Texas, our Texas, all hail the Lone Star State. Texas, our Texas, so wonderful and great… Texans far and wide are celebrating the fact that they have won. They have won… and BOOKS WILL BE BANNED.
As a native Texan, I am horrified. My heart is breaking…

You may wonder why… you may not care. However, I care greatly. I care because I understand the impact this will have on our future, our freedom, and our lives.

Why I am making a fuss when it’s only books that some people feel should not be in school libraries? Why? Why does it matter? Why should everyone care? If you have to ask why, you are either too young or you have ignored your history lessons.           

In my mind, I see a young girl. This girl was just like me when I was young. She loved to read; she treasured her books. She consumed books, and she wrote down her thoughts, feelings, dreams, and hopes in her book… her diary.
In the beginning, her diary only contained her personal reflections of her thoughts, feelings, and dreams. Yet, in the background of her life, events were taking place that a young girl should never have to imagine or experience.

A new face came into the German political scene. He had ingratiated the world with his charm. He had been named Time Magazine’s Man of the Year in 1938. His face and name were everywhere. Everyone thought this young man would make such a difference in this world. This young man’s name? Adolf Hitler.

He won the seat, he took his place, and then… right from the start…. he began his plan. His plan was to eliminate all those whom he did not feel were worthy of life, eliminate all those who opposed his plan to conquer and rule Germany, and then expand out into the world stage. His plan was monstrous, horrific, and widely accepted.    

You might ask why anyone would accept his plan? He made it sound so right, so personable, so good for the people. Then, once the plan was set in place, people began to realize that this dictator, this monster, cared nothing about anything or anyone, only about his own ultimate power.

Anne Frank, the young girl who carried around her favorite book and dreamed big dreams of her future, her life, and her goals had only a very short time left on this earth. For within a matter of months, her community, her family, and she, herself, were put to death in the most horrific and atrocious fashion, merely because they did not fit the dictator’s fascist ideology.

At this point in time, our leaders, our Texas leaders, are following the playbook of Hitler. They do not say this, but they are, in fact, following all the guidelines of how to “pull the wool over the public’s eyes, and keep them in the dark until it is too late.”

They are starting with the little things. They are dismantling public education, they are banning books, they are limiting people’s access to voting…. and hundreds of other “little things, that in the end will lead to annihilation for of all who do not accept and join in to the new regime.

People we have put our faith in. People who accepted the job of upholding our U.S. and our Texas constitution.

These people… Trump, Abbott, and so many more are walking in the footsteps of Adolph Hitler. I cry out now because I love my country. As a historian, as a researcher, as a human being, I recognize the baby steps being taken by would be Hitlerites, or those whose goal it is to take ultimate power and dismantle our constitution and constitutional rights.  

All the bickering in Congress and the Senate are a mere ploy. A ploy put together by the reich to distract us as they dismantle our Constitution, our Bill of Rights, and our USA as we know it.

Am I being paranoid? Am I crying wolf? I wish I were. Unfortunately, unless more people speak up, our next step will be living out the story of Nazi Germany in the USA.

What can you do? Add your voice, speak up, and let people in office know that all these “little things” like banning books will soon become big things. Prison camps will spring up, concentration camps will follow, as well as, executions… all in the name of fascists government. Don’t hide inside and say this will never happen. When the people are silent, evil creeps in.

Stand up for our country. Stand up for our rights. Be proud of our country, our red, white, and blue. Stand up for what my father, my uncles, and many of your family fought for in WW2. Do you want to be ruled by a fascist regime? I do not.

I do not fight with weapons. I fight with words. Today, my words are harsh and strong. I did not make up any of these events or people. I could have described the events in the horrific, inhumane way they actually happened, but for the sake of decency, I only grazed the surface of the story. 

I am so very proud that my family stood up and fought in WW2, that my husband and his brother stood up and fought in Vietnam. Anytime people stand up against a fascist regime that is attempting to overrun and overtake a country, they can be proud of their service. Stand strong, stand up for right. Now…I will yield the floor.

Sincerely,                                       SKE