October 1–7, 2023, is Banned Books Week, a week that “was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in libraries, bookstores, and schools.” Last year, Ashley Hope Pérez’s Out of Darkness was the 9th most challenged book. Out of Darkness debuted in 2015, and it went seven years without a ban or challenge. However, amidst the spate of book challenges that arose in 2021, Out of Darkness became a target, being banned, as Pérez herself notes, “in at least 29 school districts across the country” as of December 2022. This semester, I included Out of Darkness in my Banned Books syllabus for a few reasons. One of the main reasons, for me, was the proximity of the New London school explosion in 1937 to my hometown in Northeast Louisiana. As I read Pérez’s novel, I kept thinking about the region that raised me.

We know, as Pérez points out as well, that the argument that a book contains “sexually explicit content” sits on the surface of book bannings, yet “[w]hat distinguishes the targeted titles, though, is not their sexual content but that they overwhelmingly center the experiences of BIPOC, LGBTQ+ and other marginalized people.” This move excludes individuals not just from the school library but it sends “a powerful message of exclusion” not just saying that these books don’t belong in the library but that anyone who has the same background or identity doesn’t belong in the public square.

The challenges and bannings of Out Of Darkness began when Kara Bell spoke at a school board meeting in Austin, Texas in 2021. Bell took the meeting, which was focused on COVID-19, off the rails during her public comment period. She read a passage from Out of Darkness where “The Gang,” which is embodied consciousness of the community, discusses sexual acts with Naomi. Her male classmates see her and talk about the ways that want to sexually assault her. Instead of focusing on the boy’s comments on sexually assaulting Naomi in various ways, Bell zeroes in on the use of the phrase “put it in her cornhole.” Bell says she had to look up what “cornhole” means, and she rants about the fact that she does not want her kids to learn about anal sex, and she adamantly proclaims that she has never had anal sex. Whether or not Bell has had anal sex is neither here nor there. The main point rests on the fact that Bell centers on the reference to anal sex and not on the misogynistic and abusive comments of the male members of “The Gang.” Bell continues by stating, “I don’t want my children to learn about anal sex in middle school.”

At issue here is not whether or not Bell wants her middle schoolers, or anyone else, to learn about anal sex. Rather, her focus on this aspect of “The Gang’s” comments takes away from the main thrust of the passage, the racism and misogyny that the boys put onto Naomi. While the girls in “The Gang” look at Naomi as competition, the boys look at her sexually, thinking about all of the ways they can assault her. They view her as hyspersexual, playing into the hypsersexualized Latina stereotype, and they imagine the things they will do to her behind the school. They, like Naomi’s stepfather Henri, think about sex with Naomi and consent does not appear in their thoughts. Instead, they dream of ways to sexually assault her.

There are others scenes in Out of Darkness that one could call “sexually explicit content” like the scenes where Henri sexually abuses Naomi. Yet, Bell focused on this scene, a scene that depicts a group of high school boys buying into misogyny and the belief that they can do anything to a woman, especially if the woman is not white. Along with the thoughts of sexually assaulting Naomi, the scene contains issues of race because “The Gang” thinks that a boy may catch a disease if he has sex with a Mexican girl and the section ends with “The Gang” wondering “could Mexicans blush?”

Pérez notes that “books with sexual content” that focuses on “white, straight characters” fill libraries as well, yet they are not under attack. Off the top of my head, I think about Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary or even Kate Chopin’s The Awakening, the former published serially in 1856–1857 and containing a scene where we see, implicitly, Madame Bovary having sex with Léon in a carriage. We see the carriage shake and her hand fall out of the carriage. Along with this, the novel was initially condemned for its depictions of adultery. The same could be said for Chopin’s novel. However, these novels do not face banning in school libraries.

Out of Darkness faces challenges and bans because of its frank depiction of racial violence and what it teaches us about our history. Sex serves as a convenient smoke screen to not deal with the acts of racial violence, through sexual assault and lynching, that occur in Out of Darkness. As Pérez puts it, “Claims about ‘sexual content’ are a pretext for erasing the stories that tell Black, Latinx, queer and other non-dominant kids that they matter and belong. Beyond telegraphing disapproval, book bans serve the interests of groups that have long sought to dismantle public education and shut down conversations about important issues.”

I have my issues with Out of Darkness, yes, and some of the scenes even made me uncomfortable. However, I could say the same about Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye or other books that I read. Our discomfort should serve as the basis for challenging books. Discomfort really lies at the heart of book challenges and bans. It’s not the supposed discomfort that a middle school or high school reader may encounter. Rather, it’s the discomfort of the person bringing the challenge. It’s the discomfort that arises from the fear of having to look at oneself or one’s history and confront what stares back at the individual. This discomfort lies at the heart of all of this.

Literature makes us uncomfortable. All good art makes us uncomfortable. It does that to teach us. It does that to spark empathy within us. I have never experienced sexual assault or racial discrimination. Books, like Out of Darkness or The Bluest Eye, provide me with a way to educate myself on these issues and to understand how individuals who have experienced these things feel. Books also help me understand the world around me in various ways. I always think about James Baldwin’s quote when he said, “You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” Books connect us. They cause us to reflect. They cause us to confront ourselves. They cause us to expand our understanding of the world around us. When you limit access to books, especially access to books that highlight the stories of marginalized individuals, you tell those individuals that they don’t matter and that their stories don’t matter either. Is this the message we want to send? Empathically, I say, “NO!”

What are your thoughts? As always, let me know in the comments below. Make sure to follow me on Twitter @silaslapham.