Tennessee’s attempt to whitewash “Roots” was stopped — for now
A few months ago I found a paperback copy of George Orwell’s “1984” on a city bus. I opened it and found myself reading a familiar passage about the protagonist Winston Smith’s cubicle and the slot in the wall nicknamed the “memory hole.” “When one knew that any document was due for destruction, or even when one saw a scrap of waste paper lying near, it was an automatic action to lift the flap of the corresponding slot and drop it in, whereupon it would be whirled away on a current of warm air to the enormous furnaces which were hidden somewhere in the basement.” We are living a version of this. The Trump administration is systematically banning books, scrubbing scientific data, defunding education and waging war on facts, truth and democratic life — all in the name of patriotism and American greatness. Red states like Tennessee have become the laboratories for this Orwellian assault. Under the totalitarian Age-Appropriate Materials Act — a Tennessee law passed in 2022 that, along with an addendum passed two …
