Politicarama

As anyone who's been following YA lit blogs this week knows, last week YA author Maureen Johnson launched a social networking site, YA for Obama. And I've been trying all week to decide how I feel about it.

Political attitudes and beliefs are not born in a vacuum. We're influenced by our families and friends, by the media, by our education (worldly and academic), by our personal experiences. Ultimately, a person's vote may legally be personal and private, but there's no reason for us to keep our mouths shut about our personal political stances and let other people do all the talking for us. Not if we don't want to.

TadMack prompted a fascinating discussion over at Finding Wonderland regarding the YA for Obama site. She worries that it might constitute "undue influence" for YA authors to team up and urge their young readers into supporting a candidate simply because it's the "cool" thing to do. Colleen adds her thoughts on the matter over at Chasing Ray. The comments on both posts, and on both sides of the issue, are well worth reading.

My feeling is that YA authors taking a political stand does not constitute undue influence; I don’t see an imbalance of power in the author-reader relationship that constitutes anything resembling coercion. Authors, as any person or institution, should feel permitted to act as role models in the political or personal realm. Teens are of an age that they can sift through the opinions flying at them from every direction and come to their own conclusions. They do all the time.

And I’m glad that more authors, especially Democratically-aligned authors, are becoming vocal about this election. In the past ten years, the Dems have invited the characterization of being quiet and wussy, letting themselves be out-shouted by the Republicans. We need voices on both sides. I’m biased, of course, but I feel like sites like YA for Obama are lending balance to, rather than skewing, the discussion this election year. Impassioned and articulate articles by such YA authors as Judy Blume and John Green are worth the consideration of any person struggling with this presidential election.

I do have two main reservations. First is that YA for Obama was started by YA authors, and while people of all ages and political stances are invited to participate, YAs are not the driving force behind the site (as the name suggests). Maybe I’d feel more comfortable if the site were called YA Authors for Obama.

Second—and this was mentioned in the comments of the above-linked posts—there’s too much misinformation and vitriol flying around in the forum for my taste. I feel sick to my stomach when I read misinformation coming from either campaign. Maybe it's the librarian in me, but I believe that information not only wants to be free but accurate. When either side spreads lies about the other side, the integrity of the election suffers; everyone suffers.

Anyone who's taken Intro to Psychology knows a fact can take a moment to learn but a lifetime to “unlearn.” Once you’ve heard, “X is true!”—even if it’s followed by a thousand well-reasoned contradictions—even if the speaker turns around and says, “Actually, I was wrong, X is not true after all”—people will have, stuck in the backs of their minds, the impression that X is true. No matter how smart you are, it’s true what they say about first impressions. Damage has been done.

So, while I hate hearing Republican lies about—for example—Obama’s (nonexistent) ties to the Chicago Machine, I also hate hearing the misrepresentation of Sarah Palin’s so-called book-banning crusade repeated again and again by Democrats. She didn’t ban books, she “tested” whether a librarian’s loyalty lay with her mayor or with the First Amendment of the Constitution (a/k/a our nation's fundamental freedom). Isn’t that at least as loathsome as the lie—and all the more powerful because it's the truth?

I’d like to say I’m done discussing politics for the rest of the fall (I get way too upset about it, and I prefer to keep my blog’s focus on libraries, books, and writing), but I make no promises. I’d like to close this post on a lighter note, with a quote about the presidential election from fantasy author Justine Larbalestier:

Seriously if I had made up a tenth of what’s been going on and put it in a novel no one would credit it. They’d be all, “The characters keep changing! They don’t make any sense. And one of them seems to be a malfunctioning robot! Also there’s a zombie! I thought this was meant to be realism. What the hell?”

I think that sums it up pretty well!

ETA 9/27/08:
There's been a lot of discussion and soul-searching in the Kitlitosphere, actually, about whether to address personal politics in blogs dealing primarily with children's literature. Different bloggers have decided on different approaches. Two posts I particularly enjoyed:

• Laurel Snyder decided she couldn't keep politics out of her blog while staying true to herself.
• Liz B. of A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy decided to keep politics out so as not to alienate or prompt division among her readers.