Elise Gravel blacklisted.
No, definitely, we can’t get used to these words, which should never have come together.
Yet this is what is happening in the United States. The book that this Quebec star of children’s literature wrote and illustrated (in collaboration with Mykaell Blais), Pink, blue and you !, has been the target of censorship calls in several US states.
The case had such an impact that the elected members of the National Assembly adopted, at the beginning of February, a motion presented by Manon Massé to condemn the fate reserved for this book by our neighbors to the South.
What happened is deeply disturbing.
But what is even more so is that the attacks on Elise Gravel’s book are only the tip of the iceberg.
In a country renowned for its witch hunts, the censors have never done anything but sharpen their knives. They go on the offensive regularly, for a long time.
But in recent years, many have noticed that censorship is progressing more rapidly, like an oil stain that sullies an ever-widening literary territory.
It’s dramatic.
The situation is such that some bookstores are responding by offering a selection of books that have been censored in schools and public libraries.
When you find yourself in front of such a display, in a big American city, you practically have to pinch yourself to be sure that you are not dreaming.
The organization PEN America recently provided an update on the situation. In a report titled Banned in the USAshe reports that more than 2,500 censorship cases were reported in the twelve months from July 2021 to June 2022.
We are talking here more specifically about books removed from school libraries or classes, or even withdrawn from circulation while an investigation lasts following “challenges from parents, educators, administrators, members of school boards. administration or by virtue of laws passed by legislative assemblies”.
Because, yes, many American politicians now take pleasure in becoming censors.
The cases cited by PEN America affect a grand total of 1,648 works. And these are, it must be said, only those that have been reported to the organization or whose ban has generated media coverage.
No less than 138 school districts have been affected, in 32 states. This represents 5049 schools, where there are nearly 4 million students.
What’s equally mind-blowing is that there are notable works of literature on the blacklisted book list. Like certain titles by Toni Morrison, who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in the early 1990s; The Heart Catcher by JD Salinger; 1984 by George Orwell or Mausthis brilliant graphic novel by Art Spiegelman about the Holocaust.
In adversity, Elise Gravel is definitely… in good company.
Let’s take a look at the content of the book Pink, Blue, and You! (this is its title in English) by Elise Gravel. It’s essentially a little book that’s both didactic and entertaining about gender identity.
We wonder in particular about the prejudices according to which pink is for girls and blue for boys. Or the idea that “girls play with dolls” and that “trousers are for boys”.
We also insist on the fact that “our sex does not define who we are”, through the characters drawn by Elise Gravel.
“When I was born they said I was a girl, but I’m a boy,” said one. “I don’t really feel like a boy or a girl. I just wanna be me,” said another. “When I was born, they said I was a boy and I am a boy,” says yet another.
This is exactly the kind of content that irritates the most radical fringe of conservatives in the United States.
The books that are the subject of calls for censorship are, in majority, works that address “LGBTQ + themes” or issues related to racism, or that contain racialized or LGBTQ + central characters, according to PEN America.
It is paradoxical, but in a country that attaches so much importance to freedom of expression and for which the first amendment to the Constitution – which protects it – is almost sacred, the thought police are gaining ground.
The American delirium is accentuated.
It should be clear, however, that “culture of banishment” and “American democracy” are also not words that should be found together.