I have written about the right-wing conservatives banning books well there is a resistance forming against them.
Book Ban Busters | Moms across the country fight to stop book banning at schools
A group of moms, authors and organization leaders spoke out against the rising movement of people attempting to ban books from schools and libraries across the U.S.
WUSA Ch9
By Alanea Cremen
February 4, 2022
LOUDOUN COUNTY, Va. — It seems like more and more reports of groups attempting to have certain books banned from schools and libraries pop up almost daily in 2022. From Texas to Oklahoma, to Loudoun County, Virginia, school boards are being asked to take books off the shelves.According to the New York Times, the pace at which groups of parents, officials and lawmakers are challenging books has reached a speed many haven’t seen in decades.
Katie Paris is an Ohio mom and founder of Red, Wine and Blue, the group behind Book Ban Busters.
“The pandemic is exhausting enough, we don’t need book bans too,” said Paris.
Book Ban Busters is a campaign made up of suburban moms and other partners who aim to fight against banning books from schools and libraries.
Yes!
That is what we need an organized resistance, those who are banning books are organized we need to be just as organized.
Book Ban Efforts Spread Across the U.S.
Challenges to books about sexual and racial identity are nothing new in American schools, but the tactics and politicization are.
New York Times
By Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter
January 30, 2022
In Wyoming, a county prosecutor’s office considered charges against library employees for stocking books like “Sex Is a Funny Word” and “This Book Is Gay.”In Oklahoma, a bill was introduced in the State Senate that would prohibit public school libraries from keeping books on hand that focus on sexual activity, sexual identity or gender identity.
In Tennessee, the McMinn County Board of Education voted to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel “Maus” from an eighth-grade module on the Holocaust because of nudity and curse words.
Parents, activists, school board officials and lawmakers around the country are challenging books at a pace not seen in decades. The American Library Association said in a preliminary report that it received an “unprecedented” 330 reports of book challenges, each of which can include multiple books, last fall.
So what has changed? Why now? And who’s behind this new attack?
“The politicalization of the topic is what's different than what I’ve seen in the past,” said Britten Follett, the chief executive of content at Follett School Solutions, one of the country’s largest providers of books to K-12 schools. “It’s being driven by legislation, it’s being driven by politicians aligning with one side or the other. And in the end, the librarian, teacher or educator is getting caught in the middle.”
[…]
“If you look at the lists of books being targeted, it’s so broad,” Ms. Nossel said. Some groups, she noted, have essentially weaponized book lists meant to promote more diverse reading material, taking those lists and then pushing for all the included titles to be banned.
The advocacy group No Left Turn in Education maintains lists of books it says are “used to spread radical and racist ideologies to students,” including Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” and Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Those who are demanding certain books be removed insist this is an issue of parental rights and choice, that all parents should be free to direct the upbringing of their own children.
[…]
Christopher M. Finan, the executive director of the National Coalition Against Censorship, said he has not seen this level of challenges since the 1980s, when a similarly energized conservative base embraced the issue. This time, however, that energy is colliding with an effort to publish and circulate more diverse books, as well as social media, which can amplify complaints about certain titles.
And don’t think it is just pulling the books off the shelves, the Republicans also want to criminalize it!
LGBTQ book ban proponent faces felony child molestation charge in Missouri
The man tried to have the award-winning graphic memoir “Fun Home,” among other LGBTQ titles, removed from school libraries in Kansas City.
NBC News
By Angela Yang
February 3, 2022
A Missouri man who sought to ban several LGBTQ books from schools for depicting sexual content is now facing a felony charge of second-degree child molestation.Ryan Utterback, a 29-year-old parent from a suburb of Kansas City, also faces a misdemeanor charge of fourth-degree domestic assault and, in a separate case, a misdemeanor of furnishing or attempting to furnish pornographic material to a minor.
Utterback had spoken at a school board meeting in November, as first reported by local news station KMBC-TV, an ABC affiliate, to advocate for the removal of books in North Kansas City Schools libraries that depicted sexual acts.
Education is supposed to teach you how think, how to look at problems from both sides, how to see, how to…
“The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education
which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal
may be the man gifted with reason but no morals. … We must remember that intelligence is not
enough. Intelligence plus character—that is the goal of true education.”
Back in 2015 before this madness began the Washington Post said this about education.
What’s the purpose of education in the 21st century?
By Valerie Strauss
February 12, 2015
What is the purpose of education? The question came into stark relief when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker recently tried to quietly change the century-old mission of the University of Wisconsin system by proposing to remove words in the state code that command the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” and replacing them with “meet the state’s workforce needs.” Walker backed off when the issue became public and sparked intense criticism from academics and others, but the issue remains a topic of national debate and of the following post…[…]
Debate about the purposes of education never seems to end. Should young people become educated to get prepared to enter the workforce, or should the purpose of education be focused more on social, academic, cultural and intellectual development so that students can grow up to be engaged citizens?
One of the things that education teaches you is about history. So lets look back at the 1930s and the rise of Fascism. There were common traits between Germany and Italy, control of knowledge which is best known in Germany book burning. Scapegoats, to focus the hate of the working classes; Jews, LGBTQ people, immigrates, and the undesirables such as the Roma. They also went for the unions which the Republicans have been doing for decades because the unions were the only organized opposition to the Republicans.
And so the cycle is repeating today with the book banning, with the attacks on undocumented, the attacks on trans children, and not the book banning.
We cannot just stand by and watch it happen that is what happened in the 1920s and 30s. We have to be proactive and speak up to power.
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
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