Book Banning

[sugar magnolia]

I mean, I read it as the State Board wants the local districts/schools to surrender copies of the materials so they can go all judgey mcjudgepants on the contents, not that the schools had to turn over every copy so that they couldn't be used. Did I misconstrue?

Yep. They just want all the information of what will be covered in the courses so they can cherry pick the "good stuff" from it to actually be taught. If they actually wanted all of the physical books etc, why would they be asking for a statement of assurance that "the teaching of these materials" won't violate State law?

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

[somerset]

I mean, I read it as the State Board wants the local districts/schools to surrender copies of the materials so they can go all judgey mcjudgepants on the contents, not that the schools had to turn over every copy so that they couldn't be used. Did I misconstrue?

Submit, not surrender. I read it as asking for a copy of all materials so they can be reviewed. Kinda ominous, but a far cry from "removed all your materials from your school so you can't teach."

[Sam the Centipede]

That letter reads as quite neutral to me. I know nothing of the signatory's status or views. But if I were an employee in the department, unhappy with this vile policy, but still aware that I am required to implement the policies of the state government, I would possibly write something like that. No threats, n justification, just a request.

However that doesn't bar the writer being completely in favor of the book banning! It neither supports nor refutes.

Or do others read it differently?

[realist]

I don't believe they have to physically hand over all the books, etc.., but have to show what they are and assure they won't be teaching history as it should be taught.

[raison de arizona]

'Friday Night Lights' author Buzz Bissinger is an unlikely hero in book-ban fight
Buzz Bissinger, renowned author of "Friday Night Lights," was outraged when an Iowa school banned his book. After he "raised a ruckus," Bissinger and a school official joined forces to fight the ban.

This is a story about democracy and one of democracy's greatest tools − books. The freedom to read them. The ability to learn from them. Access to them. The fight to keep them from being banned.

Book-banning has been fought before in this country. It's just that no one thought there would be a massive book-banning movement in the 21st century. Especially Buzz Bissinger, author of one of the greatest sports books ever written, who has become an unlikely hero in what is an epic confrontation against book-banning.

"It's a frightening time right now, and all these book bans are getting out of control," Bissinger told USA TODAY Sports. "It's also going to be a snowball. The bans keep happening and spreading, and I feel like people aren't aware of this. Freedom of speech and freedom of democracy is what makes this country a great place, and we're seeing people try to reverse some of that by banning books."

Bissinger never believed he'd see the day one of his books was banned. Bissinger's "Friday Night Lights" examined life in a football-obsessed small town in Texas. In 2002, Sports Illustrated named it the fourth-best sports book of all time. It is deep and powerful, but nothing in it screams ban.

That apparently didn't matter to the Mason City Community School District in Iowa, which recently banned the book as part of school officials' compliance with a draconian new state law requiring books read by students to be “age-appropriate” and free of “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/c ... 710138007/

[AndyinPA]

History tells you that if you're on the side of book banning, you're on the wrong side.

[raison de arizona]

The “book ban” narrative is a manufactured crisis to distract from families’ valid concerns about the quality of their children’s education and age-appropriate material in the classroom.

WATCH my full opening remarks to the @SenJudiciaryGOP exposing it.

[raison de arizona]

Mural banning. Can't have people feeling welcome in middle school.

Student’s LGBTQ mural must be removed from Michigan school, board says
The high schooler, who painted the mural after winning a student art contest, said she hoped the mural would “make people feel welcome.”


An LGBTQ-inclusive student mural created inside a Michigan middle school must be painted over by the end of October. The decision, made last week by the local school board, comes nearly a year after the mural ignited backlash from some parents who said it promoted LGBTQ imagery and witchcraft.

A high schooler in Grant, Michigan, painted the mural inside of a student health center at Grant Middle School after she won a student art contest. Some parents objected to the mural during a Grant Public Schools Board of Education meeting in October because the mural features a student wearing a T-shirt with the colors of the transgender Pride flag, two students wearing the colors of the bisexual Pride flag and another wearing rainbow Pride colors.

Some critics argued that the artwork promotes witchcraft because it includes a video game character that looks like a demon and a Hamsa Hand, also known as the Hand of Fatima, a palm-shaped design seen as a symbol of protection in many cultures.

The school board voted in June to cut ties with Family Health Care, which operates the Child and Adolescent Health Center inside Grant Middle School, in addition to two other school-based health centers in the area, according to WOOD-TV, an NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The centers provide free medical, dental and behavioral health care to children, according to the Family Health Care website.

Family Health Care and a group of parents challenged the board’s vote, and, after months of negotiations, the board approved a new contract with Family Health Care last week, WOOD-TV reported. The mural’s removal is part of the deal.

“While it is disappointing that the mural must be removed by the end of October, it’s a compromise we reluctantly were willing to accept to ensure the children of the Grant community continue to have access to medical and behavioral health care,” Family Health Care said in a statement last week. At the school board meeting last October, Evelyn Gonzales, the Grant High School student who painted the mural, said through tears that she created it “to make people feel welcome.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-new ... rcna105592

[Volkonski]

There are many people who don't want people who are not exactly like them to feel welcome.

[AndyinPA]

[pipistrelle]

That’s pathetic.

[Dave from down under]

Bargaining chip in the culture war - children’s health

[Flatpoint High]

BURNNNNN.png (465.52 KiB) Viewed 12699 times

[RTH10260]

Fahrenheit 451 ....

[raison de arizona]

BURNNNNN.png

They weren’t burning books, they were burning empty boxes symbolizing “the woke liberal agenda.” They remain turds, however.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/state ... -missouri/

[Frater I*I]

BURNNNNN.png

Sad thing is, flame throwers are legal, no registration or permits required...

[Flatpoint High]

BURNNNNN.png

Sad thing is, flame throwers are legal, no registration or permits required...

https://www.rawstory.com/republican-can ... wer-video/

[raison de arizona]

IMG_5769.jpeg (95.55 KiB) Viewed 12595 times

[raison de arizona]

Middle school, eighth grade specifically. I guess maybe TX found it unfair to the nazis? (It was the sex.) And it was on their approved reading list that was sent home to parents at the beginning of the year. Deplorable.

This is the apology a Houston school district sent to parents for assigning an illustrated version of Anne Frank's Diary to students.

The teacher was fired for assigning it.

https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texa ... 375331.php
The full book if you would like to read it for yourself:

[Volkonski]

Funny, I don't recall there being any sex in that book.

[raison de arizona]

Funny, I don't recall there being any sex in that book.

Me either, but that isn't what I was concentrating on while reading it.

Edit: Found it.

► Show Spoiler

Another objectionable part:

► Show Spoiler

[Volkonski]

Eight graders don't know the names of body parts?

[raison de arizona]

Eight graders don't know the names of body parts?

Those were the pages Moms For Liberty used in Florida to get it banned. If only they felt the same way about graphic violence as they do about the names of body parts.

[raison de arizona]

My momma would have whooped my butt if I complained about a teacher making me "feel discomfort."

A teacher in South Carolina was reported by her students for teaching Ta-Nehisi Coates’s “Between the World and Me.”

The students explained that the book made them ashamed to be White, violating a clause forbidding teachers from making students “feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress” on race

https://t.co/U0XJpuCtb8

https://x.com/Phil_Lewis_/status/170414 ... 40906?s=20