Living In The 1950s

This is what the Republicans dream about in a world of “Father Knows Best” where slavery was never discussed, gays were in the closets, we were criminals for just stepping outdoors, and “Banned in Boston” was its height.

This Middle Tennessee county just voted to remove Toni Morrison's 'Beloved' and 5 other books from schools. See the list
Nashville Tennessean
By Diana Leyva
September 20, 2024

Ahead of National Banned Books Week, the Rutherford County Board of Education voted on Thursday to remove six books from school libraries, including the 1998 Pulitzer Prize winning novel "Beloved" by Toni Morrison.

Morrison's "Beloved" tells the story of a formerly enslaved woman who flees to Cincinnati, Ohio, but is tormented with memories from her past. The board voted to remove the books due to their "sexually explicit" nature, reported the Daily News Journal.

On Monday, Sept. 16, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the school board against removing the books.

"Books cannot be removed from school libraries simply because they tell stories about race, racism and the history of racism in the United States — as 'Beloved' and 'Homegoing' do," read an ACLU letter that was emailed to the board.

Book bans have been with us ever since the printing press was invented… the first book that was banned here goes way, way back before we were even a country to 1637! In Reading Partners’ The little-known history of banned books in the United States, they write,

In 1624, English businessman Thomas Morton arrived in Massachusetts with a group of Puritans. But he soon found that he didn’t want to abide by the strict rules and conventional values that made up their new American society. So, he left.

Morton established his own colony (now known as Quincy, Massachusetts) with the forbidden old-world customs that the Puritans abhorred. He was eventually exiled by Puritan militia, which sparked him to file a lawsuit and write a tell-all book. His New English Canaan was published in 1637. In it, he critiqued and attacked Puritan customs so harshly that even the more progressive New English settlers disapproved of it. When a book compares you to a crustacean, it’s unlikely you’ll be begging the author for a sequel.

So, the Puritans banned it, making it likely the first book to be banned in the United States.

I guess you can say that was the first book to be “Banned in Boston!”

The Tennessean goes on to report the list of banned books,

The Rutherford County Board of Education voted to remove the following books from school libraries:

•     "Beloved," by Toni Morrison, who in 1993 won the Nobel Prize in Literature
•     "Queen of Shadows" by Sarah J. Maas
•     "Tower of Dawn" by Sarah J. Maas
•     "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi
•     "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
•     "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West" by Gregory Maguire

Wicked the play in 2004 Wicked won three Tony Awards, as an intern I chaperoned a bunch of teenagers to watch the play. What a difference between Blue states and Red states!

Last night I finished my library book at around 3 in the morning so I want to library to get another. At 3 AM? Yep, at 3 AM and down loaded a book.

See here is where the old biddies of the Republican party is living in the past. Every smartphone has the capability to down load books!

Why Teens Across the Country Are Acquiring Brooklyn Public Library’s Free Digital Cards: Book Censorship News, September 20, 2024
Brooklyn Public Library's Books Unbanned program has made a real impact on the lives of young people nationwide.
Book Riot
By Kelly Jensen
September 20, 2024

New York’s Brooklyn Public Library (BPL) has been among the most active library systems in addressing the book censorship crisis across America. In 2022, BPL launched its Books Unbanned program. Among the many pieces of the program is its extension of digital library cards to anyone between the ages of 13 and 21 in the US. This grants young people access to its vast digital collection, including the kinds of books that are being banned nationwide. BPL’s program has extended to include several other libraries since its launch.

As part of the program, BPL asked applicants to share why it is they wished to get a card. In the first year of the program, April 2022-2023, teens who wanted a card would email and receive an autoresponse which allowed them to respond with their stories and experiences. In the second year of the program, April 2023-2024, continued requests for cards, as well as renewals of the cards issued in that first year, prompted BPL to create a form that collected information from teens to get the card, as well as a free form text box where they could share their stories. In both scenarios, teens indicated whether or not those stories could be shared publicly, with identifying information removed.

The Republicans must feel like the Little Dutch Boy trying to plug the leaks in the dam.

The data and stories that have been cataloged were shared by teens between April 2022 and April 2024 and focus exclusively on BPL ecard sign-ups (so it does not include partner libraries in the program that also offer eCards). BPL has tagged and organized roughly 4,500 stories from Books Unbanned cardholders, which represents a fraction of the total number of teens who have acquired the cards. Given the size of the data pool, what you’ll see below is likely strongly representative of the thousands of stories that have not been shared. BPL is still collecting these stories, with plans to continue organizing them and with plans to expand the project to partner libraries.

What will the Republicans do next? Make it illegal to get books from other library, will they pass another law requiring libraries in other states to turn over lists of people from their states who borrowed banned books?

 

But the Republicans play hardball… a teacher shared the QR code! The horrors of horrors!

The wrath of the Republicans fell on her.

Norman English teacher resigns after sharing link to banned book resource with students
KOSU
By Chris Polansky,
August 24, 2022

An English teacher at Norman High School resigned Tuesday over the district’s policies related to House Bill 1775.

Summer Boismier had posted a QR code in her classroom that pointed students toward a resource from the Brooklyn Public Library in New York that provides digital access to its collection — particularly books that may be banned elsewhere.

“I saw this as an opportunity for my kids who were seeing their stories hidden to skirt that directive,” Boismier told Gothamist, a news website operated by New York Public Radio station WNYC. “Nowhere in my directives did it say we can’t put a QR code on a wall.”

The incident is the latest fallout from House Bill 1775, Oklahoma’s so-called critical race theory ban, which was designed by lawmakers to limit teaching controversial topics in the classroom and restrict how issues like systemic racism and gender identity can be discussed in schools.

The bill makes no mention of the term. Gov. Kevin Stitt has incorrectly claimed Oklahoma was the first state to ban the teaching of critical race theory in the classroom.

Um… “Critical Race Theory” is just another name that the Republicans like to use to describe teaching about slavery. the Jim Crow laws, and the Civil Rights movement.

I just Googled “QR code to banned books?” and I got hundreds of links to libraries where you can get the books.

The Republicans are trying to close the barn door once the books got out in the wide… just another case of the Republicans trying to force us to live in the past.

 

Vote for the party that is not trying to groom young people's minds... Vote Blue.