the larger number of students admitted to these programs, in between these two groups, were placed in a difficult and unfair situation, while many others were denied the opportunity to gain admission. The result speaks for itself.

An inevitable and preventable failure. What a shame.

It has taken three years and an insane amount of work for an army of teachers, parents, individuals, and organizations such as Friends of Richard Bilkszto and Save our Schools Ontario to pressure the Ministry of Education to reverse this decision. Going backwards and returning to where we were in 2023 is not an improvement; that said, it could be considered one if it marks the point at which we stop the downward spiral of destructive policies.

Richard would be happy to know that we are closer to restoring what we had, and therefore the prospect of improvement could now be on the horizon. Rest in peace, Richard. You are in our thoughts and prayers.

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Libraries have been advancing democracy and social justice long before they became consumed by critical social justice ideology a decade ago. They served that mission by providing free access to books and inculcating a love of learning in children, teens and adults of all socioeconomic backgrounds. University libraries supported the mission of their parent institutions, which was to build and transmit knowledge across generations. These goals have always been integral to advancing society by creating community spaces, more equitable access to education, and an informed population.

Unfortunately, many of today’s libraries reject the library profession’s foundational value of institutional neutrality: that is, the development of balanced collections, services and programming. The value that has displaced institutional neutrality is “social justice,” meaning that many librarians see it as the library’s job to educate people about what they see as the right way to think about contested social and political issues.

Tailoring library collections and programming to reflect their worldview, or not allowing certain groups to meet in the library, are the main tools librarians use to advance a “social justice” mission. But just as important for these librarians is to work with people who agree with them, and enthusiastically.

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) staff trainings are one vehicle for communicating the social justice worldview—while at the same time encouraging staff to defer to the activists by raising the cost of disagreement. These trainings tend to be mandatory (whether explicitly or effectively). New training guidelines were developed in 2022 by the American Library Association’s College & Research Libraries division, replacing just ten-year old cultural competency guidelines that were based on longstanding library best practices. Instead of learning practical steps to serve populations who speak languages other than English, for example, the new Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity guideines encourage libraries to implement a staff training program that aims to develop only four competencies: awareness of racial identity, manifestations of racism, commitment to countering racism, and analysis of racialized outcomes.

“As LIS workers, our foundational growth is strengthened by an ability to identify and acknowledge ways in which whiteness and white supremacy have impacted the field of librarianship. Beyond this, Libraries and LIS workers must actively engage in practices that address and redress these inequities.” (Cultural Proficiencies for Racial Equity, ALA, 2022)

It is typical in these DEI trainings to elicit, and then to probe and challenge, the personal beliefs of individual library workers. You can see this proselytizing mission clearly by dipping into the content of any of these trainings (a good example is this account of a former longtime University of Virginia Library employee’s DEI training program). If a library worker challenges anything in one of these trainings it will be made clear to them that failure to embrace this content is unwelcome or even taken as a personal insult (e.g., “denying the existence” of the trainer’s identity); it may also result in a complaint to human resources or the library’s governing board, leading to an investigation or worse.

One staff training program in a university library asked workers “What are the last five books you read? What is the racial mix of the authors?” Those are questions that explicitly violate librarianship’s respect for privacy as articulated in the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights: “All people, regardless of origin, age, background, or views, possess a right to privacy and confidentiality in their library use.” Do library workers not also have privacy rights? Is not one’s personal reading a private matter? Is it not an individual worker’s right to share—or not—their own beliefs without their employer trying to change those beliefs, or to cast judgment on them? Trainings such as these amount to forcing employer-endorsed political views on staff. They violate both library professional ethics and library workers’ personal privacy.

Just as how an organization treats its workers reflects the values of that organization, so does DEI staff training provide a window for outsiders to see into what a library culture is like. When a privacy-defending public service entity such as a library fails to protect the diversity of thought and privacy of its own employees it has shown itself to have profoundly lost its way.

Those librarians who build collections and workforces that conform to their own politics, and who subject their staff to a politicized workplace, jeopardize the position of trust their library has earned with its community. Trust in a library is built on its being useful and responsive to all segments of its community. Libraries are trusted because they help people think for themselves, without violating personal privacy and without opprobrium. They are big-tent institutions intentionally distanced from the tribal passions of the day. When librarians explicitly disavow institutional neutrality and privacy of thought in favor of becoming partisan institutions, the trust they have earned can be quickly eroded—as we are seeing now. Where we stand today, libraries are at risk of becoming simply another political pugilist in society instead of the glue that binds people together across our differences and between one generation and the next.

If the profession is able to reinvest in its core values, it may be strong enough to weather the damage. As in the broader society, there’s both a hunger and an opening for change right now in the library profession. This change is being pursued through an alternative professional association (the Association of Library Professionals), as well as FAIR for Libraries’ development of resources to support library board members and members of the general public who care about their libraries.

While undeniably weakened by politicization right now, libraries ranging from public libraries of all sizes and in nearly every community to multi-million-volume research libraries, still in meaningful ways embody the twin values of privacy and neutrality. Those values hold within them a profound democratic truth. And in that truth lies resilience.

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This morning, I did not need to boil my water to drink it. My power has been on uninterrupted for many months. When I go out later, the vast majority of other drivers will be predictable and follow traffic laws. I will inevitably, at some point, criticize people in power in a very direct and public way, and I will not fear retribution from the government or other powerful people for doing so. When I go to the store, prices will be higher than I like, but they will probably be exactly what’s listed on the shelf, and the products I buy I can almost certainly expect to work properly. If I go for a walk in the park, strangers will greet me with a smile and a “hello.” I will drive past a farmstand that consists only of a shelter, products, and a box to put money in, unmonitored, and there will be both cash and products there. I recognize this isn’t universally true. Prices are unaffordable for some families and a walk in some neighborhoods carries real risk. These are real exceptions, and they matter. But my point is that these are exceptions, not the rule.

I type this from a nation about to turn 250 years old, having spent a great deal of my life in places where all of the above have not been true.

No, I have not described a utopia, but I have described a place we have all taken for granted — or even worse, needlessly denigrated, at one point or another.

Although I do not use social media, I know well that if I took a look at any social media platform I would be bombarded by nonstop cynical rhetoric about how America is a great evil in the world, a failed state, a terrible place to live, a place some long to escape from — a pox on the earth that would be best undone and abandoned.

I think we can reasonably expect that rhetoric to escalate quite a bit at the least appropriate time, as we celebrate 250 years of independence. But I believe a bit of thanks for that independence feels more in order.

Gratitude work has become widely regarded as a huge boost to mental health. The concept is simple: spending time intentionally focusing on what we are happy about in our lives can give us (according to an article from Harvard Women’s Health Watch) “… greater emotional and social well-being, better sleep quality, lower depression risks, and favorable markers of cardiovascular health.”

So, gratitude is good for us. Knowing this makes many anti-America remarks and the deep and unrelenting cynicism on social media look as bad as a pack-a-day cigarette habit.

Some will criticize the US as being “no better than a third-world country”, losing sight of the incredible comfort that we (yes, even many poor people) experience here compared to the vast majority of other countries. Others will talk about how the founders guaranteed only the rights of “rich white men”, willfully disregarding the slow but undeniable progression to guaranteeing those rights for everyone and how absolutely novel that is in history. Others will claim that America “has no culture,” an odd statement to make about the greatest cultural exporter in modern history — a culture that would not be nearly as rich without the contributions of those people they see as “systemically oppressed”.

They’ll make these criticisms from their safe, comfortable, air-conditioned homes. They’ll make them with zero fear of retribution or consequence. They’ll make these criticisms to an audience of similarly cynical, resentful, and ungrateful people who will reinforce their vitriol.

To me, this is like the teenager in the McMansion who screams at his parents, storms out, and speeds off in the BMW they bought him. Where are you going, kid? You’ll be back in your nice bedroom with your childhood toys tonight, and your parents probably won’t even ask you to apologize for your behavior.

That said, there is absolutely plenty to be unhappy about. I believe that on almost all fronts, American society is declining and losing much of what makes us special. I fear that my ability to live on my own terms here is under threat more and more as time progresses. But I also believe that a big part of the reason these problems exist is because so many in our “intellectual” classes are demoralized by this relentless strain of perspective-free self-hate.

A part of how we got here is social media: cynicism, self-righteousness, and snarky jabs at those who are perceived as “powerful.” Hot takes generally play better there, as they drive engagement. That seems to reinforce the shibboleth-like nature of American self-hate as a means of accessing the purported “intelligentsia”. As Benedict Beckeld, author of Oikophobia: Why Successful Societies Turn Against Themselves, says:

“Like Diogenes’ sneers and sarcasms about his fellow Greeks, or Voltaire’s snarkiness about French tradition and religion, little virtue-signaling asides about American faults are de rigeur for those Americans wishing to communicate how cosmopolitan and superior they are.”

It should not be news to anyone that spending all of one’s time incessantly criticizing others is not a strong indicator of moral superiority, but rather a substitute for it. Confidence and competence are quiet because security does not require belittlement.

Having spent half my adult life living in the People’s Republic of China and a great deal of time traveling the rest of the world, I can tell you this: having a global perspective puts the contrast between American society and most others in the world in stark light.

My anecdotal experience aside, simply looking at net migration numbers tells you an undeniable story: In 2025, enough people chose the United States over their home country that, standing in a line holding hands, they would stretch from New York City to Miami.

Being grateful does not mean willfully ignoring real problems or being revisionist about history. But willful ignorance and revisionism cut both ways: as much as they can be used to “whitewash” true evils, they can also be used to reinforce needless negativity. You know what’s wrong with America today. You’re probably bombarded with these problems in your social media feeds, so I’m not going to spend time discussing them here. I, too, am feeling the embarrassment of our broken political system and the existential dread brought about by the state of our economy.

Yet despite the challenges we face today and the many ghastly moments of our history, what we choose to focus on is key to the solution. Allow me to anthropomorphize our nation for a moment. Have you ever loved someone whose bad choices brought them to a bad place? If you truly wanted them to get better, would you spend your time constantly berating them for their flaws and proclaiming how bad they are to everyone you both know? Once you’ve acknowledged their reality, what is the purpose of staying critical? To feel better about yourself? Because some part of you fears you’re just like them? Be honest.

So on this anniversary of independence, if you feel compelled to say that we are inappropriately celebrating 250 years of oppression, imperialism, exploitation, racism, slavery, brutality, and warmongering, spare us the complaints. Take that energy and go make something better instead.

We here in the USA are so damn lucky. Yes, even you. And while things may feel dystopian at this particular juncture in our history, only by choosing to be grateful for what we have can we stave off those threatening to take it away from us.

As we celebrate America’s 250th birthday, join FAIR in cultivating a common culture of gratitude. The more of us who do, the less we’ll have to criticize.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

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Libraries across North America have recently been under fire from parents and authorities concerned that their collections of children’s and young adult books contain material that is sexually graphic. In many cases, the books in question are perceived as part of a progressive agenda that pushes the young to question their sexuality and gender identity. Books introducing gender and sexuality viewpoints to very young audiences have become alarmingly common in libraries. While only a minority veer into graphic sexual territory, together they raise community concern about age-appropriateness.

For the libraries in question, the defensive position is one that invokes intellectual freedom. Outside forces should not limit or direct the content of library collections—that is the purview of professional librarians, who choose material in accordance with carefully considered criteria with the goal of serving the needs of their users and communities. This argument is invoked with particular fervor when it comes to books that express the viewpoint of “marginalized” groups, because these are the groups deemed most vulnerable to censorship. The stated goal is a wide variety of viewpoints, including viewpoints that are potentially not aligned with majority opinion. But how did we get to the point where the professional selection process, seeking to include a wide variety of (often unpopular) opinions, actively collects books that promote a progressive ideology to such an extreme that graphically sexual material is allowed for young people. Has indoctrination of the vulnerable become the norm?

First, let me make clear that in many, if not most public libraries, the actual selection of books by staff librarians is limited. In the past, librarians may have spent hours perusing catalogues and review journals, and in some cases attending publishers’ showcases. Today, public libraries often do not have the resources for that level of labor-intensive work. The number of books published in a given year, thanks to electronic and self-publishing, has grown too large, and library budgets are increasingly stretched.

Instead, many public libraries rely on their suppliers to do part or all of the work. A small number of library wholesalers are in the business of supplying libraries with pre-selected books and providing them shelf-ready, with catalogue records, spine labels, and security tags included. These wholesalers select materials based on profiles that the library supplies, which detail community demographics, interests, genres, copies-to-waitlist ratios, and other criteria. Typically, a local librarian will examine the shipments before acceptance, modify the profile as needed, and supplement these “automatic release plans” with backlist orders, customer request items, specialized books, local history, and anything else that the plan doesn’t cover. The profiles in question often contain a reference to “diversity” with specified targets of books written by or about particular minority groups. In practice, the books that meet these criteria are inevitably skewed toward the progressive viewpoint within these minorities.

But the libraries and wholesalers are only one part of the selection ecosystem. The other players are the publishers themselves, eager to satisfy their progressive impulses, who trip over themselves to sign “minority voices”; and the professional book reviewers and journals, who also are eager to support identity-based causes. This favoritism—born out of an effort to support unheard voices—creates a new silence for stories and others that fall outside of target groups. Wholesalers base their decisions on major publishers’ offerings and positive reviews in library and literature journals. The resulting pipeline leading to library acquisition is ideologically skewed, and deviating from it would take some effort, even if local libraries were not ideologically captured themselves.

Even if these elements are not always aligned, the process still results in library collections being stacked with books for kids on gender and sexuality that skew heavily toward a one-sided viewpoint. These views, presented as fact to an audience not yet capable of critical analysis, are in some cases accompanied by descriptions and illustrations of a sexually explicit nature, compounding the age-inappropriateness of the works. All the actors consider “queer inclusion” to be part of their mandate, not a political stance, and even where skepticism exists, it often succumbs to self-preservation.

Opponents of gender ideology in kids’ books will often call it “grooming.” This is hyperbole; it’s more akin to propaganda, the presentation of a contested ideology as fact in an environment that is intended to be neutral and non-political. Prospects for reform make for some difficult choices. Governmental oversight, community review, and parental permission regimes all present their own challenges to the independence and effectiveness of public libraries. Somehow, we have to find a way to take social-justice ideology out of the decisions at all levels.

To combat some of this skewing and keep libraries neutral and reading options open, readers should request books—most libraries have a purchase request option online. Librarians should try to operate with more autonomy and critically evaluate what publishers are putting out even when it sacrifices some efficiency. As individuals, we should prioritize the value of experiencing a range of literary topics and viewpoints, allowing us to expand our horizons and keep us open to a wide variety of experiences.

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In keeping with our mission to promote a common culture of fairness, understanding, and humanity, we are committed to including a diverse range of voices and to encouraging compassionate, good-faith discourse.

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