What does this book or it's banning have to do with critical race theory or any fight against it? As the link provided by srmarm lists, it was banned due to language and explicit illustration.
>Regardless of why this decision was made, we’re in a climate where a sustained attack is being made on our schools, our teachers, and the truth. The anti-Critical Race Theory furor ginned up by Republican think tanks for political gain morphed into an excuse for right wing folks to try to cancel diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, and things they don’t agree with in general — and now Conservative book-banning is really having a moment.
Of course I explicitly remember listening to Limbaugh in the 90s or so as he made fun of the “liberal fad” of listening to kids feelings and “protecting them from harm” or having to deal with anything that might be hard or painful. Can’t punish Bobby it might hurt his self esteem.
Isn’t that where the term liberal snowflake came from? That they were so fragile they had to be coddled and couldn’t handle the real world?
And here we are now. What’s good for the goose, I guess.
Well I guess the kids can't see the phrase "god damn" or see a drawing of a naked woman when they are learning about the industrialized murder of millions of people. Do you not see how crazy that is? These these kids aren't eight. They are teenagers. They are old enough to learn about these things. This policy is asinine.
The discussion at the meeting was literally about keeping the same lessons but using a source that didn't contain specific words and images that violated board policy. They weren't trying to censor violence or descriptions thereof.
> Now that I have provided that do you still feel what I said was a "straw man"?
I don't see any concrete examples provided, so yes, I still feel it's a straw man.
>The discussion at the meeting was literally about keeping the same lessons but using a source that didn't contain specific words and images that violated board policy.
Some states and boards have used the exact same method to include language in lessons to say slaves in the South had it better before they got freed and that slavery wasn't always evil. It is a common tactic to downplay events from the past that make people uncomfortable but humanity has shown that we tend to repeat such events so teaching them is important.
>I don't see any concrete examples provided, so yes, I still feel it's a straw man.
You could have asked for examples and I would have provided them but I do find it interesting that you didn't provide examples in your own post, you did exactly what I did and posted your opinion. Holding others to a standard you do not follow yourself isn't a productive way to have a discussion.
I hope you have a pleasant reset of your day.
The board specifically doesn’t want to change the lessons being taught, just the material chosen to teach it because it violates board policies.
Just because a work covers an important topic doesn’t mean it’s appropriate in all contexts, regardless of the quality of that work (e.g. I wouldn’t want my children watching Schindler’s List at their current age, but they should watch it when they are at the appropriate level of maturity).
This will be my last response on this topic but, in the future please review what you have previously written as you appear to have misremembered what you wrote previously.
Did you read the minutes or are you assuming these are just dumb, racist, country-bumpkins? They literally address exactly this point.
From the minutes (regarding removing this book):
> My bigger concern is that this is probably the tip of the iceberg of what is out there.
1) I ask you to refrain from personal attacks if you want me to continue to engage.
2) I feel no moral compunction to read a twenty page supporting document to make a one-line comment about not trusting people's claims uncritically.
3) Having now read that document, my opinion hasn't changed. One person tries a couple of times to address the bigger picture about what problematic books are in the curriculum. In both cases he is almost immediately shut down by the rest of the committee who want to discuss this particular book.
I don't expect you or anyone else on HN to read the supporting text, but I do expect some level of empathy, assumption of good faith, and seeing past sensationalism. Instead I see a lot of cargo culting, demonizing, and propagation of incorrect information.
Having listened to an agonizing number of school board meetings, and having family that is involved in school administration, there are reasons to not let a topic expand past the original scope for the sake of the board, the parents, and everyone else involved.
The right has taken on "free speech" as a cause lately. Big Tech needs to be defunded because Twitter kicked out Trump, etc. It pushes a narrative that the left is against free speech and the right is for it, but as usual, both sides agree they are happy when their tribe wins.
Did you read the minutes of the meeting? The content that is against school board policy is enumerated and there is a request to replace the material with something that can teach equivalent lessons.
> I've got enough faith from the Director of Schools down to the newest hire in this building, that you can take that module and rewrite it and make it do the same thing. Our children need to know about the Holocaust, they need to understand that there are several pieces of history, Mr. Bennett, that shows depression or suppression of certain ethnicities. It's not acceptable today. We've got to accept people for who and what they are… But Rob, the wording in this book is in direct conflict of some of our policies… I move that we remove this book from the reading series and challenge our instructional staff to come with an alternative method of teaching the Holocaust.
Believing that it’s more important to protect middle schoolers from mice that say "god damn" than it is to convey the horrors of the camps is white fragility politics in action. Infantilization to serve fascist ends.
1. https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/1486732376369631234?s=2...