Dear Friends,                                                                                                    I Know Why

Maya Angelou’s memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, has been removed from the Naval Academy library. Mein Kampf is still right there on the shelves. There’s really no point in speculating that the removal of the one and the leaving of the other was some kind of decision. These people are so stupid and ignorant, so incompetent that they never have much idea of what they’re doing – remember the Enola Gay. Still, that just these two books are brought together is … well what is it? Almost we could thank them that in their stupidity and incompetence they brought the two face to face. They announced that the possibility of someone reading one of these books was so dangerous that it had to be removed, while the other … … People should read Mein Kampf, it should be on the shelves of any sufficiently large library. But if you are so afraid that Naval Academy students (cadets?) might possibly read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, that it might do some terrible harm to their ability to be warriors, so afraid that you must remove it from the library’s shelves … oh dear, it’s so hard to come up with a formulation that allows you even a shred of decency … but if so you are a terribly damaged person. Those who teach the future officers of the Navy – and of the other armed forces – must teach some sense of the complexity of the conditions that lead to war. That’s why Mein Kampf needs to be there. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is necessary because it is almost the antithesis of Mein Kampf. But even more than that it is necessary because it is beautiful, it never shrinks from the terrible darkness of oppression, racism, slavery – the darkness that is the soul of Mein Kampf – but it does not allow it to prevail. If, as the reactionaries so proudly claim, over and over and over, America is the embodiment of freedom, then they should embrace I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings because it is a testament to the fortitude needed to fight for, and maybe, in the end, to achieve freedom.

But what on earth is the point of saying these things? They are obvious to anyone who has struggled to understand the difficulty, danger, confusion, contradiction that even the idea of freedom creates. They are utterly incomprehensible to the consciousness, such as it is, of reaction. That is a terrible problem – how can the reactionaries ever join in the true aspirations of society? And we must work to solve that problem. But to empty that little place on the shelf, the place occupied by I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is to embrace reaction and all its darkness, fear, and hate.

Love and solidarity,                                                                                                                                     Bobby