Why Stories Matter with Jim Hodnett.
Listen to our interview and read his full article below.
You won’t want to miss my conversation with Jim Hodnett, where we discuss the power of storytelling in fostering empathy, confronting fear, and pushing back against book bans. Jim’s article, Why Stories Matter, dives deep into his personal journey, the importance of representation, and the alarming rise in book censorship. He highlights how stories can shape understanding, empower marginalized voices, and challenge systems of oppression.
Why Stories Matter. Fostering Empathy, Fighting Fear, and Challenging Book Bans.
by Jim Hodnett
Background: Why a Book about Banned Topics?
I’m a gay man, but it took a long time for me to come to terms with that fact. I grew up in the 1950s and ‘60s in a small city in Arkansas; I had no access to any information about gay people. I knew no one who was out—at least to me–and never saw a book on the topic. If the subject was mentioned at all in the Southern Baptist church that my family attended, it was likely spoken in the same breath as the word abomination. So, I had no way of classifying or understanding my feelings toward other boys. I thought I was the only person in the world who felt the way I did. I tried to recast my crushes on boys as mere hero worship of guys who were more confident or athletic or socially skilled than I was.
The only impression I remember having gained about homosexual men was very negative—that they were effeminate, repulsive, and laughable. So I worked hard to conceal any feminine traits I possessed and to conceal my feelings about other boys, even from myself. I did not come to understand myself as gay until I was twenty. I was appalled by the realization I stayed in the closet until my late 20s and did not fully come out until my mid-30s.
The dearth of information about gay people during my young and impressionable years quite obviously did not make me straight, nor even less gay. It only served to make me isolated, depressed, anxious, and prone to suicidal ideation. I do not want any young person of any gender or sexual orientation ever to have to go through the kind of childhood and adolescence I endured. They deserve to know the truth about who they are, that they are not alone and not sick, and can live happy, fulfilled lives. This is one of many reasons I pitched the Ohio Writers’ Association’s newest anthology, Should this Book Be Banned?.
Should this Book Be Banned? is a collection of short stories and other creative nonfiction that the Ohio Writers Association is publishing this spring. It contains nuanced portrayals of people, cultures, and topics that many people would like to see banished from the public consciousness, at least from a positive or affirming perspective. We know this to be true because the idea for Should this Book Be Banned? stemmed from the alarming rate of book bans in the U.S. in the last few years. According to PEN America and the American Library Association, there have been thousands of attempts (most successful) to ban books in school and public libraries since 2021. PEN America states that since July 2021, they have recorded 15,940 instances of book bans across 43 states and 415 public school districts. Forty-four percent of the banned books were about people or characters of color, and 39% were about LGBTQ+ people and characters. Fifty-seven percent of the banned books had sexual themes or content. Most of the banned books (60%) were written for a young adult audience and often depicted issues and situations that adolescents deal with: grief and death, substance abuse, suicide, sexual violence, depression and other mental health concerns.
In addition, several state legislatures have passed or proposed bills banning the teaching of the"1619 Project," a research and historical endeavor that views American history through the lens of the lasting effects of slavery and the pervasive and systemic nature of racism. In 2023, the Florida State Board of Education added a guideline that the teaching of African American history must include the assertion that “slavery benefited some enslaved people because it taught them useful skills.” This is one of those statements that contains a tiny kernel of truth but colossally misses the point. In Texas high school history books, students learn that the output of the Harlem Renaissance was inferior to other art of the era. Taken together, these bans on books and ideas have the feel of an attempt to erase (in some cases, literally "whitewash") the lives, culture, history, and legitimacy of people in historically marginalized groups in America. It outrages me.
Why Stories Matter
Numerous studies have shown that people who read fiction, particularly literary fiction, tend to exhibit more empathy toward others, especially others in stigmatized groups. (Check out the Aug. 28, 2020, issue of Discover magazine for more information.) When we read fiction, we enter the lives of the characters in the stories and learn what makes them tick, what their challenges and struggles are, and how they view the world. When readers are members of one or more privileged groups, they can understand how those who are marginalized view them and what they can do to foster equity. And, of course, if you are a member of a marginalized group and are reading about others like you, just as I said above, you feel less isolated and more empowered. You can shed more easily the internalized racism or internalized homophobia or whatever other self-loathing attitudes you may have picked up over the years. Authentic, honest stories written by and about marginalized communities have the power to save lives.
But book bans are an attempt to control the narrative, to impose a particular viewpoint favorable to the ruling class on everyone else. As Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” Book bans come from a place of fear on the part of the victors, fear that their position of privilege will be taken from them.
Isabel Wilkinson, who wrote Caste, The Origins of Our Discontents, said that it is not true that people who vote for Trump are voting against their own interests (although I would argue that they actually are doing that in the economic sense because his policies will widen the gap between the rich and poor and reduce social supports). But most Trump voters believe a vote for him will preserve their privilege—the privileges they enjoy based on being in the dominant race or religion or sexual orientation or gender or on the basis of speaking the dominant language. And they are right. Preserving white male Christian supremacy, etc., is a cornerstone of Trump’s agenda: closing the border, deporting immigrants, abolishing DEI trainings and initiatives, denying gender-affirming medical care, banning abortions, banning Muslims, and on and on.
I think all those things are based on fear of the other.
I don’t have any illusions that Should This Book Be Banned? is going to turn around the tide of hatred and fear in our country or turn the zeitgeist away from preservation of privilege and toward equity and equality of opportunity—at least not in any enormous way. But I think every pushback has some effect. Bayard Rustin, the African American gay man who organized the 1963 March on Washington for civil rights, told us all to “speak truth to power” because when we do, we give people who are marginalized something to hang onto, something to help them feel more empowered and proud.
What I hope is that someone will pick up Should This Book Be Banned? and see themselves portrayed positively in it and thus feel less alone. I also hope someone will pick it up and see people they know in it, perhaps a family member or neighbor, and understand what that person faces every day just by trying to be true to themselves.
I once heard it said that coming out is an act of survival. The more people who know they have an LGBTQ+ family member, neighbor, co-worker, or friend, the more we are seen in the fullness of our humanity, and thus, the less scary we are. The same goes for any other marginalized group. The more visible they and their humanity and gifts are, the less likely they are to be seen as a threat.
For writers and creators from marginalized communities, I say to keep speaking your truth to power. Your truth doesn’t have to be a blatant political truth. You don’t have to be polemical. Your truth can just be something like, This is what it is like to walk around in a black body, or a gay body, or a fat body, or a female body or a trans body.
Whatever approach you take, stand your ground. The Civil Rights heroes of the 1950s and 60s showed us how. And stay connected to and united with other marginalized groups. If the rights of one group are diminished, all are imperiled. People in power, the decision-makers, need to know that we have always been here, we are not going away, and we will not be silent.