There are far too many “well-meaning” white liberals who see this quote and immediately share it everywhere, cheering about what a “good ally” and “inspiration” the guy is.
“Don’t march, don’t protest, don’t wave signs, just go to the public library or the store and get the books they’re banning.”
Me, I marvel at the shortsighted ignorance of white man privilege.
Allow me to parse the mind-boggling level of entitlement behind it.
There are many more children who have no money to buy books than those who do, and more poorly-funded public libraries than otherwise–never mind that classroom and school libraries’ entire raison d’être is to foster curiosity and expose children to the world.
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Every fucking thing is politics: high school kids in the Blackest district in Tennessee had the chance to attend a talk with the authors of His Name Is George Floyd, a book about the man, his murder, and the racial movement and backlash it sparked.
Note: these laws are vague on purpose.
Republicans get their “reasonable” fig leaf by adding the “age appropriate” language to their book banning laws–just like they get it when adding “exceptions” to abortion laws: in the end, everyone is so afraid to be on the wrong side of language that is so vague as to be meaningless, that nothing and no one ever qualifies for the “exceptions”.
It’s a feature, not a bug.
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They are banning grade school books; many parents in poor school districts aren’t readers themselves. And it’s worse for queer children: without classroom and school libraries, those children will never know that books reflecting their own experiences are out there, let alone how to look for them, or where. It is worse for Black and Brown children living in a white Evangelical Christofascist society.
You cannot go looking for what you don’t know exists.
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If you don’t protest when they go after school libraries, they go after public libraries next.
And after that, they go after publishers.
They will declare that all banned books are either pornography or dangerous “woke” indoctrination, and then they’ll go after parents who allow their children to read those banned books–because the only parents’ rights that matter are those of the most radical fascist white supremacists.
Democracy can’t survive by having everyone shrug off fascist attacks on public goods and democratic institutions, then go practice well-off capitalist “solutions”.
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You know what keeps public libraries open and thriving after they have been targeted by white supremacist hiding behind Christofascist MomsForLiberty-style attacks? Waving signs, protesting, being loud enough to get national attention, and funds to engage in a counter-disinformation campaign–and to try and try and try again to pass the millage (tax) to fund it for the next ten years.
You know what keeps books in classrooms and school libraries? Parents organizing and protesting and being loud, and flipping every open seat in an off year election, in a tough, mostly-red school district.
And doing it again and again and again, year after year after year–because the Christofascists will never stop trying.
And because you don’t keep even a flawed, somewhat-crumbling-around-the-edges democracy if you simply encourage people to buy your fucking books, Stephen.
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Note: this has been stuck in my craw for a couple of years, and hit flash point when I saw that stupid image at the top on social media; I have no idea what, if anything, Stephen King has been up to lately that prompted the re-sharing of the meme–I blocked his ass on twitter years ago.
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Finally, if you care about the freedom to read what the fuck you want, and want children to have the same freedom–all children, not just those whose parents have the money and mentality to grant it to them–follow Kelly Jensen at BookRiot, keep informed about the organized Christofascist attacks on that freedom, so you can help defend it.
Her Hands, My Hands 
I’m just…. I don’t expect better anymore. Can’t. Men of my generation can only see the world through their lens with themselves as the center.
And the lack of comprehension of how change only happens when you’re loud and present.
I have a sign on my wall “Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man” and wow, that’s proven again and again.
If it were only men of our generation, Lori; but much like racism and white supremacy, there are thousands of people who’ve grown up seeing only themselves as the protagonists of the world around them.
On your sign: I saw someone on mastodon say, “would that I had half the privilege of a mediocre white man” and oh boy!, that hit me squarely in the face.
I just saw an interview with Nancy Pelosi today and she was talking about how so much of the change we see in the world is the communities who come together and make things happen.
Can you imagine having that attitude of “read more, do less” would have helped anybody at any time?
Right?
Telling the people at the bottom of the pyramid, “You worry about yourself, everyone else can go hang”, only serves the people at the top.
I mean, you pretty much say it all with this post – but yeah. This sticks in my craw too for all the same reasons. Let’s look at my personal experience for just a moment to illustrate the point. I grew up comfortably middle-class and my parents were rather permissive when it came to what their kids read – that said, we were library users first. Owning books, buying books – special occasions only. I mainly used my school library because ease of access. I had a public library nearby but someone had to take me there until the day came when my Mom thought I was old enough to ride my bike there unaccompanied (roughly 1 mile away). And that would be spring/summer/fall only because I grew up in the Midwest and we do not ride bikes in the snow.
Now let’s imagine the kid who doesn’t live close to their public library, whose school library has been gutted (if they have access to one at all), whose family is barely keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads (who the hell has the money to buy books?!) and whose parents might just be leading the charge on book bans. Oh sure, digital makes things marginally easier for these kids – assuming they have cell phones and assuming their parents aren’t policing the hell out of their devices.
And I haven’t even mentioned the number of households in this country where reading is not seen as any sort of priority. It’s why when public libraries tout they’re “MORE THAN BOOKS!” that I get my panties in a twist. Just maybe a lot of the problems in this country are because we’re not putting enough emphasis on said books.
Ahem. Anyway. I hear you. And I also firmly believe with my last dying Pollyanna breath that more people oppose book bans and restricted access than not. It’s a small minority of people who have worked everybody up into a lather. Just once I want SOMEONE, ANYONE to push back at these assholes and tell them that Gender Queer is not cataloged as a children’s book in any library I’ve ever set foot in (Adult Biography, all damn day long).
And yes, the only way to push back on this is for people who don’t support book bans to stand up – voice their support, run for their local school board, library board, become active in the PTA etc. to silence the asshats.
Yes, and yes, and yes, and YES: so much of current societal ills are due to a lack of emphasis on books, and the history in those books, and the lack of emphasis on humanities (books! art! books! music! books!) in this country.
I grew up in a country where only private schools had libraries, and usually not until grade 7, if at all; and since most of those schools were affiliated with the Catholic Church, what was there was heavily policed.
Public libraries had no operating funds, depending entirely on publisher donations for their catalog, and volunteer labor for their staffing (I understand it’s slightly better now, but there is just no comparison with the U.S. and other first world countries’ libraries systems)
Fuckers like King cannot conceive the immense privilege they had, growing up with access to books as they did, making a living off their own.
/rant