A Texas School District Banned My Book. Then Things Got Ugly
texasmonthly.com
texasmonthly.com
[0] https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/lake-travis-school-b...
Crowdsourcing our outrage like this is a hugely destructive behavior, and yet it’s one that both “teams” engage in regularly. News sources on both sides are in the business of telling you what will make you engage the most, and usually that’s whatever makes you the angriest. You really do need to look into things for yourself. When you do you’ll often find that there’s way more nuance there than you thought, no matter how straightforward the original reporting seemed to be. If you can’t spare the time to do that, you have no business engaging in activism pertaining to that topic.
sorry for the lecture, but this argument is one of the few that triggers the hell out of me. the other one is, "I don't care about privacy violations because I'm not doing anything wrong"
And hardcore partisans always think the other sides is the really-really-really-evil side and they are on the side of angels. So your line of thinking can be used to justify bad behavior because the other side is worse.
Authoritarian people are going to find ways to be authoritarian no matter their political persuasion.
I'm against censorship, and I think banning books from school libraries is ridiculous [4]. But a single school district in Texas banning a book is not really comparable with the scale and significance of the corporate/woke censorship.
[1]: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/book-burning-at-ontario...
[2]: WSJ: "Amazon Won’t Sell Books Framing LGBTQ+ Identities as Mental Illnesses" https://archive.fo/v5rWn
[3]: Guardian: "It's a moral decision': Dr Seuss books are being 'recalled' not cancelled, expert says" https://archive.fo/SPBMh
[4]: A school library has limited space, and obviously can't hold all the books in the world, so the librarian have to make a choice. But selection should be based on things like what the students would like to read, exposure to a broad diversity of views, etc. instead of ideology.
I’m unconvinced book banning is as big a deal on the left. The one example you bring up was apparently attacked across the board in Canada and the other two are non government institutions, the last one literally being the family of the author.
Maybe more importantly though I’m unconvinced that book restrictions are actually universally illegitimate, but certainly some motivations are. If as the article claims it is mostly multicultural books being attacked despite similar books in terms of sex being left alone, then that is worse than books being restricted because people feel they’re racist because racism is bad. I would for example completely support restricting middle schoolers access to books supporting “race science” at least without the proper context being provided
I disagree, I think book restrictions are Orwellian, but that's another discussion.
[1]: https://www.findlaw.com/education/student-rights/banning-boo...
There are other examples of using copyright for censorship. The infamous book by the mustache man was prevented from being reprinted in Germany until 2016 by the copyright holder (Bavaria's state government) [1]. Use of DMCA notices by corporations to suppress disparaging news about security vulnerabilities is another example.
Do you believe these are not instances of censorship?
Not the GP, but I assume they meant that it being done by the copyright holders makes it a non-issue in terms of censorship: Censorship is something that's done to copyright holders. What they themselves do is something else.
[EDIT:] So, yes, I would say at least your Knausgaard -- oops, no, the other guy with a similarly-named book -- example is not censorship. Something similar, but not quite the same thing. [/EDIT]
It is mostly about infringing the restricting the ability of individuals to choose what they would like to read, hear, and watch; and also infringing their right to free expression.
:-) On the topic of the book by he-who-must-not-be-named, I beg to differ. The intention is quite clear, copyright is just the means to achieve it.
Here is a Gedankenexperiment: assume that there is a jurisdiction in which the state, instead of the estate [1], automatically becomes the copyright holder after the author of a work passes away. [2] If the state starts making rules on which books by dead authors cannot be published, wouldn't you call it censorship?
[1]: Sorry for the a-maize-ingly corny and unfunny dad joke, couldn't resist.
[2]: This is not too far fetched, apparently this is roughly what has happened with you-know-what in Bavaria.
But yeah, I agree: Let's not mention Kn***rd's name again.
They've got two parts: individual freedom to do what you want with the property, and control over what other people can do with the property
More freedom would mean anyone can do what they want with the property, eg if somebody wants to read or copy the book, they can, regardless of what the author says
How is the right-wing viewpoint seemingly that the author shouldn't have the right to be able to stop the publishing of their own work? Is it censorship because I can't buy JD Salinger's The Ocean Full of Bowling Balls because he didn't want it published until 50 years after his death?
I do not know much about the case of Salinger's book, but it seems a bit different as apparently he withdrew the story before publication, it was done by the author himself, and the intention does not seem to be ideological. [1][2]
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Ocean_Full_of...
[2]: I think the ideological intention does kinda matter, e.g. curation of the books in the school libraries is inevitable (unless we abolish copyright and make them all a portal to libgen :-)) and is not censorship. But it _is_ censorship when it is driven by ideology.
Because you have been fooled. Seuss’s estate decided to cease printing some of his lowest selling books, cited some problematic elements as a justification, and conservative media decided to manufacture a wedge issue out of it. Could they updated those elements? Sure. Seuss himself did at least once. But why bother? They were among his lowest selling books. Books fall out of print all the time.
Their statement [1] explicitly says they are doing it after consulting a "panel of experts, including educators". A few days earlier, a school district in Virginia had decided to stop reading Seuss’s books on Dr. Seuss Day. [2] Some school boards in Canada outright banned his books. [3] I think some people lost their jobs because of protesting these in off-color Facebook posts. After the prices for used copies of the books skyrocketed, eBay delisted them. [4] Biden avoided using the author's name in his Dr. Seuss Day statement [5]. Don't you find all of these a tad suspiciously Orwellian?
Also, FYI, I don't really appreciate your personal attack there.
[2]: CP24 (Republished from CNN): "Publisher to stop printing six Dr. Seuss books because they perpeturate racial stereotypes" https://archive.ph/HOhAw
[3]: CBC: "Hamilton Public Library not removing Dr. Seuss books, but local school boards are" https://archive.fo/j1OiJ#selection-795.0-795.156
[4]: https://www.cbr.com/dr-seuss-banned-books-delisted-ebay/
[5]: https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-erases-dr-seuss-read-...
I think you are merely trolling, and not really arguing in good faith. In that case, I'm done replying to you here. Wish you a happy new year, and have no scruples: we all gonna end up loving the Big Brother anyway :-)
>André Noël, a Quebec journalist, noted on Twitter that his book, Trafic chez les Hurons, published in 2000, was among those removed from shelves. In a Twitter thread, Noël wrote in French that the removal of his book “surprises me and seems excessive.”
“But I fear that this controversy will distract us from the real scandal, which we have not yet fully measured: the destruction of Indigenous lands and the oppression of Indigenous peoples by Europeans and their descendants, including in Canada and in Quebec,” he wrote.
[2] - Private company can sell what they want.
[3] - Private company can create whatever products they want.
[4] - The argument in the article is that there are marginalized students who want to read these books.
On (2) and (3), neither of these are true in reality, and most don't think they should be true either.
Even if you are an extremely principled libertarian, I am sure that you don't think that every single thing a "private" entity does is inherently good. We, the "private" citizens, certainly can (and should) criticize their actions.
On (4), as I said in my comment, I very much disagree with the prudish/ideological banning of the book from school libraries, so I guess we agree on that?
As for government intervention, at least for the case of Amazon banning books, it seems practically infeasible to me. Large and vociferous factions of the ruling class do want censorship, and Amazon et al are doing it in part to appease them.
For social media censorship, there might be a better chance of effective regulation, as probably more people care about it than banned books.
Crowdsourced rage on platforms other than radio (e.g. social media) is the same theory, different medium.
What's disgusting is that Meta/Facebook et al. avoid doing anything about it, while profiting directly. And by "it" I mean "engagement algorithms that reward outrage," not "content." Attempts to moderate content (or not) are a red herring, and useless, as addressing content doesn't change the underlying engagement systems that incentivized that outrage in the first place.
It had been weaponized by Democrats against Republican-leaning media, so it was no surprise that Reagan stopped it. The perhaps unexpected result of that is that the fourth estate was divided by the two major parties and we have our choice of political propaganda or political propaganda with no objectivity or government oversight.
One possible solution is to consider another fairness doctrine. One with standards set so as to not be controlled by the two party political system.
If we don't moderate content creation, we'd have to moderate content consumption or deeper incentives (ad money). Solutions to those seem more abusive of freedoms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine#Coroll...
Both of the post-fairness rules above that survived for a while seem reasonable to reimplement. Roughly, if either a person is attacked or a political candidate endorsed, the person or the unendorsed candidate must be afforded airtime to respond.
Those 2 rules alone would drastically alter the business of the major 24/7 news channels.
And I think realistically what we're talking about are "major media outlets." Which I'd define either by total viewer/listener count or local market share.
If you want to go off on your blog about someone, free speech seems to hold. But if the main radio station in your area decides to relentlessly beat the drum for a candidate / issue... well, that's probably a problem for democracy.
There's a concerted effort of using school boards as a political tool to rally the base -- and the OP is the result of that.
Because I have several fundraising emails in a junk inbox that would indicate otherwise.
But equivocating Trump and NRA flags w/ BLM and rainbow flags is a stretch -- they're coming from different places with drastically different intentions.
I loath the NRA but if they hewed to their stance in the previous century I'd even give them a pass.
Are they or is that just your perception of the person who put them up?
If a person that puts up a LBTBQ flag is doing so just to show that they support equality but isn't actually LBTGQ themselves...is that different than putting up an NRA flag showing that they support the NRA organization (or at least parts of it...I don't think most people can get behind all of it)...or a BLM flag showing that they support a cause even though they don't agree with everything done in the name of BLM. Who makes that call...or should anyone be making that call? Is it easier to remove any possibility of politics or conflict from politics from classrooms as that is not why kids are going to school.
Depends: Does the person putting up the NRA flag belong to the NRA or not? Your alternatives aren't equivalent.
What? What does that have to do with anything, you ask? Yeah, that's what I was wondering, too. So why did you put "isn't actually LBTGQ themselves" in there?
You're looking at it in the context of "my team vs your team". My point is the context is "our team". If you can't see the difference your ignorance is willful.
"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." -- Anatole France
Similar to this book "ban"...is it unreasonable that teachers not bring their own personal political view points into the classroom and push them on to children? Is a political and judgment free classroom an unreasonable expectation?
How about if a teacher is a Trump supporter and wears a Trump hat to school...do we expect them to be fired because of it? This happened to someone I know...and I don't see any huge outrage in the media because of it.
https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/long-time-teacher-file...
Probably? It always comes down to history, with art and literature being a reflection of it.
An objective reading of all history, were there time, would still be disliked by any who place political allegiance above greater good. Add in the necessary summarization that must occur, to be able to fit a large amount of material in a smaller amount of class time, and it becomes even more fraught.
Fundamentally, whether to teach a part of history, and how much emphasis or context to put on various parts, is a politically-adjacent question.
He also was intentionally an instigator and I wasn't present to see what his educational process comprised, but I'm guessing not much. There's a "thing" about "owning the libs" which doesn't have any interest in building consensus or anything like it (in fact, the opposite -- it's literally the whole point of it). He played dickhead poker and lost. Whomp whomp.
In the latter, the words that comprise the phrase cannot be contested (but actually are, which only increases the validity and urgency of the phrase). If you want to throw in another color or flavor there then fine, because that statement comes from a position of inclusivity. Yes, all lives matter but we all know that life ain't fair and certain groups of people have it less fair than others.
For many, unfortunately, the phrase BLM matters too because they've been conditioned to associate that phrase with purely negative connotations. So for those individuals, seeing a BLM flag they see the flag of their enemy and that, of course, must not stand.
So to compare and contrast vis-à-vis Trump vs BLM, with the former you have "Hail to The King" and the latter being "let's end police abuse of power" that has been rebranded as evil by its opponents. They're coming from completely different intentions and intention matters a lot.
BTW, I wouldn't support Biden flags in the school either.
But putting up a flag that might comfort LGBQT youth in a world that is hostile to them? Or a flag that explicitly states that they matter? Your homework assignment is to compare and contrast those flags.
On one side you get abstract arguments about "freedom" but no specifics. You get no specifics because the specifics are mostly bad, like taking bodily autonomy away from women.
In this case, white parents took offense at a book about a romance between two minority children at a relatively recent time in history that makes readers think about society not being done with the work of dismantling racism. There is not a way to defend that. It is about racists being made uncomfortable. There are not two sides to that, except to engage in whataboutism.
A website that reviews books and suggests when they are age appropriate says this book is suggested for 15+ year olds. The story is talking about middle school libraries...
It also says this book is A+ for educational value...it just has a significant amount of mature subject matter.
Just offer a free digital copy to any student who can supply an ID from that school district. You can get wound up about it: it is your right. But it might be good to stop to ask whether you need to.
So we get a handful of, generally smaller and ideologically homogenous, places doing absurd things, and then suffer the backlash as those events are elevated culturally. And that elevation gives way to a movement, and then a backlash to that movement, on and on and on.
But I think it's absolutely worth getting riled up about.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/texas-critical-race-th...
Central (book) Repository of Texas, perhaps? (You know, where a guy is supposed to have been hiding with an old [Mannlicher?] carbine just over 58 years ago...)
I believe this is what they call, "the iron law of woke projection".
- Jussie Smollett
- The Steele Dossier
Should I go on?
Progressives have forty years of work to dominate school boards, starting with University administration, on down through K-12 administration, to the point where some elementary schools are teaching "white" children they should feel guilty for being born "white." No, this isn't happening everywhere, but it is happening in some schools.
Progressives have blown past Martin Luther King's "content of their character" and haired off into Animal Farm territory. This is why MLK is now being claimed to be "problematic." His way led to reconciliation, rather than a new dominance hierarchy. Progressives in general seem to be playing to "win" not to solve, as MLK was.
When one force pushes that hard, it's likely to cause a reaction. I think we're seeing it.
No they aren't. No one is doing this anywhere.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservati...
This is all political stunts pulled by various right-wing groups. They are specifically targeting LISD and RRISD because these areas have recently trended towards Democrats.
What I'm questioning is whether the ever ratcheting level of outraged dialogue is the optimal response. We have been trying that for the last decade or two and it doesn't seem to be moving us in the right direction. Maybe it's time to try something else.
If the US government bans a book, we should be (figuratively) marching in the street with pitch forks.
Or is that the school libraries won't stock the book?
There is a somewhat big difference between a school library not stocking a book and a school district banning it for all students.
Iran school district bans bible might be very different from this texas "ban".
Why is it so important that children have access to this book? Do (local) parents working with a (local) school district not have some right to input on these things?
I see your concern that a district choosing not to stock a book is not news, but in this case it sounds like the book was available and used in the curriculum in many districts for the past 6 years, and then only banned this year after the video by Kara Bell was publicized.
It literally never ever means the student can't possess it.
Answer this and that will answer your question.
I let my kids look at Nat Geo Kids. I don't have them looking at hustler. This is parenting 101 stuff. Every study shows that letting kids be kids is a good thing for their development.
Yes, some kids (often without good parental involvement) get exposed to "adult" topics much earlier. This is correlated with plenty of miserable and sad outcomes.
Let me ask you this. Why should you, who is not a parent of the kids in this school, have a right to force violent imagery on those kids? Or force the procurement and availability of this material? Or of any material?
Answer that question - and you will answer your own question.
Some reviews here:
http://commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/out-of-darkness/use...
Example:
This novel crosses some legal boundaries with the adult/child abuse and rape scenes. It is VERY detail, vivid, and graphic. It includes descriptive scenes of the main character being sexually abuse by her father. Years later, her pastor encourages her to marry her stepfather as a child.
This book continues to get worse as it include graphic images of children violently harmed. Eventually, a bomb goes off at school and her little sister is killed- graphic descriptions of her body parts are all over.
This novel is a canvas, showcasing child abuse. There isn't any healthy themes or solutions.
The poster demands your child be exposed to this - no regard to age or your own parental views.
Quick note, I'm not 100% against killing fascists. There's a time and a place for anything (eg: d-day).
Careful what you say about killing fascists...using violence to squash an ideology you don't agree with is basically fascism. People calling themselves anti-fascist but attacking people who are exercising their right to protest something is extremely stupid and hypocritical.
From an outside point of view, the extremes that the US goes to, to shield kids from adult themes is awful. Damaging even.
No, they should not be showing porn in school, but explicit movies were absolutely part of my health class when discussing sex at age 12.
"Parents have a critical role to play when it comes to what their kids read, and Out of Darkness isn’t for everyone. But it is a book that matters to someone, and that student deserves to be able to find it in their school library."
... except for it being the school library. A library, yes, but I understand a school library not having it.
My 8 year old got "Our House on Fire"(the Gretta story) as the holidays reading. It is a hilarious fear porn with multiple bullshit claims. Idea is to scare, make the kid feel anxiety and get them to do "something". Reminded me of the old posters in USSR, What did you do for the 5 year plan???!! In some ways I am glad I can start working with her on recognizing this shit early, never though I would need to after I immigrated in my teens here... but here we are.
I wonder if she will bring a rewrite of Pavlik Morozov and COVID for summer light reading.
https://www.npr.org/2021/10/28/1050013664/texas-lawmaker-mat...
I view the responsibility of schools to provide at least the minimum needed for graduates to be contributing members of society. That means they need diverse perspectives of our society and history. Sometimes graphic or hyperbolic language may be necessary to force students to truly consider such perspectives, so I don't see such language in and of itself as a reason to ban something. Though such works should probably only be read with age-appropriate support.
It's even expected that some books will make children uncomfortable. Good books reveal uncomfortable truths about people, society, or even ourselves. We do our children a disservice "protecting" them from such truths.
Deciding what books are appropriate for a high school library isn't an exact science, and it's often down to a few people carrying out a district selection process. It's not as simple as "you have to stock every book else you're guilty of censorship", regardless of the motives of people seeking to exclude (or include) specific books.
And for what it's worth, thousands of books are rejected each year by American school districts. Publishers, authors, and other interests push hard to get 'their' books into schools.
What we don't have is a viable leftist party.
Speaking as someone who volunteered for multiple real progressive candidates across the country: The Democratic party leadership absolutely despises the real Left wing of their party. They don't want them but need their votes. They will continue to do everything to undermine them. There is no left party, just a far right corporatist party and a centrist corporatist party. Thats all.
Can you clarify what a US conservative party would look like?
The problem is the US would also have to allow elections at any time with a parliamentary system. The leader of the party in power is the Prime Minister and if he or his party screw up a non-confidence vote can be cast. Then we go to the polls again.
It has to be elections anytime, multiple parties, possible minority governments they all go together.
I disagree, so I think that's probably not the first thing to understand about US politics.
Oh, also, you're incorrect - according to Pew it's closer to 25%.
As of 2020, the number was 34% responding yes to "Would you describe yourself as a "born-again" or evangelical Christian?". In 2019, it was 37%, and 42% in 2017.
Pre-20th century Europe is not a great example of constructive political discourse btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
"born-again" and "evangelical" are not interchangeable terms, though there is significant cross-over. That's why you'll get a higher number if you ask if someone is either born again or evangelical than if you ask if they are evangelical alone.
The other stuff about this specific religion having 'irrational' beliefs I think extends to most religions generally so I don't think is that useful as a differentiator.
That isn't what the parent is arguing though.
Again, I don't think that the 'irrational beliefs' of evangelicals are unique to them, so as I said before if that's the point it also fails.
Breaking the argument down:
Statement: The first thing to understand about US politics is that almost 40% of the population is evangelical. There can be no constructive political discourse with that type of demographic skew.
So there can be no constructive political discourse because 40% of the population is evangelical. Why?
Reasoning: 1. In addition to the generally irrational beliefs held by evangelicals (e.g. the earth being 6000 years old), they 2. tend to vote as a unified block, and 3. The remaining 60% of the population generally has disparate interests and doesn't have a strongly unified vote.
As I said, throw out #1, because it isn't unique to their religion and you have two things: 1. an organized voting block with the sole unifier being religion and 2. a disparate remainder of the population with varied interests and religions.
The first part of the remainder is also bunk, because only 56% of evangelicals lean republican. 28% lean democrat, the remainder are unaffiliated, according to Pew. So even if you took the 40% total which isn't accurate, you'd have a voting block of only about 21%, with 10% going the other side.
But even if it were accurate, it again applies to any organized religion, unless you think that evangelicals are for some reason unique in their being aligned solely on the basis of religious belief. That would be a really weird argument given the wars fought over religion prior to the formation of protestant religions.
the second part, sure, the population has varied interests. No disagreement there.
You can see a breakdown here: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/10/30/5-facts-abo...
The rest of your argument hinges on the rejection of evolution being shared among other groups and therefore being invalid, but as you can see, the rejection of evolution is largely a evangelical phenomenon.
In 19th century Europe and in modern central and south America, however, this is not associated with evangelical protestants, though protestants generally are more likely to have an issue with evolution.
Still, that's not really it - you've got a ton of irrational beliefs held by the catholic church. Unless you think those specific beliefs are what prevent constructive discourse?
They claim to be. But when some of them unironically rolled out a literal golden statue of their human leader, I saw no outrage from the rest of them. I saw no condemnation from the rest of them. I simply don't believe their claim.
But does it even matter whether we, you and I, believe them or not; isn't the main issue whether they themselves believe it? (And I'm afraid enough of them do.)
We need a voting system that enables political parties in the United States to rise and fall. People need more than two choices.
I believe changing our electoral systems for all levels of government to something like Ranked Choice or Approval (or multi-member systems) is the defining institutional change needed of our time.
It won't directly solve every first-order issue directly (taxation, spending, social safety nets, military, scope of government, etc). It will, however, allow us to break ourselves out into more representative groups of ideas. It will force politicians and parties to compete on the merits of their own ideas rather than "not the other party". It will allow voters to vote for ideas rather than against others. The concept of "lesser evil" will be weakened if not broken.
I believe it is critical for the culture and political survival of the United States to move away from first-past-the-post voting.
As for why school boards have editorial oversight... What do you do if a school librarian goes off the deep end and starts spending 100% of the library budget on say, Scientologist propaganda? It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight?
Here in Germany, we have an entire bureaucratic apparatus (the Ministries of Education) to hold school staff accountable. For me, the US system is simply incomprehensible because it is plainly visible that the system can be commandeered by tiny minority action groups that have a lot of free time (i.e. conservative pensioners).
> It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight?
Ideally, you'd have a set of policies that would put a serious limit on political, religious and sectarian propaganda materials... and in the case of disputes, it would be the job of the school administration (=the principal / vice principal) to deal with them.
At least in my experience, most of the people who bother to research candidates and vote in school board elections are parents with kids in the public system. Turnout is typically low because those people are the only ones with skin in the game. Pensioners typically don't care as long as their taxes don't go up.
The plus side to this system is that you get much more direct accountability. In the German system, if your Ministry of Education is performing poorly, how would you effect change? Vote for a national party and hope that they have the will and political capital to fight an entrenched bureaucracy that will delay and fillibuster any attempt at reform?
From the US side of things, it's incomprehensible that you'd have so much faith in a bureaucratic entity that makes competition (homeschooling) illegal, and would want less direct democracy by voters.
https://m.dw.com/en/us-judge-grants-german-homeschooling-fam...
You'd vote in the state elections which are every four to five years. As for the bureaucracy - if there is one thing we Germans are famous for, it's the neutrality of our apparatus. With the exception of the police and military (which tend to be more on the authoritarian right scale), it does not matter who is in government - there is no "deep state". All the people in the administration are not employees, they are state servants ("Beamte") who have sworn an oath on the Constitution and to observe political neutrality while carrying out their duties.
As for home schooling, this is actively distrusted in Germany because our education system is decently funded and the only ones actually wanting to homeschool are religious nutjobs.
That means that upturning the entire system is actually quite difficult, but allows for much more flexibility with regards to community norms. We're traditionally nonhomogenous in aggregate in the US but have a lot of communities with shared values and have decided the best way to administrate that is to allow for flexibility within state guidelines.
Should a middle school kid read books proved overtime? I believe they still have enough time in their life to build the immune systems for such controversial topics.
In this case, it is reasonable for parents to complain about a book containing descriptions of anal sex being in a library available to teenagers. One may disagree, but that is why the school board had a public meeting to debate this issue, and the school board properly decided. Describing this as some sort of book banning or book burning is misleading and should be avoided.
This author is suggesting that because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school, that she is somehow aggrieved. I disagree. But I with her well and I hope she finds her book in other places. Sounds like an interesting and thought-provoking read.
What strikes me is that people like Kara Bell are so hellbent on removing content which doesn't fit their narrow moral outlook. Nuance, perspective and anything else that comes along with intellectual curiosity is irrelevant to them. It just one step removed from a mob yelling "burn the witch".
It was specifically removed from shelves: "Lake Travis ISD removed all print copies of Out of Darkness from its middle school libraries", blocked: "banned from use in classroom libraries and the school book clubs", restricted: "Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access", etc.
This isn't "some schools didn't stock my book" at all.
Also "And just last week, Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access to Out of Darkness in all high school libraries, citing the book’s “violence and difficult imagery.” Students in the district must ask a librarian for the book and show proof of parental consent. " - Meaning it's still available from the library, but parents have to give consent. Also well short of a ban.
Look - I'm very liberal in my beliefs about speech. If it was my school it would be treated like any other book. But we have to accept that different people in different places will have different values and educational priorities and standards. It is not completely unreasonable to put guards around the material we expose our kids to, especially in middle school. Would you feel differently if this book were about other topics you might feel are sensitive? What about guns, Nazism, Marxism, lizard-people, etc?
Sure but it's still a world away from "This author is suggesting that because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school, that she is somehow aggrieved" which was your original claim.
> Meaning it's still available from the library, but parents have to give consent
Yes, like I said, "restricted". But again miles from "wasn't chosen".
> It is not completely unreasonable to put guards around the material we expose our kids to
Indeed not and if this particular book were being argued about in good faith, I'd have zero problem with it being taken out of schools. Choosing particularly salacious out of context quotes and mischaracterising it is 100% not "good faith" though.
What about if those libraries had movies and they allowed rated R movies in middle schools? Would that be acceptable...or would it be censorship?
The entire "Rating" system for movies is absurd, inconsistent, and deeply flawed as it is.
Do you feel super violent video games should be accessible by young kids as well?
Which is literally how it works.
If some parents don't want their children reading certain books, those parents can limit their access.
At my middle school, due to religious parents, your library card could be flagged such that the librarian wouldn't let you check out books on specific topics.
Behold. The books were available to all, but could not be acquired by all.
Personally, I would look for solutions that maximize the chances of everybody getting what they want. Maybe parents can sign a waiver for their kids to get certain books, maybe this is all an argument for school choice. Just because government funds the schools doesn’t mean we have to put parents in this zero sum position where they’re fighting over who gets to present their values to the other side’s kids.
Personally, I think it’s good for kids to be presented with a lot of different perspectives. I’ve read several of the books on these lists since they started going around and haven’t found one I think is inappropriate for a high schooler to choose to read.
But I wonder how many books raising explicit concerns about trans issues are stocked in these libraries? If they stock How To Be An Antiracist, do they have books that are critical of that?
Also, I think it would be helpful if the people defending these books focused on a substantive defense of the content instead of trying to invalidate the opinions of their critics based on identity characteristics.
In terms of "but is the library stocking enough books on conservative views", who knows what that even means. Is there a book out there that serves as a sufficient counterpoint to Roots? Does a library have to offer The Turner Diaries if they're going to stock Dawn?
As to the question “what about books I think are really bad?” I don’t see how that’s much different than what these parents are asking.
And personally, I would expect high school libraries to have Lenin’s “What is to be done?” and Hitler’s “Mein Kampf.” I wonder how many do?
The trick is generally what defines "Good" and "Important". Just because a book presents a counter-perspective, it doesn't mean the book is worth stocking because the book isn't "good" (filled with inaccuracies, lies, whatever). But sometimes, even a "bad" book is "important". But sometimes it's not. So edge cases abound.
But, just as a check, the Chicago (super liberal city run by super liberal everything) public library system does have "Woke Racism" available.
As does the Austin system.
High School libraries are more limited, so they're obviously not going to have every book, and I'm sure gaps exist for any ideological/partisan view.
By and large I agree with them. But, I don’t think that when the people running a public institution disproportionately represent one cultural perspective, we should automatically trust what they believe about what is “good” or “important,” especially when they are making decisions over the objections of another group in the public. Like I said above, I don’t think you should dismiss a person’s perspective only because if immutable characteristics, but when one group controlling an institution treats its own preferences as an objectively correct “view from nowhere” you should be suspicious. I was persuaded to this idea by my fellow lefties, who seem to forget it entirely when the group running the institution is like them (college educated. Likes PBS) and the group objecting is one they don’t like (conservative white Christians).
“People like me have views that are right and good and children of The Other will be better off if we can teach them the backwards, ignorant values of their parents are wrong” is the view of the “parents should have no say” crowd of today and the “Indian residential schools are a good idea” crowd of the past.
If a person thinks that to the greatest degree possible the preferences of conservative / working class parents shouldn’t hamper access for other kids, i’m with them. If they think “the experts” who happen to be the same SEC / social class as themselves are neutral arbiters of goodness, I think they should reflect on what that generally looks like.
As for Austin and Chicago, we’re talking about public schools here. A context where parents who aren’t well off are forced to send their kids to be taught by agents of the state. It is a much bigger deal if the public schools only represent the views of the liberal college educated class.
My main issue with this story, and stories like it, is that parent's aren't arguing "we need the library to stock more books which present my beliefs in a favorable light".
They're generally arguing "I don't want books available to any child that present anything I don't personally agree with."
So, yes, absolutely, we should be cautious about institutional ideological blinders.
But I'm under no obligation to take serious anyone whose response to those blinders is to limit access instead of expand access.
And do you feel this way about other government services “these people can receive government benefits too if they agree to sending their children to 3 hours of conservative political indoctrination per week. If they have a problem with that, I guess they shouldn’t be poor.”
Should citizens have influence over the police? I mean if they don’t like the service they can always just move to a rich neighborhood.
ETA: I should not have jumped to conclusions. Maybe you think poor and middle class parents should be able to influence their kids education too. Maybe you’re pro vouchers or something.
How is not banning / removing / restricting a book "enforc[ing] one group’s values on the children"? Just having a book available for those kids who want it is not the same as forcing all kids to read it.
The sentence you quoted literally presumes that that is the case. I say if you think it’s ok for one group to impose its values on kids as a whole you should think what these parents are doing (trying to impose their values) is ok.
But I suggest we should instead try to look for non-zero-sum solutions where neither group does that.
IMO the non-zero-sum solution is exactly where neither group imposes their values on the kids, i.e. making the book available for those who want to read it (which will have to mean available for all of them, since we can't know in advance which of them will want to), without either making it mandatory to read or forbidding them from reading it.
Seems to me one of the sides of this issue is a lot closer to that ideal than the other.
That’s the big contrast for me between Texas and California. CA has lots of personal freedoms. TX has lots of economic freedoms. Ideally, I want both. But having to choose between the two, I think I prefer the relative liberty the Bay Area offers me.
What would be cool is if we had a digital school library. Authors could make their book available to school students who had a school ID anywhere in America.
- Easier to build homes
- Faster to start businesses
- No societal veto on businesses; reliance on rules instead
California’s societal veto is a bad thing for people, in my opinion. The “do we need another ice cream shop?” question should be left unasked.
The main tool I see wielded in California is the Environmental Impact Report. I do often wonder if large cities in Texas will just end up following their counterparts in CA, specifically as quality of life drops due to "easier to build homes and faster to start businesses" policies. I imagine Austin is starting to feel a lot more like LA/SF these days.
I will supply two specific examples to get started, but think of it like you would think of the Bechdel test: it speaks about the population in aggregate, not about individuals.
The ice cream shop planning meeting https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/may/30/ice-cream-s...
Workshop Cafe in San Francisco. It was a really nice spot just to walk by. Always bustling and full of people and life. Through some nonsensical red tape they shut it down and the place was practically blighted soon after.
From a cursory look at https://www.austintexas.gov/page/start-business it appears that a person starting a business in austin has to go through a wide range of approval processes.
I wouldn't be surprised if more towns in Texas start looking like CA in terms of approval as the density reaches a threshold.
I remember secretly reading my parents' books as a kid and being puzzled at sexual references, racism and dark jokes. They don't even have the tools to understand them.
Ah yes, the pinnacle of English Literature. Very suitable for an eleven year old to be reading.
- The Bible (Ezekiel 23:20)
Ah yes, the pinnacle of literature...
Personally, I suspect other reasons far outweigh that.
However, I believe with almost any reasonable measure you choose, the KJV Bible has a very high literary value. Even Richard Dawkins would acknowledge that. [1] And for what it's worth, I am not a Christian, so I don't think I am biased by religious zeal or something.
I suspect people think so mainly because besides Shakespeare, that's the only thing most people know of that's written in this "cool" archaic language. Like Shakespeare, it's just on the limit of still being understandable, but full of thees and thous, which, the more people don't understand it, they love it all the more (as witnessed by the usage errors they commit when trying to use it, which judging from what I see online are more freqent than the cases of correct usage).
But when this particular edition was written it was in pretty much ordinary everyday language. And the stories themselves are the same old "vengeful old arsehole on a cloud smites sometimes his beloved semi-barbaric nomadic bronze-age shepherd people, sometimes their enemies" as in all other editions, so "great" as literature? Naah, I still just can't see it.
What "reasonable measure", exactly, makes it so?
> And for what it's worth, I am not a Christian
I am -- in name only (that's the first C in my username). I still believe in nominal determinalism in some cases, though certainly not in my own.
> so I don't think I am biased by religious zeal or something.
I am, all too often. Of the anti- kind.
"She had strung together phrases from all over a chapter, but I still recognized the passage immediately. Creating it was painful, one of many times in writing fiction that I’ve had to depict harm that I wish did not exist in the world. Told from the perspective of the senior class at an all-white high school, the section of the novel that Bell pulled from captures the crude fantasies and dehumanizing attitudes that swirl around my main character, the only Mexican American in her school in 1930s New London, Texas. I represent these views in the book so that I can reveal their toxic effect; I don’t endorse them."
Some supports for this include The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt: righteousmind.com, the Is disgust a "Conservative" emotion? paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619133, and the study of conservatives on social media by Politico in cooperation with the Institute for Strategic Dialog: isdglobal.org, www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conservatives-social-media-432643. Outrage drives much media, but favors conservative views and outlets.
We are basically burning books, controlling women's bodily autonomy, blame green energy for the failure of natural gas plants during cold snaps (and then make citizens foot the bill for the next 30 years while they made record profits).
And when a fertilizer plant exploded due to improper storage and lax regulations, the governor went on a publicity tour bragging about the lax regulations (15 people died, mostly first responders)
And this news report from 2006 is a real gem: 'Peggy Fruge told me she'd welcome blacks to her neighborhood. Then she said this:
"I don't mind being friends with them, talking and stuff like that, but as far as mingling and eating with them, all that kind of stuff, that's where I draw the line."'
We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue. Just know this is a backwards place in many ways.
putting aside the specific political affiliations mentioned here, I find this sentiment generally offensive. what could possibly compel you to encourage people of a certain political persuasion to move to a specific region so as to topple the existing, different-than-yours, popular political persuasion? if you live in a Republic of fifty States, why can't you and everyone that agrees with you politically find another state to take your political values to? what makes you think that your perspective on how things should be should matter more than the millions of people already living there, such that your ideal worldview should replace the existing popular one in a specific state, via interstate mass migration?
obviously there's nothing wrong with people who live in a given state having different political values compared to the prevailing local political values and trying to change things locally themselves and/or with the assistance of other like-minded locals. but when you advocate for mass migrations of people to come and change things...
"Putting aside the Uyghur genocide and one party system of China, who are you to say China should change any of their behavior?"
"Putting aside banning Christianity and subjugating women to be objects of their family and murdering journalists and activists in their embassy, who are we to wish Saudi Arabia would change their political behavior?"
I'm a lifelong Texan, and it's possible I will remain such. The Texas GOP is an embarrassment to enlightenment. As I've stated elsewhere in the thread, I wish we had more political parties so that "reasonable conservatives" had a party that incorporated good faith debate and values in their platform rather than hatred of the "other" and performative outrage.
That's why we need Texas to flip.
If you're a conservative or otherwise a GOP voter and live in Texas, I'd be interested in what drives you to that decision, though it may be off-topic for HN.
You don't see the GOP mobilizing voters to flip states red so much, because the GOP is already over-represented in the Senate.
It's unlikely that liberals will move to Wyoming in numbers sufficient to flip it. But the demographics and economy and geography of Texas do seem to suggest that becoming a swing state is a possibility in the near future.
So to reiterate my answer to your question "Why move to other states instead of being happy to change your own?" - Because we are one country, and because until the Senate as an institution is dissolved or reformed beyond recognition, the political affiliations of each state matter to the others.
Extra credit commentary: We aren't functionally a republic of fifty semi-independent states. In many critical issues that require federal answers (climate change, welfare, healthcare, and military) we are one nation afflicted with a potentially lethal vestige of our Constitution: The Senate.
The miscommunication between you and me(and the other person) is that you don't see (or at least, acknowledge) how different states' politics affect each other's, whereas I and the other person took it as a given that they do.
the interesting part to me is exactly what you highlighted in your third paragraph: Democrat voters encourage each other to move to certain states that meet certain criteria, and, as far as I can tell, no other group of citizens in the country engages in similar behavior. I believe the miscommunication here is more ideological: I cannot imagine myself moving to a given state with given criteria in order to alter elections, or to otherwise bolster any kind of ideology or demographic.
this is really interesting to me because it for me this is just an idea that would never cross my mind, and I'm trying to figure out why that is, because this ideological distinction seems significant. I don't buy that it's just because of Senate seats.
My daughters' human rights as women supersede the misogynist wishes of Texas politicians
> why can't you and everyone that agrees with you politically find another state to take your political values to
I was raised to stand and fight for my rights. I don't need carpetbagging coastal elites like the Bushes telling me what texans want.
> what makes you think that your perspective on how things should be should matter more than the millions of people already living there, such that your ideal worldview should replace the existing popular one in a specific state, via interstate mass migration?
Texas has more democrats than republicans. My views align with the majority. Texas republicans are so terrified of democrats winning, they made it illegal to vote straight party line on ballots.
So I feel pretty god damn good telling people about the problems in this state and how they can be fixed.
2. People are free to move anywhere they like for any reason
3. If people from Connecticut can move here and change our politics, I see no problem with others moving here to change it back.
4. If corrupt politicians can rig the game in their favor, getting more legitimate voters might be the only ethical way to counteract such brazen attacks on our republic
5. This isn't the "gotcha" you think it is
You literally said "We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue."
And I don't agree that democrats are the only ones doing this. Visit some firearms\guns message boards if you need some examples of conservatives encouraging other conservatives to move to make sure those dang demonrats dont take our guns.
It happens. It's pie in the sky type of dreaming but it happens. Other states are def more targeted
For some people Texas is a lot more free. For others it isn't. We can pretend we are just a collective, but when it actually comes down to it most people make decisions out of self interest (individuals) rather than collective interest. The expression "one man's trash is another man's treasure" feels appropriate here too.
Anecdotally, I went to a high school in Utah where the librarian would use a sharpie to censor sexual content. The weird thing was that she’d only censor consensual sexual content. I remember reading a book (I think it was maybe one of the Bourne novels?) that had big paragraphs redacted, but it included quite a few very graphic rape scenes that were left in.
This sort of censorship is why I think it’s absolutely critical that young people learn how to pirate stuff as early as possible. I think that self-directed learning is important to avoid children failing victim to the brainwashing of this ~culture war~.
The word "ban" seems exaggerated here. It's not banned- as in sanctions if you get caught with it - it's just not in the library. Like thousands of other books.
What "conservative" books have been mandated off the shelves?
The bible is likely in the library and kids could reach it, and violence is acceptable to an arbitrary point which changes based on the media.
Meanwhile, kids like me were watching Sleepaway Camp at age 9 and it was fine.
But at least for young children, exposure to pornography is well-recognized as harmful. Not just morally, but psychologically. Maybe even as a form of child molestation.
Private companies can do whatever they want.
If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers.
Inflation is rising and times are going to get tough for you and your family. Provocative topics are for rich kids.
> If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers.
The article is about a book being banned in middle school. If you were in grade 8 concerned with whether the books you are reading will give direct profit to an organization, more power to you. But this isn’t the way that the majority of eighth graders think (nor the way that they should think).
The value of fiction books may be less direct that non-fiction reference (to which I assume you are referring, happy to be corrected), but the value is there nevertheless. A great banned fiction book is To Kill A Mockingbird- it has strong themes of right and wrong, justice, and of youth. Though I may have not identified those directly when I read it (in ~grade 8), it was fascinating and made me very excited to read.
Just because the value is longer term, doesn’t mean that it is of lower value.
Why? Breadth of material read encourages critical thinking, empathy, and consideration of view points not your own. As long as the material is challenging to read (develops your reading level) and well-written (spurs your imagination and ability to consider other viewpoints even if you disagree).
What you're saying is basically "If you're poor, you shouldn't bother with thinking, you should just concentrate on becoming a productive wage slave".
Here's hoping you were being sarcastic... But honestly, I don't have much hope.