EDUCATION
Why 2 Award-Winning Black Authors Were Silenced in a Tennessee School
Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa: the latest victims of the censorship crusade
If a tree falls in the woods, does it make a sound?” Of course, it does because the world does not begin or end at the point of your perception. Just because you are thousands of miles away from a forest doesn’t mean that the tree did not, in fact, crash to the ground and make a loud sound. The same can be said about racism in America. Black people regularly experience racism in our society, and this experience is not dependent upon White people’s acknowledgment or acceptance of these conditions. However, those advancing nationwide censorship cruscade seem to think that if a tree falls in the woods, it won’t make a sound. If they keep discussions about racism far away, out of the earshot of students, then somehow, this all goes away, as if the racism never occurred, as if the tree never fell or made a sound.
Two Black authors, Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa, won a 2023 Pulitzer Prize for their non-fiction book, “His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice,” a biographical work that touches on Floyd’s life, and the conditions that led to this tragedy. Naturally, after winning this prestigious award, the pair traveled, reading their work and sharing it with a wider audience. However, before attending an event at Whitehaven High School in Tennessee, organizers notified Samuels and Olorunnipia that their book would not be made available to students at the event and prohibited them from discussing systemic racism “despite speaking to a majority Black student body” about a book describing the unjust killing of a Black man.
The real question is, how can anyone describe what happened to George Floyd on May 25, 2020, without mentioning the role of systemic racism? America’s criminal justice system disproportionately punishes Black people, often for petty, non-violent crimes. Research shows that police kill Black people at 2.9 times the rate as White people, a statistic that stands as evidence of the systemic racism plaguing Black Americans. To talk about what happened to George Floyd while ignoring the role racism played in the tactics used in confronting, restraining, and ultimately killing him would be journalistic malpractice. Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa should not have to water down their story, particularly because it’s an honest portrayal. They won a Pulitzer Prize for their work, described as “an intimate, riveting portrait of an ordinary man whose fatal encounter with police officers in 2020 sparked an international movement for social change, but whose humanity and complicated personal story were unknown.” Tennesse’s censorship, in this case, is anti-democratic and racist since we don’t see White authors censored in this way.
“It was really disappointing to hear that our speech was going to be limited,” Olorunnipa told NBC News. “Not only for us, but for the students whose access to knowledge is going to shape their journey in this world and in this country.”
Furthermore, there’s no way of hiding the details of George Floyd’s death from high school students since they were old enough to see the story unfold. America cannot unsee that video, which is why millions protested police brutality in the days and months leading up to the trial. And yet, in Tennessee, like many states controlled by Republicans, black history has become taboo, and that includes events that happened only a few years ago. The alleged fragility of White students has been prioritized above all else, even the truth. What impact will this have on Black students who bear witness to police brutality but never provided an educational forum to discuss these events? The law doesn’t seem to care. Samuels and Olorunnipa have decided to offer free copies of their book through a non-profit organization off campus.
Why ask Black authors who write about racism to come to your school and talk to students, only to deprive them of the ability to discuss the very topic they’ve developed expertise in? That would be like inviting a local Chef to the school to discuss a cookbook, warning him not to talk about his Coq au Vin or a pharmacist, and cautioning him to avoid discussing drugs or a gardner despite a state-wide ban on flower beds. Not only is the censorship crusade rooted in racism, but it’s also anti-democratic and nonsensical. American students are aware that racism is a persistent problem, and banning the topic doesn’t change that. However, making the topic taboo is a way of delegitimizing Black people’s stories, their lives, and their value in society. A police officer killed George Floyd. Like a mighty tree, he fell, and the world heard his pain. This is true whether or not Tennessee censors Black authors, whether or not they pretend not to hear, not to see, not to know racism persists.
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