I’ve lived in Cambridge for more than half a century, and I vividly recall the dozens of bookstores (yes, dozens!) we had in earlier years. That era is long gone, but we still have several bookstores in the city, and I insist on buying from these local institutions despite the higher cost.
My recent visits to these stores, however, have disappointed and saddened me.
Across the road from Harvard Yard, where are the bestselling books of Harvard alum and recent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.? Kennedy is now campaigning for Donald Trump to form a unity government and work to make America healthy again. Where are the books Kennedy has written challenging the Covid narratives of the Biden-Harris administration? Where are his environmental works, his family memoir, or even his beautiful children’s books? Where are the books by other authors discussing Kennedy’s accomplishments?
Kennedy has been denied interviews and debates by the mainstream media. Kennedy has been censored on social media at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration. And today the display windows and tables and shelves of our Cambridge bookstores are more Kennedy-free than CNN. No chance that anyone might stumble across a book by Kennedy, open it up and read some of Kennedy’s words. Even a table displaying books relevant to the 2024 election has no books by Kennedy. Perhaps Kennedy’s books belong on that same store’s table of banned books. As the store proudly displays books banned by someone else in some other place, they effectively ban Kennedy’s books in their own store. Cambridge bookstores are almost hermetically sealed against Kennedy’s words and his ideas.
Modern-day censorship is not throwing books onto bonfires. Modern-day censorship is keeping important political candidates off the airwaves. Modern-day censorship is deplatforming inconvenient voices on social media or tweaking the algorithm so that these voices reach fewer listeners. And modern-day censorship is failing to display relevant books to bookstore visitors during a hotly contested election year. When bookstore owners make Kennedy invisible, they break no law, but they nonetheless suppress ideas.
Let’s celebrate our magnificent First Amendment, our magnificent bookstores, and all of our major candidates. Bookstores, stop systematically censoring important dissenting voices! Let freedom ring!
Deborah Belle, Myrtle Avenue, Cambridge
The writer is professor emerita in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Boston University.
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Here, purchase to your hearts content https://www.amazon.com/s?k=robert+f+kennedy+jr+books&crid=2OK1ND4JQWEBK&sprefix=robert+f%2Caps%2C121&ref=nb_sb_ss_ts-doa-p_1_8
Porter Square Books may not stock any books by RFK Jr, but they do stock many kids books, including:
* Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (a classic)
* The Berenstain Bears Go To The Doctor (the kids get vaccinated!)
* Bear on a Bike (the bear is still alive to ride the bike, don’t want the little ones to be sad)
Harvard Book Store may not stock any books by RFK Jr, but they do stock:
* Whale Done (a middle school novel, featuring “a massive dead whale [that] has washed up on the beach—and before anyone can determine what killed it, it explodes.” Uh oh!)
* Chainsaw Man, Vol. 1 (a manga; sadly volumes 2 through 17 need to be ordered from a distributor, but at least you can decide if you like the series)
So really, whoever is picking these books seems like they’re doing a great job staying on top of things.
Do they not carry any of his books at all? Or are they just not in the window display?
In neither case is it a matter of first amendment speech suppression. Every book a store chooses to stock is a dozen others that lose their shelf space. And choosing what to display out front or list as a “staff pick” is well within the store owner’s rights to their own speech.
I suspect the store owners know their audience is largely uninterested or actively repelled by RFK’s mania.
What a weird thing to get worked up enough about to write an essay over. But Cambridge can be a weird place sometimes.
Ms. Belle confuses sensible curation and book selection with “banning”. Apparently local bookstore owners have judged Kennedy books as not worthy of shelf space. Perhaps for economic reasons, or perhaps because like most of Cambridge, they deem these books to be nonsense and misinformation. That’s their First Amendment right as private citizens and companies.
But that is different than banning (i.e. refusing to sell) books. Ms. Belle should visit the service desk at her favorite local bookstore and order as many Kennedy books as she’d like (along with the aforementioned Berenstain Bears…)
Oh jeez, Professor Belle. You have fallen far from someone I once admired as a real trailblazer in feminism and social justice. I hope you find your way back.
@Itamar for the win! Haha.
Maybe there is an authorship dispute between RFK Jr and his brain worm.
Apparently, Deborah Belle is confusing not selling crazy nonsense with censorship. They are different things.
@Deborah Belle. I have questions:
Where does RFK Jr get his theories from? They have be soundly rejected by the scientific community.
Why is he supporting a wannabe authoritarian dictator?
How does he feel about his family’s disapproval?
Why do you think private bookstores must sell his books?
Isn’t it concerning that a professor supports theories rejected by scientific consensus?
It is absolutely true that independent bookstores curate their selections to cater to the tastes of their customers. They rarely offer a diversity of perspectives; rather, the points of view offered in the titles they display and promote range from progressive to liberal. Cambridge is an echo chamber and our bookstores reflect this fact.
Promoting RFK Jr books would be a poor way to rectify this problem of intellectual homogeneity. He’s a total kook. But would it be too much to ask of our bookstores to give more shelf space to the likes of Carole Hooven and Alex Byrne, both of whom are Cambridge residents?
Let me remind everyone that private businesses not selling or selling specific books is not censorship. Government telling private bookstore (or public libraries) what books to sell would be censorship. As far as RFK jr – that person has blood on his hands by promoting vaccine misinformation. He isn’t someone worth celebrating or listening too.
Welcome to Freedom of Choice. Since small bookstores are privately owned and privately curated they get to choose what they sell in a Capitalistic society.
Choosing not to carry a bunch of ramblings by a person responsible for damaging our society with misinformation (and that’s putting it politely) that has hurt this country and may have caused unnecessary harm and even deaths in recent years is responsible curation of their available shelf space and stores that do so should be praised not berated.
Covid narratives of the Biden Harris administration? Sounds like you are hardly a disinterested First Amendment proponent. Maybe you and RFK can find a dead animal to pick up and mishandle.
You likely don’t know that RFK Jr wrote a children’s picture book about Robert Smalls, a 24 year old slave who, in 1862 stole a gunship from the confederacy and delivered it to the Federal army. This could be a widely known story if the book were on display in your store. This brave and unsung hero played a huge role in confirming Lincoln’s understanding of the capacity of black people for bravery and wisdom. This is among the many books written by RFK Jr which would likely serve to educate many students in Cambridge when studying the civil war or black history. As bookstore owners, it is important NOT to fall into bigotry and censorship strategies which will lessen the learning of your customers. Consider how you are educating your public (and how you are not).
“A mind is like a parachute, it doesn’t work if it is not open.” – Zappa
I see bookstores as a place of discovery. Like world travel, especially off the beaten path, reading authors I would not typically choose to read offers an opportunity to challenge my beliefs, understand perspectives of others, consider a new way of seeing and thinking, and learn to embrace differences.
That Ms. Belle was told,”people don’t want to read [Kennedy’s books],” is surprising, especially given his run for President. And, it just isn’t true: I did a quick search to discover his book, The Real Anthony Fauci, was a New York Times Bestseller for seventeen weeks and sold over one million copies.
So, yeah, I understand Ms. Belle’s line of questioning and her concern.