This interview has been edited for readability, size, and stream.
George M. Johnson is the New York Instances bestselling creator of All Boys Aren’t Blue in addition to We Are Not Damaged. Johnson is an completed journalist who has written about race, sexuality, gender, HIV activism, and different topics for each U.S. and worldwide shops. In chatting with Day by day Kos throughout a cellphone interview in March, Johnson shared that their debut, All Boys Aren’t Blue, tells the story of what it was prefer to develop up being Black and queer in a Black household that understood and supported their queerness, even when they didn’t at all times have the language.
Even earlier than conservative ebook bans swept the nation, Johnson’s work earned severe accolades—it’s good, authentic, and deeply transferring. Johnson recalled receiving letters, emails, and playing cards from readers who stated their ebook modified their lives.
“I believe the oldest individual I received an e-mail from is both 82 or 88 years previous,” Johnson recalled. “Who stated that is the primary time they’d been seen in a ebook. While you’re getting that kind of messaging from so many individuals on the earth, you realize that you simply created one thing that’s not simply deeply impactful however is a change agent. The ebook is shifting tradition. And the way do we all know that? As a result of we’re watching them assault.”
And assault they’re. Republicans are fully up in arms a couple of huge variety of books, virtually solely by LGBTQ+ writers and writers of shade, and Johnson’s has been a specific favourite of adults to learn from very selective passages in school board conferences. Why? As at all times, to fan hysteria.
Johnson says they initially laughed after they heard All Boys Aren’t Blue was going through a ban, as they figured it could be banned in some unspecified time in the future.
“I first discovered about All Boys Aren’t Blue trying to be banned in Kansas Metropolis, Missouri,” they referred to as. “It was round late September, early October … Somebody on Twitter notified me that there was somebody working for varsity board who was utilizing my ebook as their platform as to why he wanted to be on the college board to forestall books like that from getting too younger adults.”
Plenty of conservatives have argued All Boys Aren’t Blue is inappropriate for younger readers by describing select scenes as pornographic or obscene. The ebook, the truth is, is just not pornography. It does embrace passages about sexual abuse … a topic that youngsters and younger adults can study safely by, you realize, studying. And never simply studying no matter random factor they discover on the web, however a ebook that’s been extensively praised by editors, lecturers, and librarians—you realize, precise specialists in what’s acceptable for the age group they work with.
However Johnson is aware of the actual cause ebook bans are occurring. And based on them, it’s the identical cause Roe v. Wade is underneath assault, in addition to the Voting Rights Act and demanding race idea.
“It’s just because for the primary time,” Johnson defined, “those that are in energy are watching the demographics of this nation shifted being extra non-white.” They went on to clarify it’s a “ploy” to maintain the “ideology of white supremacy within the nation down in it. And so how do you try this? You must begin the place youngsters are indoctrinated with the white supremacist ideology and that is the case via Twelfth-grade training.”
Johnson’s recommendation for individuals who really feel this could’t or gained’t occur of their progressive city or state? Don’t get too snug—as an alternative, get energetic as an advocate. Johnson implores folks to acknowledge their privilege after which use that privilege to verify folks within the state over are additionally assured those self same protections and alternatives.
On the time of writing, All Boys Aren’t Blue has been banned from public colleges and libraries in not less than 15 states. Although the case has since been dismissed, a college board member within the Flagler County college district even filed a legal criticism and accused the ebook of violating obscenity legal guidelines.
Signal the petition: Demand the Senate go the Equality Act and defend the LGBTQ group from discrimination.
*Be aware: Johnson makes use of they/them pronouns, so when discussing their work within the feedback, please be aware of honoring their pronouns. Thanks!
