Quick Hits – February 2, 2022

Book bans basically backfire

Censorship reflects a society’s lack of confidence in itself. – Potter Stewart

I have to say I’ve gotten quite the chuckle out of my liberal friends over-the-top reaction to a Tennessee school district banning the two-volume graphic novel “Maus,” a nonfiction account of how author Art Spiegelman’s parents survived the Holocaust.

But as I keep trying to tell them, their censorship consternation is utterly unwarranted because, as I keep trying to tell you, Newton’s third law of motion not only applies to heavenly bodies but to any human endeavor as well. Here’s what author Steven King had to say about this eminently foreseeable equal and opposite reaction:

When books are run out of school classrooms and libraries, I’m never much disturbed. Not as a citizen, not as a writer, not even as a schoolteacher … which I used to be.

What I tell kids is, don’t get mad, get even.

Don’t spend time waving signs or carrying petitions around the neighborhood. Instead, run, don’t walk, to the nearest non-school library or the local bookstore and get whatever it was that they banned.

Read whatever they’re trying to keep out of your eyes and your brain, because that’s exactly what you need to know.

And in this particular literary prohibition case, the entire nation has “gotten even” with Tennessee by sending “Maus” straight to the top of the Amazon bestselling book list. So now, a nearly forgotten graphic novel published way back in 1986 is the must-read book of 2022.  And I’m quite convinced the high schoolers this backwoods Tennessee board was trying to “protect” are the ones leading the reading charge.

Trust me! Were it not for a group of absurd school board members, who can’t even spell the phrase “cause and effect,” the last thing these faces-perpetually-plastered-to-their-cellphones kids would be doing is reading a graphic novel that graphically covers the Holocaust.

But now it’s the number one book in America because book bans always backfire. Thank you Tennessee – I can’t wait to see what you ban next!

Hmmm! I wonder if I can get anyone to ban my columns?

This is why our children need to learn about the Holocaust

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. – George Santayana

Whenever global times are tough, for reasons I can’t begin to fathom, anti-Semitic incidents inevitably make headlines. And just like historical pandemic clockwork, that age-old plague recently reared its ugly head in Chicago’s predominantly Jewish West Rogers Park neighborhood

The news hit me particularly hard because, having grown up in Evanston and spending the better part of a decade in East Rogers Park, West Rogers Park is my favorite neighborhood, bar none.

I’m sure a great part of that fondness comes, in part, because, in an era of fading ethnic Second City enclaves, West Rogers Park always reminded me of the great ethnic neighborhoods Tribune columnist Mike Royko so eloquently covered.

Not only that, but many of my late 80’s Sunday mornings consisted of heading over to The Bagel restaurant and deli at 3000 Devon Avenue, the heart of West Rogers Park, to procure the best bagel and lox sandwich I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating.

Where else could you get legendary Russian folksinger Vladmir Vysotsky on handmade cassettes but at an eclectic hole in the wall West Rogers Park music store? Though the name of that shop is long forgotten, I still listen to those tapes!

Whenever I tooled west on Pratt Boulevard, Touhy Avenue, or Devon Avenue, I always made a point of giving myself enough time explore the neighborhood, drive by the stately synagogues, and perhaps visit one of the unique mom and pop shops. Those Sunday morning sojourns will always be one of my favorite memories. So, when the Tribune reported that yellow swastikas were painted on synagogue walls, Jewish business’s windows had been smashed, and at least one resident was assaulted while his attacker hurled anti-Semitic slurs, I was more than dismayed.

The source of that depression was twofold. First, given the scope of the damage, the early reports made it sound like an organized group was involved in these unsettling events. And second, the wonderfully sedate and abundantly diverse West Rogers Park neighborhood is the last place I expected this kind of thing to happen.

Thankfully, the Chicago Police swiftly apprehended the disturbed individual responsible for these hates crimes and that’s exactly how he’s been charged.

This sad anti-Semitic tale is exactly why, despite any school board’s best efforts, we need to teach our children about the Holocaust. They need to be able to recognize the early warning signs, because if they don’t, per Mr. Santayana’s terrifying admonition, it might just happen again.

Don’t think that’s a possibility? In the process of writing this piece, a reader reached out to alert me to swastikas being drawn on Geneva High School desk chairs, while one student told another of Jewish descent, “I like to kill Jews.” That student was punished, but I hope the fact that statement was issued in 2002 is as chilling to you as it was to me.

The truth is, it’s become far too easy for our political leaders to turn us against each other and that’s how these kinds of things always start.

Everyone should read “Maus,” because the next thing you know, they’ll come for you!