Holocaust Graphic Novelist Art Spiegelman on "Maus" & Wave of Book Bans Sweeping U.S.

As a wave of book bans sweeps schools and libraries across the United States, Democracy Now! speaks with the celebrated graphic novelist Art Spiegelman on a Tennessee school district’s recent vote to ban his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from its eighth-grade language arts curriculum. The novel, which was targeted for profanity and nudity, tells the story of Spiegelman’s parents who survived the Holocaust.

Spiegelman says the bills put forth by conservatives are just a “displacement of their own anxieties” and warns of taking away “access to understanding a genocidal system built by fascists and authoritarians” for youth and adults alike. He also comments on ABC’s recent suspension of Whoopi Goldberg for her comments that the Holocaust was “not about race,” saying Goldberg deserves to stay on the air in light of her apology.

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