Bucking Book Bans: Arthur Bradford’s Film “To Be Destroyed”

Sea Change Radio

As kids, many of us read “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury and thought, “man, this book banning and burning stuff is terrible.” Apparently, though, not everyone felt the same. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to filmmaker Arthur Bradford about his most recent documentary for MSNBC Films entitled “To Be Destroyed,” which takes viewers inside efforts to ban books from a public high school in Rapid City, South Dakota. The film follows author and literacy advocate Dave Eggers, as he travels to the school district where his novel, “The Circle,” was pulled from shelves along with four other titles. Bradford tells us about why this topic felt so important to him, gives us a glimpse behind the making of the film, and discusses how the documentary reveals some larger truths about right-wing crusaders in this country.

Narrator| 00:02 – This is Sea Change Radio, covering the shift to sustainability. I’m Alex Wise.

Arthur Bradford (AB) | 00:21 – I asked him about this notion that teachers were indoctrinating students, and he said, I, I don’t have time to indoctrinate students. And if I had that ability, I would use it to get students to turn their work in on time and to wear deodorant every day.

Narrator | 00:36 – As kids, many of us read “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury and thought, “man, this book banning and burning stuff is terrible.” Apparently, though, not everyone felt the same. This week on Sea Change Radio, we speak to filmmaker Arthur Bradford about his most recent documentary for MSNBC Films entitled “To Be Destroyed,” which takes viewers inside efforts to ban books from a public high school in Rapid City, South Dakota. The film follows author and literacy advocate Dave Eggers, as he travels to the school district where his novel, “The Circle,” was pulled from shelves along with four other titles. Bradford tells us about why this topic felt so important to him, gives us a glimpse behind the making of the film, and discusses how the documentary reveals some larger truths about right-wing crusaders in this country.

Alex Wise (AW) | 01:50 – I’m joined now on Sea Change Radio by Arthur Bradford. He’s a documentary filmmaker and his latest film is “To Be Destroyed.” Arthur, welcome to Sea Change Radio.

Arthur Bradford (AB) | 02:02 – Thanks, Alex. It’s good to be here.

Alex Wise (AW) | 02:05 – So I should tell listeners that Arthur and I are friends from high school, and I haven’t seen him since his debut film. How’s your news? First, tell our listeners what how’s Your News was all about. I thought it was terrific.

AB | 02:18 – Yeah, that was like over 20 years ago that that film came out. I had been working at a summer camp for people with disabilities and uh, I was teaching a video class there and we started doing these news programs, and one of the segments that kind of took off was having some of the campers, people with disabilities do man-on-the-street interviews. And so this movie, “How’s Your News?” was a feature documentary where we took five of the more outgoing people with disabilities from the camp and we drove across the country, uh, and they would interview people all along the way.

AW | 02:56 – And at the, at the screening that I saw of this, they were all in attendance as well, along with Francis Ford Coppola. It was a really cool event. And the kids, who are now adults, were very engaging and I highly recommend that film to folks. Can people rent it on Amazon still?

AB | 03:14 – It’s kind of hard to find, like there’s also different versions of it. So after we did that, you can find it on YouTube, honestly, that’s probably the best way. But we did a feature length film of it that was on HBO and then, years later, we also did, we started going to political conventions. So in 2008 we went to, um, no, 2004 we went to the political conventions. And then we did a short-lived series for MTV called How’s Your News? which is probably really hard to find, but if you look it up on YouTube, you could find it.

AW | 03:53 – Well, let’s turn to “To Be Destroyed,” which features Dave Eggers, a very well-known author and the founder of an important writing nonprofit called 8 26 Valencia.

AB | 04:07 – Right

AW | 04:08 – Just down the street from me here in San Francisco. One of the first people in your documentary is talking to a school board and, and talking about how he was a refugee from the, the liberal Hellscape of, of California. So I’m talking to you from the Liberal Hellscape of California while you’re in the liberal hellscape of Oregon.

AB | 04:29 Yeah, I think he called it, I think he called it liberal wasteland to be fair.

AW | 04:32 – Liberal wasteland, I apologize. So why don’t you first give us an executive summary of the story of “To Be Destroyed?”

AB | 04:40 – Yeah, sure. So just to set the stage, I had known, I’ve known Dave for a long time, in fact, that that screening you were at was, he was the host of that. Anyways, I had been kind of bugging him to do a documentary about anything that he was up to because I just always find he, he’s always got interesting projects going. And, he sort of, out of the blue, he told me about this, what was happening in South Dakota, that his book, “The Circle” had been, um, put on a list of, there were five other books that got removed from the shelves. They had, they were part of the senior curriculum. They were optional reading. Seniors could read them and do a paper about them if they so choose. Um, this, this, uh, this outside group had identified the circle as an objectionable book. And so his book was removed from the shelves of the libraries and all the schools. And, uh, in, in a move that really like rubbed Dave the wrong way, they, the, the books were slated To, Be Destroyed, the school board, they didn’t want to like put them back out into the circulation, so they were just going to destroy them. And that really like upset Dave. And so he had made his book available to any students in Rapid City who wanted a free copy. He worked in conjunction with the local independent bookstore and said, just go to the bookstore. They’ll give you the book for free. So in that way, I think he distributed several hundred copies of his book in Rapid City that probably never would’ve, uh, gotten out there any in, in other circumstances. But then after that happened, the teachers in Rapid City, they invited Dave out to speak to, um, their classrooms. And that’s when I became involved. Dave said, Hey, I’m going out to Rapid City to talk with the students in the schools where my book was banned, and, um, we’re going to have a, like a meeting. And so I said, “Hey, that would be a great thing to film.” So I met him in Rapid City, and that’s how, that’s the start of this movie. It’s about what, what him talking to the students and the teachers in the place where his book was removed.

AW | 06:56 – And, and in terms of distribution, it was on MSNBC Films. Folks can also access it on YouTube. Is there any other way that you recommend people check it out, or is that the best way?

AB | 07:08 – Yeah, look it up on YouTube. It’s an MSNBC film, and, it was part of a series they have called The Turning Point. Um, and so it was broadcast on MSNBC, but the best way to see it is just look, find it on YouTube. And it’s a 30 minute documentary. And, I hope it’s like entertaining and also informative.

AW | 07:30 – It is. And, and I want to dive into some of these characters that you interviewed for the film. First, let’s talk about this older woman who she was kind of the, I forget the organization she was attached to, but she said this was like a global movement to stop Marxism and indoctrination of the L-G-B-T-Q agenda. Why don’t you first explain who this woman was and how she is able to affect change in her community?

AB | 08:01 -Yeah. Her name was Florence and what, what we had found, it’s a really interesting story, and I think, I think it’s a kind of story that has repeated itself in school districts all across America. I think it started during the pandemic. Parents, I think understandably had a lot of issues with the way their schools handled the pandemic, and they were upset with their local school boards, and a lot of school boards got completely overhauled, and there were opportunists, in that moment. And, they saw a chance to o overhaul the school board with people with an, an agenda beyond improving their response to the pandemic. And one of that, one of those was they really, Florence was part of this movement. There, there’s a lot of people in America who believe that there is like a left wing conspiracy to indoctrinate kids, and they’ve taken over our schools and they are, um, trying to teach, trying to convert them to be, uh, highly sexual, gender fluid and, and all, all of the, all of these evils that they want to protect their kids from. But I really wanted to talk to these people. I really wanted to understand, I wanted to talk most of all to the school board members who had voted to remove Dave’s book. Because like, like to be clear, Dave’s book, um, the circle is, it’s not, uh, it’s not a very controversial book, really. It’s, it’s about a tech dystopia has two short paragraphs with, of like really awkward sex scenes.

AW | 09:34 – And, and as Eggers explains, that’s kind of the point, is like, he wants these sex scenes to be reflective of what a, a crazy new tech world we live in. You know, like the, the stimulation reaches a certain number on this, the stimulation index or something, right?

AB | 09:49 -Yeah. The only way you could find them objectionable would be to read them completely out of context and think that they were required to be read by young children or something like that, which really wasn’t the case. It, um, and, uh, so any, anyways, to get back to Florence, she was a member of, she was someone who would just go to the school board meetings, which we did. We went to a couple school board meetings, and they were, they were, it was a pretty hot debate, like you’d have people getting up. A lot of times they were people not from the community. That was what was a little bit weird about it, is that they, a lot of the people who are shouting the loudest about the books that are being taught to kids in public schools are people who do not have children in the public schools. A lot of them don’t even have children themselves. Like Florence had no kids who were in the South Dakota public schools. I think she may have been a mother, but her kids were, she’s an older woman. And, um, but she, she just really believed that there was a, there was like a nefarious danger afoot in America and the teachers were indoctrinating kids, and they were, she used the word apostles. She said they were trying to convert apostles for their movement. And I think she really believed it. And I was interested in talking to her. I didn’t think she was a evil person at all. I thought she was a, well-meaning, if not like, pretty misinformed woman, you, any, I’m sure whoever’s listening to this podcast is like, aware. Like there’s, that, that’s just a thing that happens in America and media right now, is that trying to stoke fear. And so I think that happens a lot. And especially in, um, right now in, in rural communities in America, they, they see horrific videos of the Democrat cities, and they think that that is all coming their way and they need to protect, especially their children from it. And I, I think it, it’s unfortunate and, but I, I was curious about it. I wanted to know more because, and I thought, I thought Dave traveling from the liberal , the liberal wasteland of California to go talk to these people in Rapid City was an interesting opportunity to kind of see, see some conversations take place. And in fact, Dave and Florence do end up talking in the film at some point. It wasn’t, you know, it, it like a lot of these, those sort of interactions, it wasn’t like the satisfying interaction I wanted because like, she, I don’t think I, I thought it was so interesting because here’s Florence, like sort of rallying against these, these like demonic figures that she had never met before. And suddenly here was one of the writers who had written the book that she was protesting, but it never really registered to her. Like she just kept telling Dave he was woke and, and he, and he, um, and I don’t think that’s actually in the film, it was not a very satisfying interaction. Like Dave was very frustrated with her and she didn’t really listen to him. And he, he did listen to her, but I don’t think there was a lot of like common ground found. Um, but anyways, I, I, I, there were other, there were other interactions besides that one that I thought were productive. And the film shows those two.

(Music Break) | 13:19

AW | 14:00 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Arthur Bradford. His latest film for MSNBC is “To Be Destroyed.” So Arthur, you’re talking about this woman in the film, Florence, who is espousing some of her beliefs that I’ve heard echoed elsewhere, right? In the, you know, project 2025 about abolishing the Department of Education on a federal level. And that’s, this is not a woman who probably knows a lot about policy, but that has gotten into her brain is like, we need the states to decide that. But as we’ve seen when Roe v Wade gets overturned, we’re just going to go into our little bubbles and you can go to a red state and you can get your red content. And that seems to be the hope for them is like we can find these little oasis away from the gay agenda or the, the liberal wasteland of San Francisco and all of these things, the Marxism, I don’t think this woman, Florence has probably read a lot of Marx, I’m guessing .

AB | 15:03 – Yeah, she does. She says it’s the Marxist agenda. I think that’s what she starts off saying. I, what I do want to say is like, I do think there’s like a legitimate discussion to be had about what books could, uh, are appropriate to teach in school. You know, I, I don’t, I think in this case, these were optional books that were, uh, for the senior curriculum, and I think the teachers were using good judgment about how they were taught. But I do, I don’t think it’s such a, I like, I think that, you know, as, as liberal progressives, um, sometimes we make a mistake by assuming that everybody who brings that up is, is doesn’t have, you know, that it’s not a legitimate discussion. Like I do think, I do think it’s like parents’ rights are a real thing. Like I don’t think there’s anything wrong with parents wanting to have a say about their kids’ education. And, I just think, I think the fact is most parents trust teachers. Like that’s the fact, like what was actually happening in Rapid City was a very small minority of parents were having an overreach about what the majority of the kids were, were learning. I do think parents’ rights are real. I just don’t think they’re, they’re the way that some of these people perceive them to be.

AW | 16:19 – And I think the students that you interviewed in To, Be, Destroyed make a much better case for being able to read whatever books they want than you or I could make. They distilled the issue quite well, if you can rehash some of the student responses to your questions.

AB | 16:38 – Right? Yeah, I found that, that they were the, the best spokespeople for this whole debate was that the students in Rapid City, um, Dave had invited, uh, some of them to speak. And so, and we did interviews with some of those students as well, and they spoke really eloquently about how, you know, they were old enough to, like, in South Dakota, a senior in high school is, is old enough to legally be married. And so why, how could, how could that student not be given access to a book in school that describes, you know, having sex or something? And I just seem like a very sensible thing.

AW | 17:15 – And the, the people that are pushing for those younger ages in marriage are the same people who are, who are pushing for these book bannings generally.

AB | 17:24 – Yeah. I, we worry sometimes like, it, I have two daughters who are in high school right now, and I, I, of course I worry about, you know, their experience and, and you know, I don’t want them to be exposed to something that is, that is, I don’t know, going to hurt them in any way. But I think that ultimately the other, the other group of people that were, I thought were really great spokespeople for this issue were the teachers themselves. You know, I think what I think was unfortunate is that the teachers were being demonized in this community. They were, they were being made out to be like these evil indoctrinated. And, um, and there’s this one teacher, uh, in the, uh, Sean Bradley, uh, who he has probably my favorite line in the film is like, I asked him about this notion that teachers were indoctrinating students. And he said, I, I don’t have time to indoctrinate students. And if I had that ability, I would use it to get students to turn their work in on time and to wear deodorant every day. Um, and I thought that was just a great line. It’s like, yeah, teachers don’t have that much, you know, I, they, it would be awesome if they did have that much influence over our kids, but they, it’s kids will do what they want, you know? They, they really will.

AW | 18:35 – Yes. Especially when we’re talking about high school students, they have the ability to think for themselves. And we both have daughters in high school, but I think we lose a lot of arguments to our daughters. They know what’s, what my daughter reads voraciously and is a good critical thinker. And I’m not worried about any book that she reads that will somehow damage her long term. Like if she doesn’t like the book, then I think that’s a learning, uh, life lesson in and of itself.

AB | 19:04 – Yeah. For me, my, I have my two daughters. I would love them to read any book, honestly. Like they, they spend a lot of time on their phone. And I think it’s sort of ironic that there’s all these arguments going on about books because the, the books are not the most influential media and our kids’ lives. They, it’s, it’s all they, they can, they can see much more objectionable content on their phones.

AW | 19:28 – Right. And you have a librarian on in the film as well who says, I just want kids to read. And she sounds almost exasperated by it, and you can understand like, she’s just trying to do her job, which is turn people onto the magic of reading,

AB | 19:43 – Right? Yeah, yeah. That’s right. Exactly. Yeah. That librarian, it was interesting because she, it was almost like she, we, we found out that like part of the, the, the sort of wedge the seed of this, of the issue, it had been the, the covid restrictions. But then also, um, this one family, I was a police, a policeman in, in Rapid City, was upset that his daughter was learning about, um, like, like she had been recommended a book in the library that had, uh, it was a graphic novel, um, about, um, and it had a, a depiction of the black, the Black Lives Matter protest. And, and it was just learning about it. May I imagine it probably did show them in a positive light. But, I think that father perceived that the school was teaching his daughter daughters who hate him, that that was, we have him, that he, it’s his speech that opens the film. And, and I, as a father, I can understand the distress that you would feel if your daughter came home from school and, and said that whatever I was doing was evil or something like that. But I think, you know, I think it’s a lot to place that upon this poor lib librarian who was just trying to get that student to read.

AW | 21:00 – I also think it’s not giving teenagers enough agency.

AB | 21:06 – Yeah.

AW | 21:07 – Like, I mean, if we were talking about a 6-year-old who comes back from first grade and says, you know, daddy, they say that, you know, police are bad and Black Lives Matter is about police brutality. And I could understand the, the sensitivity there, but this is a 17-year-old student who’s obviously, if they’ve been on their phones at all and are not banned from social media or the news or has any kind of access to the internet, they’ve heard of police brutality and things like the killing of George Floyd.

AB | 21:37 – Yeah, exactly. I think that’s, that’s exactly right. And I think, you know, sometimes I think the schools are getting blamed for, uh, parents’ distress over, um, you know, their inability to control what their kids are seeing online, you know, which I do, which I do think is an issue in America. I do think it’s a, I I don’t, I, I’m way more concerned about, um, my daughters the time they’re spending on, on social media than I am about any books they’re reading. I think the big force also behind this, this nationwide desire to kind of overhaul school boards, a big force in that is this, um, is this, uh, account libs of TikTok. Um, that I’m sure you probably heard of that, right?

AW | 22:22 – No, no, sorry.

AB | 22:23 – Oh, well, that’s an, that’s just a conservative run account. It’s also on Twitter, but it just, it just, uh, curates videos of, of liberals, especially they, they really love like getting, um, teachers, uh, who have TikTok accounts and, and are sort of ranting liberal teachers on TikTok ranting about gender and, and things like that. And it, they take stuff out of context and it just has caused – I think there’s, there’s like this fear of like this liberal takeover of our schools, um, I, that that’s just a real thing. And they’re trying to, they think they’re just pushing back on it.

(Music Break) | 23:04

AW | 24:02 – This is Alex Wise on Sea Change Radio, and I’m speaking to Arthur Bradford, his latest film for MSNBC is “To Be Destroyed.” So Arthur, the idea of books being destroyed is pretty unconscionable in 2024 to me.

AB | 24:21 – Yeah, I think, and, and you know what, the, what I’d like to say about like, what I like about this film and, and if you get a chance to watch it, is that it starts with that, that sort of like alarming fact of, of, of books being slated, To Be Destroyed in Rapid City, and this feeling like the, the teachers are kind of under assault there. Um, but then Dave goes to this town and then we revisit them, about six to eight months later. And, um, the community really had taken a stand, like that it didn’t really what the two, the, at this point now, that that same school board that voted to restrict those books, they almost all got voted out. They, they had been voted in with a very small number of votes. Like it was some, like an, like, it was something like, and I don’t know the exact figures, but it was just hundreds of people who had voted. And so the number of votes that they had had gotten to be in the school board were, was very low in the first place. And then they, once people started paying attention, they were voted out. And those, the, those books that were, those books were actually never destroyed. They, they, um, they were slated, but the community didn’t want that to happen. They didn’t want to be known as a community that burned books. And I think if you go to Rapid City now, you would find, um, an empowered sense amongst the teachers that they’re not, they’re not going to stand for that.

AW | 25:56 – And I think that’s a template that can be replicated and has been replicated elsewhere in similar situations. Talking about, you mentioned how Eggers this book, suddenly when you tell teens that they can’t read something, what are they going to want to do? They’re going to want to read the book. So it was probably great for his sales in Rapid City, right? I mean, he wasn’t selling the books, but he wanted people to read his book. And so I bet, there’s probably a higher percentage of people who’ve read “The Circle” by Dave Eggers in Rapid City than most towns in South Dakota. I’m venturing to guests and, and that that backfires everywhere, where you try to take over a, a school board and put in draconian puritanical policies, people are going to pay attention. They’re going to get voted out by people who actually are for the majority of this country that believes in freedom and, and the right to, to read whatever we want to read. Now, I’m not dismissing that these parents’ concerns are not legitimate, but I do think that the method of strong-arming people into limiting what their kids and other people’s kids can read is a very slippery slope.

AB | 27:10 – Yeah. And, and I think that most Americans, the fact is like most Americans are absolutely against it. You know, I think what, what, what you would hear that the argument from the other side I think you would hear is that these books are not being banned. They’re just being kept out of the schools. Um, but I think that I do agree. It’s just a slippery slope. I I don’t, I I think I, I, I honestly think if you could, if you could ever get the two sides in a room talking, you know, calmly and, and maybe in a mediated way, I think there’d be a lot of common ground. I, I, I really do. I don’t think it’s an unsolvable issue at all.

AW | 27:47 – Well, it’s films like yours that really help solve the issue in that sunlight is the best disinfectant. The film is “To Be Destroyed.” Arthur Bradford, thanks so much for being my guest on Sea Change Radio.

AB | 28:00 – You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Narrator | 28:17 – You’ve been listening to Sea Change Radio. Our intro music is by Sanford Lewis, and our outro music is by Alex Wise. Additional music by the David Grisman Quintet, Bo Diddley and Wilco. To read a transcript of this show, go to SeaChangeRadio.com to stream, or download the show, or subscribe to our podcast on our site, or visit our archives to hear from Doris Kearns Goodwin, Gavin Newsom, Stewart Brand, and many others. And tune in to Sea Change Radio next week as we continue making connections for sustainability. For Sea Change Radio, I’m Alex Wise.