“It was the first time I knew beautiful. Had imagined it for myself. Beauty was not simply something to behold; it was something one could do.”
- from The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison, a frequently banned book
#3 on the American Library Association’s list of Top 13 Most Challenged Books of 2022.
Choosing to make beauty or obscure it
Artists of all kinds create beauty from ordinary words or materials. It’s alchemy, really, making something precious out of something ordinary. Artists gift their culture, their world, with the beauty they do, as Morrison describes.
How sad then, to see recipients of that beauty reject it. And not only reject it, but steal it from everyone else. Banning books steals beauty from our children. Indeed, it steals their beauty from them in their own eyes, tells them “it’s not okay to be this; you are wrong.”
Please, we need your help to stop this destruction. See what we are doing about it at Re:faith. Sign up to receive our newsletters. Consider joining us (no salesman will call, unlimited time offer). And help us bring a fresh perspective that changes the world.
