One of the more curious aspects of American culture is the way oppressed groups co-opt the words once used to denigrate them, turning them into accepted language within their own culture. Desensitization is a powerful coping tool, though what never ceases to amaze is how those same groups recoil in rage when the pejoratives they’ve come to accept as common parlance are hurled back at them as invective or simple-minded ignorance. A few months ago, my wife’s grandfather – a born-again Christian – asked me if I was able to “Jew down” a car salesman in order to get the particularly good deal I’d received.

I was both saddened and offended, though not all that surprised, since I think I’ve probably said the same term in a self-mocking fashion numerous times over the years, which I thought provided me some ownership over the pain; some desensitization. Words carry weight, even if they don’t break bones, and for that I suppose I should be grateful, since I’m capable of writing words but am not much of a street fighter. It’s when words and actions marry that it’s hard to make a distinction between intent and result. 

Which leads me to the curious case of Tom Wayne and William Leathem, owners of Prospero’s Books in Kansas City, who hosted a book burning – or, in their words an “act of art” – to rid themselves of 20,000 used books they couldn’t sell and which, they say, no one would even take from them for free. 

Tom Wayne amassed thousands of books in a warehouse during the 10 years he has run his used book store, Prospero's Books. His collection ranges from best sellers like Tom Clancy's "The Hunt for Red October" and Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities," to obscure titles like a bound report from the Fourth Pan-American Conference held in Buenos Aires in 1910. But wanting to thin out his collection, he found he couldn't even give away books to libraries or thrift shops, which said they were full. So on Sunday, Wayne began burning his books protest what he sees as society's diminishing support for the printed word. "This is the funeral pyre for thought in America today," Wayne told spectators outside his bookstore as he lit the first batch of books. The fire blazed for about 50 minutes before the Kansas City Fire Department put it out because Wayne didn't have a permit to burn them. Wayne said next time he will get a permit. He said he envisions monthly bonfires until his supply - estimated at 20,000 books - is exhausted.

There are several reactions one can have to this, the least of which would be that Wayne and Leathem seem a little unclear on the concept, particularly since they go on to say, on their own website, that this is all being done to promote literacy:

Yesterday, we performed an act of art – a wakeup call to all who value books and ideas. Over the last 10 years, Prospero’s Books has 20,000 books we’ve collected that people simply will not read. We receive hundreds more each week. At Prospero’s we fundamentally believe that the literary arts are not dead. We believe that there is still much about the human condition and our time still needing to be said. In so saying, we challenge you to get involved in two ways:   1. email these stories to your friends 2. call your local TV, radio, newspaper, blogs, etc. and tell them what is going on 3. For $1 a book (+ postage), you can save these books from the flame. We will not take these $s as profit, but will use them to publish new books. 

I have a real difficulty understanding how burning books will ultimately cause people to take up the plight of literacy, particularly since Wayne and Leathem have only highlighted the impermanence of the book form by their willingness to destroy that which is no longer palatable to their audience. That they intend to use any profits from their blatant self-promotion to publish new books (Prospero’s is also home to the independent publisher Unholy Day Press, which has or will publish books from several authors, including Wayne and Leathem) seems incongruent. If they were really fighting for the cause of literacy, wouldn’t they be better served donating any profit they might earn (and, clearly, from the enormous amount of press they are receiving from this stunt, they indeed stand to make money if they sell even a small percentage of the 20,000 volumes) to a school in need of new textbooks or even one new computer? They could endow a local writing scholarship. They could sponsor an author to teach a free creative writing course to high school students. Printing more copies of their own books doesn’t change the math or address the problem; it merely fills their storage locker with more books. 

Perhaps when they begin to hear the criticism, they’ll change their tune. Though, at least for now, they seem blind to the social and historical ramifications of their actions:

"After slogging through the tens of thousands of books we've slogged through and to accumulate that many and to have people turn you away when you take them somewhere, it's just kind of a knee-jerk reaction," he [Wayne] said. "And it's a good excuse for fun."  

It’s not that I’m morally opposed to throwing away books – the publishing industry calls this practice “remaindering” which has always struck a Bradburyian chord in me – it’s that there is a clear difference between discarding a book and destroying one. Burning a book is a symbol of hate, fanaticism and intellectual malice and not, categorically, social protest. Or, as best-selling author Gregg Hurwitz says, “I know that books necessarily get pulped and incinerated every day but I have to say I have an intense emotional reaction to books being burned symbolically. I’m a Jew and a writer, so it’s probably a double-whammy. It makes me sick. I always think of that line by Heinrich Heine – ‘Where ever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.’ Typical Teutonic heavy-handedness, but still, why re-enact something that is synonymous with ignorance, intolerance, and anti-intellectualism? Rent a storage unit.” 

If Wayne and Leathem don’t see the hypocrisy in their actions, perhaps they need only to look down the road a few miles at the Blue Valley School District, where debates raged over appropriate titles being offered to students, prompting the formation of the PABBIS-like ClassKC.org (Citizen for Literary Standards in Schools), a group with their own stringent ideas about literacy. If burning 20,000 books for the cause of literacy is an act of art, how does that art change if the belief system of the group changes? I have no doubt that both Wayne and Leathem love books, just as I have no doubt that many of the parents who comprise ClassKC.org love books (or at least the Book), and thus I wonder: If the action is the same, does it matter what the cause is?  If ClassKC.org hosted a book burning in the name of literacy awareness in the schools of Blue Valley, too, the same books would burn.  

"Books are life,” David Ulin, Editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, says. “You don't burn them, no matter what. While I understand the frustration of a book dealer who literally cannot give his stock away, this just plays into the notion that books are disposable -- or even worse, destructible. It's a disturbing and contradictory message for a book lover to send." 

Wayne and Leathem say they wanted to start a dialog on literacy by burning their books in protest and announcing plans to keep the fires lit until all 20,000 books were gone, but they forgot one key element to any effective protest: A call to action. The result is that a dialog has erupted but it’s not about literacy. Instead, they’ve created a conflagration which smells more smug than altruistic. “They could have quietly recycled the books,” Bobby McCue, manager of Los Angeles' venerable indie The Mystery Bookstore, says, “instead of polluting the environment. I see it as more self flagellating on their part than anything else and that I imagine they’ll sell a lot of books from this act is appalling.”