Skim, Quote, List

The Censorship of “All Boys Aren’t Blue”

Abstract

All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson is currently one of the most frequently challenged books in United States libraries. This article takes the opposition to Johnson’s Young Adult memoir-manifesto as a case study to interrogate the reading practices and rhetoric of organized activist groups that operate at scale and drive the removal of books from school libraries. These efforts are amplified by the chilling effects of new laws that address a distorted caricature of Critical Race Theory and ‘sexual’ material in schools, and that disproportionately affect books that speak frankly and critically about Black history, sexual abuse, and the experiences of LGBTQI+ youth. The challenger playbook analysed in this article is characterized by a reading practice that involves skim-reading for key words, decontextualization of abbreviated quotations, ‘slick’ and shareable reports, generated book lists, and a forum for challenging that is both online and hyperlocal. Key to justifying the removal of books from libraries is the concept of obscenity, which is misconstrued to cast Johnson’s memoir as pornography. Resistance to censorship is considered at local, state and federal level. The treatment of Johnson’s memoir by challengers and defenders reveals old and novel censorship mechanisms, emerging anti-censorship coalitions, divergent reading practices, and fracturing constitutional norms. Mapping attacks on and defenses of All Boys Aren’t Blue complicates our understanding of censorship in modern America.