Attack of the Black Rectangles

by Amy Sarig King

It’s not that I don’t respect the founding fathers, but I do have some problems with how they did stuff. Mostly how they bought and sold people. I definitely have a problem with that.

“How many of the guys who signed the Declaration of Independence owned slaves?” Ms. Sett moved quickly toward me with her hand out. The tour guide said, “Forty-one out of fifty-six signers owned slaves. That’s a great question.” “Thanks,” I said. I’m white, so maybe this seems like a weird question. But just because I’m white doesn’t mean I can’t talk about what white people do wrong. We do a lot wrong. For starters, we don’t talk about how 73 percent of the signers of the Declaration of Independence owned slaves.

Loud grace looks like attending protests and writing letters to the president about veterans’ benefits and civil rights.

when you pretend a thing didn’t happen, that means it can happen again.

What occurs to me right then is that my feelings about this scene are horror, sadness, and shock, but because she made the scene about her own censorship rather than the content of the book, I feel distant because I was more curious about the black rectangle than I was paying attention to the book. It makes me even more determined to fight the whole thing.

“I feel angry,” Aaron says, “that someone thought they could censor my copy of the book. Like I’m too dumb to read the words that are meant to be here.” He looks super angry, too.

“Is there an issue, Mr. James?” Ms. Sett asks, hand on her hip. “Actually, yeah, there is,” Aaron says. “I think this is un-American and wrong. I think my right to read the words here are covered by the first amendment or another part of the constitution. And I think this is tyranny. Like—don’t tread on me, okay?”

“There isn’t a person in this room who wouldn’t cover their breasts or other private parts if they were twelve and naked with Nazi concentration camp guards yelling at them,” I say. “You should read the book.”

” “Heavy is a good way to protest,” he says.

“The biggest lie ever told to children is that the adults around them aren’t a mess.”

“People think weird stuff about feminists. It’s so unnecessary. Like—my dad told me that if I’m a feminist, I won’t get any doors opened for me or any flowers from my future husband or whatever. He said that boys won’t kiss me because I’m a feminist.” “Feminists want equal rights, fair pay, and stuff like that,” I say. “Right? I mean—what does that have to do with opening doors?” “Exactly nothing. It makes no sense. People think that because I talk about equal rights, I want to be a man.”