I keep wondering where we’ve gone. My community of kidlit activists, my Diversity JEDI (Cynthia Leitich Smith, 2015) is scattered.  I don’t know if I’m the first to reflect on this publicly, I know I’ve lamented with several friends about the loss I feel. No flowers, no celebratory dinner, or a ‘thank you for your service’, we’ve moved on. We  haven’t not giving up but, things have changed. The people I’m closest to consider our reward to be the fruits of our labor, not the tangible signs of gratitude, though those things probably could exist as a form of communal care. But, that’s not where I’m going with this post today! I’m considering where ‘diversity’ has gone.

Twitter’s evolution to X certainly played a part in this, but maybe there was also a shift somewhere in our culture about the same time? We seem to have moved to less public communication in private Facebook or Slack while trolling has only intensified.

We have gone elsewhere because our work has changed. Didn’t it feel like the presence of marginalized creators was just beginning to happen in children’s literature? BIPOC imprints are still nascent occurrences, and queer stories finally overcome stifling tropes. Changes in publishing? Not so much. Major literacy and library organizations implementing rather than addressing equity and in inclusion in their policies and practices? Not really. Has all the misrepresentation disappeared from the stories our young people read? I doubt it.

Was Covid the sole impetus of this shift away from what was being addressed, and how did it do that?

I can only speak from my own experience. I am still on X, but because of how I’ve chosen to use my time and because of how that platform uses its algorithms, my tweets are rarely seen, and I rarely see any that address issues around diversity and representation in libraries or literature. The structure of Instagram is different so between it, and X’s algorithms, we’re not connecting.

This shift, whatever caused it, has moved our work for equity and inclusion forward in much the same way the work of activists in youth literature were transitioned during the Reagan era. Then, after BIPOC authors were final being published in more meaningful numbers, groups were organized to challenge and censor their books. Now, our work is again being transitioned to keep these books in libraries so that we can maintain the little progress we’ve made. In 2024, we can’t continue tolerating one step forward and two steps back.

Libraries are the largest purchaser of books. If they can’t purchase LGBTQIA+ or BIPOC author books, why would publishers continue to print them? With published not having advanced their hiring practices to be more inclusive, who’s there to champion the possibilities that still exist for marginalized books? Who’s there to fight the battle to maintain ways for these stories to be told? The loss of intellectual freedom has seeped into teaching and learning in ways that limit whose truth can be told. How can we value a group of people if we don’t value their stories, or if we can’t hear their voices?

Nowm y work is more focused inside my library and on my research. I’m building a community of Black reviewers to uplift our books and I’ve got a few other things on the horizon I can’t mention just yet. I’m still looking at the dehumanization perpetuated by anthropomorphic simians in picture books. (Why do those images even continue?) I’m actually writing more than I have in quite a while but, I’m also considering candidates in my local elections, looking for ways for academic librarians to be part of the anti book ban movement, as well as trying to keep up with what’s happening with the book bans. I read and review banned books, and add them to the free little libraries around town. The university library where I work doesn’t have to worry about challenges, but my public library does. My local school system does. I’m cishet, but there are children in my community who are not. There are also children in my community who like me are cishet but who want to understand what it means to be queer. Banning books may seem like it doesn’t affect me directly, but it does. It limits one of my fundamental freedoms, and by reducing the information available in my community, it limits the ability of young people to learn to question, analyze, and evaluate information. It narrows the thoughts and considerations of future voters.  Democracy can’t afford that.

We have to realize this is about more than the books; this work is always about more than the books. Reducing the information young people receive in what they read to a single story will create another generation of citizens ensconced in systems of oppression. Consider this: the young people voting in November were 11 when the United States elected its 45^th president. All they’ve seen is a manufactured divisiveness not only in our government, but in our society. Consider the types of leadership they’ve seen at the national level.

Social media has shifted from voices from a community of activists to a solitary and well celebrated voice of joy. That can work by reminding millions that Black people do read books, can write books, and will even buy them, but as we move forward, we have to realize it’s the same fight, the same song, to a different tune. Don’t think these book bans in public libraries in IN, GA, or TX aren’t about you because they are. Resisting them allows us to maintain the few gains we have made.

Yes indeed, same song different tune and feeling a bit more isolated.