Meet the FReadom Fighters Taking On Book Bans and Online Abuse: 'Books Are Not Contraband'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Longtime friends Becky Calzada and Carolyn Foote couldn't sit on the sidelines anymore listening to people undermine librarians. All over the country, a narrative played out at school board meetings claiming that diverse titles are harmful, librarians are "groomers" and children are exposed to pornographic material in school libraries.

After a Texas lawmaker, Rep. Matt Krause, targeted 850 books for removal from the state's libraries, Calzada and Foote, joined by other silent partners, started the group's Twitter account and website, Freadom.us, which offers support for embattled librarian colleagues and guides for action campaigns. Texas lawmakers threatened to ban titles that tackled issues of race, racism and LGBTQ themes—or that merely featured kids whose identities reflected them. Calzada, 57, and Foote, 63, formed FReadom Fighters in November 2021 to rally an army of book lovers on social media and in their communities. Using the hashtag #txlege to gain the attention of the Texas legislature, the group started sharing their counter-message. A tweetstorm of 13,000 tweets went out with this hashtag, including personal stories of books positively changing lives.

"Books shouldn't be contraband," says Foote, a retired librarian from Austin. "We've lost our way in this contentious environment. We forgot what's at the core of libraries: getting kids excited about reading and seeing stories that reflect their lives."

Calzada was in her late 20s before she first came across a children's book about a family that looked like hers. When she read Gary Soto's Too Many Tamales, the story of a Hispanic family coming together to make the traditional dish, "I remember thinking, 'Gosh, we do that,'" says Calzada, a library coordinator for an Austin-area school district. "Sometimes you need a book to bring reassurance and validate."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/meet-the-freadom-fighters-taking-on-book-bans-and-online-abuse-books-are-not-contraband/ar-AA18ijio

[SheltieLover]

1. Found a t-shirt that reads: I survived reading banned books & all I got was smarter

Ordering in several colors!

[niyad]

2. Link, please???

[SheltieLover]

4. If you look at link to fiction group below, there is an awesome one

which prompted me to start hunting for t-shirts. Way too hot here for a sweatshirt. Lol

https://www.democraticunderground.com/119320627

Here's the one I found:

https://www.amazon.com/Survived-Reading-Banned-Book-Bookaholic/dp/B0B17BZFJN/ref=mp_s_a_1_19?crid=3H83ORUVG6B5D&keywords=1984%2Bim%2Bwith%2Bthe%2Bbanned%2Bbooks%2Bt-shirt&qid=1678067866&sprefix=1984%2Bim%2Bwith%2Bthe%2Bbanned%2Bbooks%2Bt-shirt%2Caps%2C133&sr=8-19&th=1&psc=1&customId=B07538837H#immersive-view_1678068178871

What do you think?

[niyad]

3. When I consider the books that I read in junior high and high school, including

"Tropic of Cancer", "Peyton Place",, all of ayn rand, history, etc., I dhould be, according to them, a twisted mess . . okay, we'll skip that part!

Nothing in our school libraries, or the public ones, was off-limits to me. It infuriates me that we keep having to fight these insane battles.