Foundation 451: Defying DeSantis’ Book Bans

Foundation 451: Defying DeSantis’ Book Bans

Refuse Fascism Episode 145

Sun, Feb 12, 2023 7:58PM • 43:52

Adam Tritt 00:00

The Parental Rights bill states that anyone can challenge a book, no matter where they are. They don’t have to read the book. All they have to do is say it is harmful to children, it hurts their souls, and the book is immediately taken off the shelves in Florida. We have public education for the good of the country so that we can create an educated electorate with critical thinking skills. We should all learn about each other, learn about ourselves and learn about each other. I need to read books about other people like me. They need to read books about people like them. They need to read books about people who aren’t like them. Those are the books they are banning; the books the kids need. Go to the marches. Go out there, get out there, make sure the books are available. We’ll keep doing what we’re doing because direct action is where it’s at.

Sam Goldman 01:03

Welcome to Episode 145 of the Refuse Fascism podcast, a podcast brought to you by volunteers with Refuse Fascism. I’m Sam Goldman, one of those volunteers and host of the show. Refuse Fascism exposes, analyzes, and stands against the very real danger and threat of fascism coming to power in the United States. In today’s episode, we share an interview with Adam Tritt, founder of Foundation 451 named after Fahrenheit 451, a dystopian novel by Ray Bradbury. Foundation 451’s goal is getting banned and challenged books back into the hands of students.

But first, thanks to everyone who goes the extra step and rates and reviews the show on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. Here are two sweet reviews from this past week on Apple podcasts. Keamish Squeamish gives the show five stars, titles that review “A very important podcast” and writes: “Every episode is crucial to my understanding of the alarming scope and depth that fascism has and is poisoning our society.” Impact73 gives the show five stars, titles that review “Epic AF”, and writes: “Thank you for being so engaged, going the extra mile and giving voice to this existential threat in trying times. Prayer hands, peace sign, heart emoji.”

Thanks for those reviews, y’all. If you appreciate the show and want to help us reach more people who want to refuse fascism, be a gem and go write a review and drop five stars wherever you listen to your pods. Please tell the people out there in podcast land why you listen and they should too. Subscribe/follow so you never miss an episode. And of course, keep up all that great commenting and sharing on social media.

I’m eager to share the interview with Adam, but there are just a couple of newsy things I need to touch on. After callously using abortion rights to minimize democratic losses in the midterms, Biden’s State of the Union called for immediate action for abortion rights and delivered a passionate case on the devastation already brought to bear in the seven months since women have become second class citizens. No! Fuck no! Not at all.

As we stand within weeks of Mifepristone and abortion medication being banned nationwide, and the most common method of abortion becoming obsolete — yes, in blue states, too — abortion rights got less than a minute — less than a minute — in Biden’s State of the Union. I highly recommend reading Jessica Valenti’s essay on this, linked in the show notes, and just altogether subscribing to her Substack. We will be talking more, much more, about the dangerous looming ban on medication abortion in coming episodes. Meanwhile, Trump congratulated the House Republicans on their Congressional hearing into Hunter Biden’s laptop.

In reality, the contents of the laptop were inconsequential at best, but in the fascist alternative fact universe, this little machine means so many different things: vindication of Trump’s righteousness in his first impeachment trial; proof of the absolute evil that resides in the hearts of their enemies; “hard evidence” against the Democrats, which big tech and the mainstream media and the deep state is doing everything to quash; implicating all the institutions they love to hate; justifying burning them all down for fascism. And now that the Republicans have the House, all of that has gone beyond Fox News talking heads into official Congressional hearings with potentially very real consequences.

In today’s interview, we bring you to the fascist republic of Florida. We’re on top of Don’t Say Gay and Stop W.O.K.E. bills, last month Governor Ron DeSantis and the Florida Department of Education imposed sweeping bans on books and public schools, both libraries and classrooms, with the threats of felony prosecution. It’s commonplace to see classroom libraries emptied, bookshelves covered. What books can stay and what books go is still being hashed out. But what is clear, what happens in Florida doesn’t stay in Florida. Nor is it meant to.

The attacks on education, on books, the erasure of blackness, the censoring of history, just like the attacks on abortion rights, trans rights and voting rights happening right now in Florida, aren’t designed to stay within its borders, and they’re already spreading. As Moira Donegan for The Guardian reported, “In mid-January DeSantis’ Department of Education issued new guidance to educators, saying that all books that have not been approved by a state compliance censor — euphemistically termed a ‘school media specialist’ — should be concealed or removed from classrooms, because the law deems some books ‘pornographic’ or ‘obscene’. It also creates the possibility that teachers who provide books that feature LGBT content to students could be given third degree felony charges. The guidance prompted teachers in several populous counties to remove books from their classrooms altogether. Photos of bare shelves in classrooms went viral. Other teachers hid the books from students’ view, draping them behind ominous curtains of paper. There were reports of children crying, and begging for their books back.”

Jed Legum reported in his Substack, Popular Info, that they’re expanding the Stop W.O.K.E. Act and Don’t Say Gay to library books. He writes: “Duval County Public Schools, which includes Jacksonville and the surrounding area has enthusiastically embraced the task of complying with DeSantis’ new mandates. Unlike many counties, Duval County Schools initiated a review of books in Duval County Schools months ago, so what’s happening in Duval County may be an early indicator of what’s coming for the rest of the state.”

Many of these reviews, these challenges, really, involve books that were part of the Essential Voices Classroom Library’s collection, a collection that delivers diverse books to classrooms and was purchased by the district in 2021 — books where students see themselves in what they read and learn about others. And lest you forget, DeSantis also announced that he would ban the AP African American studies course, saying it violated his Stop W.O.K.E. Act, and was pushing an agenda on our kids. The College Board, which is responsible for AP courses, almost immediately caved. Its implications are nationwide. Their revisions eliminated instruction in the work of Black feminist thinkers bell hooks, Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, and make the study of the Black Lives Matter movement optional.

What has been added, you might wonder? Well, now the course encourages research into “Black conservativism.” In a statement made on Saturday, the College Board says: “We deeply regret not immediately denouncing the Florida Department of Education’s slander magnified by the DeSantis Administration’s subsequent comments that African American Studies lacks educational value. Our failure to raise our voice betrayed Black scholars everywhere.”

This fascist assault is not limited to K-12 education, as DeSantis has announced an extensive agenda to remake the state’s public universities to ensure higher education “is rooted in the values of Western tradition.” This includes tighter control on faculty hiring and prohibitions on diversity, equity and inclusion programs. With that, now, here’s my conversation with Adam.

A couple of weeks ago now I shared — in, I think it was the intro commentary, maybe it was an outro, I was giving shout-outs to groups in Florida that were taking action, and I mentioned — a mock book burning protest that was organized in Melbourne, Florida. One of the groups that participated was Foundation 451. I am so excited to bring my listeners the founder of this group and a key organizer of this action to talk a little bit more about what’s happening in Florida and the action that people can take to support teachers, students, literacy, justice, democracy.

I am really happy to welcome onto the show Adam Tritt. Welcome, Adam. [AT: Thank you] Before we get into it, can you just start off by telling us a little bit more about yourself? You’re a teacher. How did you get involved?

Adam Tritt 09:55

That happened the middle of May last Year, 2022, when I was told via email that I needed to do three things. One was I needed to take an inventory of everything I was using in my AP English class and send it via email to the Department of Education so that it can be scrutinized by the governor. I said, No. I said that I’ve been asking for years for textbooks for the class, and took a picture of my filing cabinets. And I said: I scrounge everything together that I use for this class, you are welcome to come down here and rifle through these cabinets and look at the things that I use. I never heard back from them.

The other thing was an email about a week later, that told me I needed to take Slaughterhouse Five, and The Kite Runner off of my shelves immediately and not allow access to the students. This is a book that I had to use for my AP classes, Slaughterhouse Five. I didn’t actually use Kite Runner, but don’t tell me I can’t use a book. So I had to remove those books. I had a whole class set of Slaughterhouse Five that we were about to get into for the last little bit of class that we had before we broke. I removed them from the shelves, then I went to the book room and I took all the other copies of Slaughterhouse Five and I stored those in my room too, in case they were going to get weird about it and consign them to the furnace, as has been done with that book before. We don’t actually have furnaces, it’s Florida. But, you know, wood chipper. That’s what the impetus was.

In a state where they continuously tell us how important it is to pay homage, to be thankful to our veterans, they had me take a book by an awarded combat veteran who had survived the firebombing of Dresden and wrote in first person about his experience and his mental break, which is what Slaughterhouse Five really is — it’s a first person narrative — names are changed, but it’s his first person narrative — and I’m supposed to take it off of the shelves because children aren’t supposed to learn about war? And really what it is, they consider it to be anti-Christian, because he discusses the complicity of Christianity in war, and satirizes Christianity. They don’t like the fact that the soldiers curse when they’re shot, because they should just politely grab the affected area and mumble something about, I don’t know, oh, my goodness, I do believe I’ve been shot, yikes. There’s a sex scene in it they don’t like. I’m not sure what would a young soldier traipsing without shoes through the snow dream about when he falls into the snow? And there’s a crudely drawn picture of breasts. [SG: Heaven forbid] Yes, so they had to take it off…

Sam Goldman 12:56

Because no high schooler’s drawing that in their notebooks. No high schooler’s scrawling it on their desks, or on the lockers. [AT: No] No, it’s not there.

Adam Tritt 13:04

Kite Runner, of course, has one paragraph where the main character is raped. That is the prime mover in the story. [SG: Yeah] But to hear them tell it when they went to the school board, the book is nothing but rape scenes from beginning to end and is absolutely prurient and it’s pornographic. Sorry, if you find that scene pornographic, you need help; you need to seek therapy. Those books had to come off the shelf.

I stewed on that for a little while. Unfortunately, my wife was out of town for two days, so I was left unsupervised, and when she came back, I had already hatched a plan for giving these books out over the summer at a festival or two. I asked over Facebook: I need to raise like, I don’t know, 500 bucks. I’ll buy them myself if I need to, but I’m a teacher, please send me a few bucks here and there, or buy some books and send them to me, I’m happy either way, but I’m going to give these books out just because someone needs to give these people the middle finger. I have a long history of direct action starting with Earth First In my earlier days. Obviously, I’ve had quite a few earlier days at this point, and I thought, well, you know, I have an idea what to do. I can do this.

Within a week we had a few thousand bucks. Within a month and a half we had like $20,000 and June 2nd we had our first event, and we gave away 67 books, if I recall. It’s just grown from there. We gave out 120 some-odd books at a 5K and 320 books, I believe, at Pride, 100 some odd books at Juneteenth, 170 books at a Caribbean Heritage Festival. People are hungry for these books. They don’t know they exist because largely they’re not in the schools anymore, and a third of the students, since you don’t have internet access. They’re also attacking the libraries, so you can’t really find them in the libraries much of the time either. A cute little ploy is checking the books out and then never bringing them back again. So, the book is technically on the record as being there, so they can’t purchase another one, but the books don’t exist. That’s how we got started.

Sam Goldman 15:20

It’s so righteous, what you and the people who you’re collaborating with are doing, and a model for so many more people to be taking action. I’m a teacher in Philadelphia, and when I was talking…

Adam Tritt 16:34

I love Philly. [SG: Yeah!] I see, what’s happening just north of you in Bucks [County].

Sam Goldman 15:41

It’s ugly, and it’s right outside of the city. They’re not the only place. I talk to my friends who are just in this Philly bubble, and it’s outside of our cozy home. What’s happening across the state? A lot of us were struck by how there didn’t seem to be, for a while, a lot of resistance, or teachers saying “no.” What we saw was the emptied-out bookshelves, the sad, sad kindergarten libraries with no books, or the sad faces of teachers. There weren’t as many examples of people resisting or people saying no. There was that quote that you had given where you’re talking at this mock book burning in Melbourne, and you said: “You want to ban books, I’m giving them away. You want me to be quiet about it? Give me a megaphone.” I think that spirit of refusal to comply really, really needs to spread — especially when it’s happening in schools and our children are watching and seeing how we respond.

Adam Tritt 16:42

It’s really just oppositional defiance disorder on my part, but it’s a good excuse for me,

Sam Goldman 16:47

That’s a good way to channel it.

Adam Tritt 16:48

It is a socially acceptable way to channel for at least a half of the people here exactly. ones with power, though.

Sam Goldman 16:55

No, no, they are channeling it negatively, and doing great harm. But I just wanted to step back for a minute, when people are looking at these pictures that they see online of the books taken off the shelf, if they’re taking a look and seeing the piles of books that have been confiscated or not confiscated. By logged I guess we’re being challenged, right? Hundreds and hundreds of books, I think tousands of books, actually, that have been marked and deemed verboten. What is this about? There’s what it’s really about. But there’s also what is this part of why is this happening? What compelled both your administrators to say you needed to take these books away? And what is happening recently in the past few months in Florida as it relates to the attacks on education?

Adam Tritt 17:43

I don’t really feel the answer is complex. But the question was complex, there are several parts to it. So I prefer to take it one part at a time. What is instigating this across the United States and not specifically in Florida is wanting to make a particular portion of our population disappear. I will state that I am of the opinion, though I believe this to be true, I believe this is their thought process. It’s okay, if you’re black, as long as you understand that you have to strive to be like the white people. And it’s okay, we understand that you might be gay, just don’t be gay. Be like the white heterosexual males. And if you hide it, it’s fine. Don’t let it out. You must emulate the white heterosexual males, and then you’re fine.

So they want to make these people disappear. A good way to make something disappear, is to take away the representation. Take away anything that could wake a student up. And in this way, they will also be shoring up their voting base. I know students do not know these books exist because you don’t have internet access. Even if you do you don’t get on Amazon and say I wonder what books might strike me as being necessary for me to find who I am. There’s no button on Amazon for tell me who I am.

I’ll give you two short stories. By the way, parents are always there when we give our books away. The one of their battle cries was parental choice, parental choice. So they come to our tables and they watch us and the parents come up with their kids and they choose the books together and they scream that’s pornographic. That’s pornography, that’s pornography. Even a book like Feminist Baby because the feminist baby doesn’t like pants and your one year old baby button. That’s sexualizing children? You really you think so? I think you should seek professional assistance. If you believe a one year old baby buddy sexualizing children, we are not the ones with a problem.

Sam Goldman 19:39

Right? You are the one sexualizing children. Yeah, every representation of someone without some clothes on is sexual. Then you’d need help.

Adam Tritt 19:49

And they trot out the same little pictures a little frames, and I discussed with them Miller versus California 1973 Tall Tree School District and v Pike in 1982, which says students have First Amendment rights to books that go against the common thoughts of the community. So they have access to these ideas. The committee doesn’t have to agree with the book for it to be within First Amendment rights. That 1973 decision that has the Craven Miller test. It’s where we get Potter Stewart, the Supreme Court Justice. This was a right leaning court with Burger as the Chief. Justice Potter Stewart is paraphrased. My job was much more legalese than this. But he has paraphrases saying, I don’t know how to define pornography, but I know it when I see it. And this isn’t it.

So according to the Miller test, as defined by that court, if the book has value, as literary or as science or as art or because it’s not confined just to literature, outside of the one passage or the passages that have to do with sexuality, it passes if the passage itself is necessary for the book, part two, part three, the passage nor the book itself is designed to excite or titillate sexually, then it is literature and opera geography. And certainly the Kite Runner passes that. Feminist Baby passes that The Handmaid’s Tale passes that. They come over to the tables, and they see that parents are there, and they scream pornography, and then I will walk up to them. And I’ll say, you said the problem was parental rights. These parents are here with their kids, it is their right, I’m giving you what you want, go away.

They do not like that. By doing this, they are shoring up their voting base, they are giving their voting base, something that they can latch on to and feel that this is being done for the good of God and country for whatever it else is that they pretend to actually believe in hypocritically. They’re giving them this, and they are going to vote for them. Because they’ve done this. They want to claim that they are going to come into office and get rid of CRT well done, because it was never there. But they claim it’s done. While they have voters.

That’s the second reason they do this. Black people don’t have to go away, gay people don’t have to go away, they do have to be quiet, then they have to be back like they are are wish to be acknowledged that white heterosexual is the way they’re supposed to be. Just be quiet about who you are. And then make sure you vote for the right people. That’s why I feel this is being done. It’s doesn’t save children out to quote, The remain reason they give for getting rid of these books is it damages children’s souls, they don’t have to read the book, all they have to do is say it is harmful to children. It hurts their souls. And the book is immediately taken off the shelves in Florida.

Sam Goldman 22:50

Who is deeming what hurts children’s souls?

Adam Tritt 22:54

Any individual, you don’t have to be a parent, you don’t have to even be in Florida, the parental rights bill states that anyone can challenge a book no matter where they are. I’m okay with the fact that non- parents can come into a school, look at the library, see what’s appropriate, what’s not appropriate, although that should be the area of the media specialist, the librarian, but the media specialist is also a curriculum specialist. And they should be the arbiter of what is and is not appropriate. They know better than I do. They know better than the parents do.

School is not for the child. I get called on that all the time. But go back to the founding fathers for whatever difficulties they had. We have public education for the good of the country so that we can create an educated electorate with critical thinking skills, so we can make sure that we can not only have our democracy, about as Franklin said, we can keep it, we’re losing it now through lack of critical thinking skills. It is not for the parents. It’s not for the individual child. I understand at this point, really many schools are there so parents can go out and work. But it’s not why the schools were developed there for the good of the entire community.

That is why people who don’t have kids still pay part of their property taxes for schools, more and more people are renting and that’s not their fault. I’ll say it’s capitalism’s fault, but they’re not even paying taxes in and I’m all for revamping the system. So everyone somehow gives their fair share for schools that we all should have a say. They want to say that it’s up to them what goes in the schools, but they’re not the only people paying for the schools to retire if the block is paying for the schools, the lesbian couple down the street that don’t have kids and the gay couple that does, they’re all paying for the schools. We’re all paying for the schools. It’s not there for the parents to say what their own kid should and should not be reading.

Now, maybe they can speak for their own child, but Moms for Liberty started as a group. Their catchphrase was “We do not co-parent with the government” to fight the schools. We’re mandating masks. Okay, we said, your kid doesn’t need to wear a mask. That goes a bit against the science, but your kid doesn’t need to wear a mask. That’s fine. You want your kid to wear pants. Let’s take it to this ridiculous extreme whatever. Other kids still have to wear a mask. So they were okay with that. Now they’re flipping it now I get to tell your kids what to do. I don’t like Slaughterhouse Five your kids can’t read it. I don’t like Forever by Judy Blume. No children can read it, take it off of the shelves. And that’s what’s happening.

Now all through the United States, challenges are immediate bans. They argue that with me, I give them the definition of the word ban. It’s an exclusion, it is removed from circulation, it is no longer allowed access to. That’s how a ban is defined. A book is challenged, it’s removed from the shelf, that’s a ban. A book is challenged and it goes to a review committee, they start to look at it, that’s fine still on the shelf in the meantime, that’s a challenge. I’m all for that. Let’s do that. But they don’t do that. And they got rid of review committees in our county, at least in many other counties. So they’re not even reviewing the books at this point.

Sam Goldman 26:13

They’re just stripping the books away. They’re saying that they’re “unvetted”, but all of them are unvetted. Therefore, they’re all banned.

Adam Tritt 26:20

They intentionally got rid of the review committee, they postponed it. There’s no time to bring indefinitely. Yes. And they have passed a rule that they will allow on the committee, a media specialist, but these specialists will no longer have a vote. Only the proxy of the school board member will have a vote. Thus, if it’s two to three, the committee is still going to be two to three. The media specialists the ones that actually know about these books will not have a vote. Now it gets worse. The state has not banned books, the state does have the “stop woke” parental rights law, “don’t say gay,” as it’s been called, that says we can’t use certain materials. So 1619 Project I can’t use it is a whole bunch of books I can’t use but they’re not banned. Only materials in it are banned. So I feel like maybe show them the cover this as far as that will go

Sam Goldman 27:08

So ludicrous. It is. It would it would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous.

Adam Tritt 27:13

And the textbook I am using has Taneheisi Coates in it. Yeah. But Coates was just taken out of the AP curriculum.

Sam Goldman 27:22

Along with so many other important scholars African American studies. bell hooks, it hurts me that bell hooks was taken. It hurts me that Robin DG Kelley was taken, that Barbara Ransby was taken … so many great books.

Adam Tritt 27:37

So the state doesn’t particularly ban books, Hillsborough County, across the state, that’s Tampa and St. Petersburg. On the Gulf Coast, they reviewed this book as gay. They said under no circumstances does this book have any pedophilia in it. It does not promote being gay, any more than a book with a heterosexual character promotes being heterosexual. This is not in here. There’s no prurience in here. And one of our elected leaders from Tallahassee stepped in and said, No, I want the minutes. I want all of your notes. I will not stand for this. That was three days ago. So it’s okay for the school boards to make these decisions as long as they agree with the fascist the politicians up in Tallahassee as long as they are in agreement when students are not in agreement, the hammer comes down. That’s where we are now.

Sam Goldman 28:31

Any agreement needs to be in line with white cis genedered Christian? Yeah. Did I say male dominance?

Adam Tritt 28:41

Yes, I think that’s accurate. Yes.

Sam Goldman 28:43

I think that the action that you most recently did might not have been your most recent action. But the one that we learned about, I think had such impact in people’s minds and hearts because it made the stakes clear and what the implications are of what starts with banning books and where that heads and where that leads. And this is not a new path. That’s a well worn path. And it’s an extremely ominous one.

And now when I was reflecting on what you were saying about they want populations to disappear from the pages of books because they want them to disappear. In reality. I think that there’s the important for young people to see themselves in books and to see others that are unlike them, how we build empathy through the most empathetic people, you know, I always think are the deep readers of fiction that have windows into all these different people’s lives that are nothing like themselves. It’s why people can learn about things that are outside their neighborhood or outside their block. They can also envision a different way that the world can be we often think about like the stripping away of history and the indoctrination of children and lies, which is true. It’s absolutely true and horrific. There’s also the stripping away of imagination and envisioning a world that could be just

Adam Tritt 30:07

Well we know that the less fiction we read, the less compassionate we are, the less we can understand where other people are coming from. And it’s vitally important in a pluralistic culture, as pluralistic as ours is, that we understand where other people are coming from. On my way to New York to be on the Tamron Hall Show I read, because I was going to be on with Johnson, All Boys Aren’t Blue. And I thought, Oh, crap, the books I haven’t read yet. So I read it on the way. It’s a wonderful book, it’s read so smoothly, I always want to talk about their writing style.

First of all, it just reads so smoothly. So calmly, it’s a joy to read, but what they’re talking about is not necessarily joyful. And I realized that some of their experiences, it’s first time experience, other people have had experiences like that gay, straight, otherwise, the experiences have been similar experience with views, harassment. Okay, I recognize those. It doesn’t matter that Johnson is gay, and that I’m not. I recognize this experience. Now, let’s say I didn’t understand that we’re all the same. This would help me understand that this, would help anyone understand. We’re not all that different. And why shouldn’t a white kid learn about black kids like that, or a black kid learn that they’re not the only person having this experience.

We should all learn about each other, learn about ourselves, learn about each other, I need to read books about other people like me, they need to read books about people like them, they need to read books about people aren’t like them. So we realize that there are differences and those differences can be celebrated. There are similarities, and we’re not that different. We’d be a better country. Again, that does not help promote an atmosphere of us, in them and us in them and divisiveness helps create fear. Fear generates votes. So it’s necessary to keep us divided and sanctioned. And it certainly work in the country as vulcanizing, as you are aware.

Sam Goldman 32:05

I think even beyond votes, although I am not discounting that element. It’s true. I think that there’s also the reality that if you want people to go along with the shredding of civil rights, the shredding of democratic rights, you can’t have them in the pages. You can’t promote and propel genocidal white supremacist program and have books and ideas that celebrate blackness and anti racism. You can’t go after in the most vicious ways against women, against LGBTQ people and have classrooms rich in examinations of issues of round identity and patriarchy. So I think that this is part of the stew as I call the fascist laboratory that is Florida under Ron DeSantis. his tutelage. It’s the stew that he’s soaking folks in.

Adam Tritt 33:01

There’s a beautiful book, it’s in a van ready to go out to the next distribution called Frybread. We try to make sure everyone…

Sam Goldman 33:09

Oh good, it’s my classroom. Yeah. So

Adam Tritt 33:13

you know the page that got it banned. As you know fry bread is smell fry bread is history. Fry Bread is tastes fry bread, is heritage and one page Frybread is our story or something like that the strangers on the land, the having to make do with foods that we have never had before having to adapt? Oh, colonialization. Oh, we can’t have that. Bam, that book

Sam Goldman 33:39

You have given out how many do you estimate?

Adam Tritt 33:43

As of yesterday, 1228.

Sam Goldman 33:50

Amazing.

Adam Tritt 33:52

We’re just getting started. Someone gifted us with a trailer yesterday. My home was full of books. I mean, other than my own library, our home was full of books. We couldn’t get down the hallway. It’s a 900 square foot home. And 600 square feet of it was books. So now they’re in the little trailer, like my dream home, except they’re all in crates, and boxes because they come from purchases from the money that’s donated.

They come from the publishers, they come from authors, they come from bookstores and send them to us whole classroom libraries are sent to us now because the laws are so vague. Teachers don’t know what they can and can’t teach. So they’re clearly getting rid of the classroom libraries and sending them to me to give away and we do we keep the banned books, the non banned books, we distribute to little free libraries. So we make sure they all go the way they need to go to if anyone wants to donate the libraries.

We have a program here called Little Black Book Club. So books with Black authors, Nlack characters, they go to Little Black Book Club, they’re given out several times a year so we make sure they will get to good homes, but they were all transported around in my tiny little Kia Soul. I’ve a black Soul as many people will tell you — transported in that and we added the roof rack and we added the tray on the back. And then it was like, oh, no, we can’t do this anymore. It’s taken me an hour to load the car and we’re driving 25 miles per hour to make sure things don’t fall off. So we were gifted a trailer yesterday.

Sam Goldman 35:17

That’s incredible. What can listeners do to join your efforts?

Adam Tritt 35:22

They can send books, and we’re certainly not too proud. I’ve been taught this, you can’t be too proud to ask for money. It’s how we function. We want to end up with a band wagon, b a n n e d wagon, eventually with a mobile library. So we can do quick in and out things like setting up outside the yearly Moms for Liberty meeting. There are children’s homes, orphanages, with 8, 10, 12 kids, they want us to come there. And we want to with something like that we could do that we could just come in, we’re already set up.

That’s a long term goal. Money. We have a GoFundMe, we have a PayPal, that’s how we operate. There’s no salaries. I mean, this is a full time job on top of my full time job. My wife’s a church administrator. By the way, most of our little free libraries have been set up at churches, it’s really is not a religious thing as they might have you believe. It’s a very critical thing, maybe an evangelical thing, but it’s not a church religious thing. We use money to set up little free libraries. Sometimes we build them ourselves. Sometimes we purchase them, but we set them in the ground we stock them. That’s another thing that we do. And all of this is done with donations.

Sam Goldman 36:38

And for people in Florida who want to volunteer help with distribution, they should go to your website,

Adam Tritt 36:45

Absolutely go to our website. We are building the website. Now. They can go to the website, they can go to our Facebook site as well. They can certainly get in touch with us that way.

Sam Goldman 36:56

And is there anything else that you feel that people should be doing right now to stand up against?

Adam Tritt 37:04

I would say go to meetings, Moms for Liberty states that we are doing this the wrong way. We should be going to school board meetings and oh, we have video. We are at school board meetings. We are there. This is all baloney on their part, I believe they should be voting. Unfortunately, our last election here was extremely small turnout, when you consider the small turnout. And then you look at the individual races 6% voted in the school board races. We voted in two Moms for :iberty and a member of the Proud Boys. We now have a four to one majority in their direction. In most cases, a three to two in some cases 6% voted.

I know people who didn’t vote> I want to wring their necks, you know, they want to complain, but they don’t vote. Voting is certainly not all a person should do. Thoreau told us to vote with your whole person, not merely a slip of paper. So I would say go to the marches. Go out there, get out there, make sure the books are available. You want to buy some of these books, buy some of them, bring them to a children’s home, you know an orphanage bring them there. They need the books, go to your local library and offer to purchase books for them to put on the shelves. Are there any books that are technically here, but they’re not here? May I purchase some for you? Yes, they’re going to disappear.

We need to keep doing it. Put up a little free library, go to littlefreelibrary.org. Put up a little free library in your yard. Find a church that wants to put one up, just get together with 10 friends each gives 50 bucks to put in stock. The whole thing is doable. That’s what we should be doing. We should be getting these out there. Because the access to a broad range of ideas should not be available only to people with money and internet access and transportation. We had a young lady come to our table. She saw the book Crank which is banned in our county. She looks at it she puts it down. Another woman came over picked up the book and said “this book saved my life.” Those are the books they are banning, the books kids need. The girl came over to our table four times. She picked up this book, put it down when someone came over, came back, picked it up. Someone came over she went away. She came back when the table was empty. Someone came over and this happened again and again. Fourth time she just picks up another book and walks away. She came back when the table was empty and whispered in my ear I changed his book for this one. Of course you can do whatever you want. And she just cried. Every one of our students gets two free books, adults we asked for donations. As Marge Piercy put it, it’s how we go on. Give if you can, if you can’t give find the books and get them out there. If you can’t do that, at least vote.

Sam Goldman 40:01

I want to thank you so much, Adam, for sharing your experience for sharing the work that you’re doing with us for sharing your perspective and insight. And if there was anything that we didn’t touch on that you just wanted to add, here’s the time.

Adam Tritt 40:16

Fascism is evil. America has a history of being anti-Fascist. So we are far from perfect. We have had that history. We are backpedaling on that now as if anti-fascism is actually somehow a bad thing. And Nazis are okay, no, as an American as a Jew? No, no way in hell, we’ll keep doing what we’re doing because direct action is where it’s at.

Sam Goldman 40:43

As much as it’s worth mentioning, the anti-fascist strain of American history, it is worth mentioning that the US joined the fight against the Nazis and the fascists axis 80 years ago, and that many individuals from this country have contributed to the fight against fascism. It’s worth conceptualizing with the fascist and proto-fascist history of the United States. We’re going up against genocide and slavery at the foundation of this country that so inspired Hitler himself, the Confederacy and Klan, which pioneered the organized tenets of fascism, Jim Crow, repeated red scares, Japanese internment, the deep and widespread support for Hitler and Mussolini and their ilk, which very clearly could have won the day in the 30s. And so much more.

Because if we’re to defeat a fascist America, we have to recognize reality as it is to change it. Thanks for listening to Refuse Fascism. We want to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, ideas for topics or guests. We hope to do our first episode dedicated to your questions really soon. You can tweet me @SamBGoldman, drop me a line at SamanthaGoldman@refusefascism.org. Or leave a voicemail by visiting anchor.fm forward slash refused dash fascism and hitting the Message button.

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Thanks to Richard Marini. Lina Thorne and Mark Tinkleman for helping produce this episode. Thanks for incredible volunteers. You have transcripts available for each episode, so be sure to visit, refuse fascism.org and sign up to get them in your inbox. We’ll be back next Sunday. Until then, in the name of humanity, we refuse to accept a fascist America