Obama takes heat for praising librarians who've peddled 'banned books'

Former President Barack Obama has caught heat over his declaration of support for librarians who have been working hard "on the front lines" to peddle and protect so-called banned books.

His letter of support comes amidst efforts by conservatives and parental groups to protect children from pornographic, racist, and propagandizing literature in school libraries and classrooms.

Obama shared the letter to social media Monday, noting that some of the books "being challenged" had "shaped" his life, adding "It's no coincidence that these 'banned books' are often written by or feature people of color, indigenous people, and members of the LGBTQ+ community."

Two of the "banned books" Obama may have been referencing, which now face restrictions in certain school districts around the country, are Maia Kobabe's "Gender Queer" and Susan Kuklin's "Beyond Magenta."

The former covers "the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears," and contains illustrations depicting and describing oral sex and masturbation.

The latter, "Beyond Magenta," describes teens' experiences undergoing sex-change mutilations and hormone therapies and reportedly features "descriptions of children performing sex acts with adults."

Obama characterized the efforts to restrict the circulation of certain books as driven by an impulse "to silence, rather than engage, rebut, learn from or seek to understand views that don't fit our own."

This appears to be an about-face for Obama, who just last April told an audience at Stanford University that more should be done by social media companies to clamp down on undesirable speech.

"Content moderation can limit the distribution of clearly dangerous content, it doesn’t go far enough," said Obama. "People are dying because of misinformation."

The former president, whose administration discriminated against hundreds of conservative groups and cracked down on journalists, suggested that prohibitions on books are "profoundly misguided" and that "not only is it important for young people from all walks of life to see themselves represented in the pages of books, but it's also important for all of us to engage with different ideas and points of view."

Intimating that the pressure is on because foreign nations are looking to America's leadership on cultural deregulation, Obama thanked librarians for their alleged "unwavering commitment to the freedom to read."

In a subsequent post, Obama directed people to the American Library Association's "Unite Against Book Bans" — a campaign to circumvent the will of parents and the broader demos as a means to ensure problematic literature remains on library and classroom bookshelves.

Libs of TikTok responded to Obama's glorification of librarians, writing, "When they accuse of 'banning books' they're referring to graphic books containing pornographic content offered to kids in schools across the country. For some reason, they never show examples from the books. ... Why does Obama want your kids to read porn like this in school?"

Courage Is A Habit, a parent group focused on combating "indoctrination in K-12," similarly highlighted some of the "obscene" books, the removal of which from school libraries Obama might regard as "misguided."

The Twitter account associated with the Being Libertarian Substack wrote, "Funny invoking the 1st Amendment now but not during the past 3 years when the government unprecedentedly censored anyone questioning the government line on COVID."

Conservative commentator Dinesh D'Souza asked the former president on Twitter whether his life "was shaped by books" about deviant acts, adding, "Do elaborate!"

Fox News Digital reported that Obama, whose administration set a record for censoring or refusing to release government records, has also kicked off a TikTok campaign defending so-called banned books and will feature in a series of videos promoting books in defiance of "profoundly misguided" restriction efforts.