(TheRedAlertNews.com) – Barack Obama has gone on the offensive and is fighting against efforts by social conservatives to limit leftist propaganda through school libraries by praising librarians for standing “on the front lines.”
In a letter lauding the “hardworking librarians of America,” Obama blasted conservative attempts to prohibit books on “gender, sexuality, and race” – seeming euphemisms for transgenderism, the gender ideology, and critical race theory.
He argued that many such books and their authors had shaped his life.
“Today, some of the books that shaped my life – and the lives of so many others – are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. It’s no coincidence that these ‘banned books’ are often written by or feature people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community,” the former president, as cited by The National Review.
“Today, some of the books that shaped my life — and the lives of so many others — are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives,” he added.
“Writers like Mark Twain and Toni Morrison, Walt Whitman and James Baldwin taught me something essential about our country’s character. Reading about people whose lives were very different from mine showed me how to step into someone else’s shoes,” Obama added.
A report by leftist newspaper Washington Post quoted PEN America as saying that during the 2021-2022 school year, over 1,600 books were banned from school libraries in 138 districts and 32 states.
It added that 19 states had adopted laws stipulating prison terms for librarians supplying minors with “harmful” books in the past few years.
According to Obama, however, librarians nationwide are owed a “debt of gratitude” for continuing to guarantee access to these stories.
“In a very real sense, you’re on the front lines — fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and ideas available to everyone,” he wrote, quoted by The Hill.
His letter to librarians comes after he joined libraries to promote access to books through a TikTok campaign amid growing parent concerns over highly sexualized content in public-school libraries, the Review points out.
One work spiking such worries is “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe, a pro-LBGT book presented to elementary and middle-school students nationwide.
Today, some of the books that shaped my life—and the lives of so many others—are being challenged by people who disagree with certain ideas or perspectives. And librarians are on the front lines, fighting every day to make the widest possible range of viewpoints, opinions, and… pic.twitter.com/txhCTfH3Gh
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) July 17, 2023
