Conservative activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate, pushed the district, Mission CISD, to excise books mostly about gender, sexuality and race. Their demands represented an extreme version of a nationwide culture war over books that has played out in recent years — and ensnared a number of books with Jewish themes.
In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus”; “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and “Kasher in the Rye,” a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher.
I just can’t understand how someone could think that banking books is a good idea.
Like a library?
So you think that all books should be available to all kids in public schools?
Which books do you believe shouldn’t be provided in a classroom setting?
No copouts. I don’t think anyone expects a bunch of 3rd graders to have a discussion on 50 Shades of Grey.
I think the opinion as to what shouldnt be in public schools is reasonable, and I am cool if we are overly restrictive if there is a reason that is good and is supported by enough people.
You didn’t answer my question. Let’s try a different one. Once again without copping out: Give us a couple good reasons for why a book should be restricted in education.
Books should be restricted from education if a significant portion of the adults dont think its appropriate for children. This could include any variety of reasons they dont think its appropriate.
Will each book be voted on individually? How does that work in your head? I doubt that people read minimally an excerpt of each book to decide and ban them.
Probably do it on a complaint basis. Each school district could have a diverse board and they could look at the books that people dont like and if X out of Y think it should be removed, then remove it. Does that work for you?
We had like everything, from childrens books to engineering stuff. It’s filed differently so your fragile mind won’t need to see “adult” books if you don’t want to I guess.
My fragile mind doesnt want minors to see things they shouldnt see till later. That should be a pretty obvious thing that everyone wants for children…
the world is hard and kids need to be taught about us in a controlled environment like a school.
Get rid of anything that mentions rape, prostitution, genocide, or god forbid SODOMY?
Out goes the bible then. No one under 18 should read it.
Incest. Don’t forget incest.
The difference between the Bible and other more modern books is that the Bible is the most influential book in western civilization. If you want to have a censored on that removed those exact passages then that seems like a reasonable compromise.
Just like all christians do, they just want to pick the ones that fit their agenda and ignore the rest.
What “the rest” are we ignoring?
Fuck that, the wretched thing doesn’t deserve special treatment. There is nothing about the contents of the bible that are worth granting exception for. You want to ban adult themes? I can think of nothing more deserving of such a ban than the oldest book to incorporate rape, divinely ordained murder (all over the place), instructions on how to perform an abortion, incest, and the severly mixed message of “god loves everyone, unless you don’t worship them, then you get tortured forever”.
Like it or not the Bible is the most influence book in western history, so yes it gets special treatment. But again, if you want to make a censored version for kids that takes out those parts, it seems like a reasonable compromise.
Unironically yes.
I like how this argument assumes schools are just regularly stocking school libraries with your Literotica history.
I didnt say they were. If its not happening very often why are you guys so against books being removed?
If it’s not happening often, why are you hellbent on banning books? They are edge case, but your ilk act like every school library is chuck full of inappropriate books.
I am hellbent on protecting children from adults that will do them harm. If its only edge cases then why are you hellbent on putting rules in place to remove questionable books?
So remove them entirely? It’s not like the kids are going read one by chance and if they are seeking them then they are ready
Yes
We have these people who go to college and get specialized degrees so that they can do things and work in school libraries and figure out what books are appropriate for the school.
You might have heard of them. They’re called librarians.
Deciding what books do and don’t belong in a library is literally part of their job. I know, because I’m married to one. She used to work in a school library, now she works in a public library. It was a Catholic school (she’s an atheist, they didn’t discriminate) and they trusted her to figure out which books were appropriate for their kids because of her degree. What does that tell you about librarians?
It tells me that they are obviously evil because they don’t blindly support a white Christian authoritarian regime.
/s
Only if these books are inscribed on the side of a Glock
It isn’t about them being available. Its about discussing the content and the deeper meaning. I would be totally fine with reading Adolf Hitlers - Mein Kampf in School, as long as the content gets discussed and why what he wrote wasn’t good.
Nothing is going to be discusses it would just be sitting on the shelf and available. So I think we should all agree that censorship of books in public schools makes sense. I personally am fine with siding on the side of being more cautious and having kids less able to get books people think are not acceptable, and catching books that probably should be available in schools.
You’re a fucking troglodyte.
Censoring books due to reasons like “these books provide a point of view I’m not comfortable exposing my kids too” is usually a bad reason to censor books.
Problem I see is its all a pendulum on these issues where the reaction swings wildly back and forth the more energy were putting into it rather than having it settle the fuck down.
For instance these books being removed aren’t produced in spite of this issue. But for sure if we dig into censorship topic then pro censorship groups start bringing out books to be edgy cunts and prove a point.
Every issue has edge cases and we live in a time where people are so willing to be right they will make every edge case the center of an issue. Like in order to keep Maus on shelves we will now need to have a copy of Bomb making 101 or a book were one of these people wrote FUCK a million times just so they can get anti censorship people to say “hey that isn’t cool guys” but also the problem is I often find people are so militant in our beliefs that we have a hard time saying “that isn’t cool” when faced with something not cool but also that grinds against our moral beliefs
What you are saying makes sense, I just dont see an issue if XX% of people dont want a book to be in PUBLIC schools, then I am okay with restricting it unless there is some kind of cultural significance, and within reason. I am probably okay with Maus from what I have heard, but I dont see it as an issue to take it off the shelf if people feel strongly and there is some level of logic.
You do realise that there’s a version of Mien Kampf that’s four times as long because there’s several experts annotating and debunking Hitler’s ideas right there on the page.
Thats fine, what would be so bad if a signficant part of the population dont think its appropriate so its not provided to kids at a public school?
A significant part of the population doesn’t think it’s appropriate for a picture book about two male penguins that adopt a chick to be in a public school.
In fact, a significant part of the population doesn’t think white kids and black kids should go to the same school. And have found ways to do things about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy
Why should we cater to these significant parts of the population?
What would be so bad with…
…checks notes…
…informing young people about the most horrible decisions made throughout history, why they were flawed, and how not to repeat the same mistakes today?
Hmm…
Just take a look at the world around you. That’s a fucking start…
That is not what is happening…
History is uncomfortable. Revising it to tell lovely stories is all well and good for building a national identity.
However, sugar-coating, ignoring, or even flat-out erasing parts of history benefits no one. People started writing events down accurately because the orators of old never intended paint an accurate picture of the past. And therefore lessons learnt from the failures of humanity (lost causes, preventable catastrophies, perspectives of people on the wrong side, genocides, etc.) were also lost.
History should be uncomfortable, so we can collectively learn and have a chance to do better the next time.
You are believing the propaganda not what the real critique is.
If kids are only exposed to kid friendly stuff, then they will never learn anything and stay kids long into adulthood.
I guess so, but if kids are exposed to adult things their mind is not ready for it will harm them.
They already deal with the fact that someone can just go in and shoot them the middle the middle of class. Those books are nothing compared to that
Two different discussions.
All books ever!!! The Necromomicon! Solomon’s Demonology! THE ANARCHIST’S NOTEBOOK!! PEPPA PIG GOES TO HELL!! !
No gods, no masters, no borders, no censors.
I’m still proud of the copy of “Maus” that I donated to the library of my shitty little Texas town before I moved out of that hell-hole a few years back. I still check the online catalog from time to time to make sure it’s still in circulation.
As someone else who got out of a shitty little Texas town, I salute you.
Texas full of whiny bitches seems like
Everything is bigger in Texas, especially the whining snowflakes.
“Jewish themes”…like in the Bible?
Yeah, but the New Testament says everyone who doesn’t worship Jesus is going to burn in hell forever, so that kind of lessens the whole Jewishness of the first half.
i cannot believe how openly anti-nazi some books are! we should burn these intolerant books!
Fucking yikes
Didn’t need to read past the word “Texas” and I know not only would the next words be really stupid but also I would believe it 100%
I simply cannot wrap my head around this. How is this defensible? What possible justification could they provide for banning Maus?? Anne’s Diary?? How could you even link these to any contemporary agenda?
Because they’re fucking Nazis, how many ways do they need to prove it to you?
Wise person: “Those who do not know history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.”
Actual Nazis: Great idea. Let’s burn some books.
Nah I get that they’re Nazis. But the article failed to mention the official justification to ban these. I want to know what’s the sugarcoated, duplicitous rationale they provided.
Their justification is that they would have banned them anyway if they’d thought of it on their own, but now that somebody’s brought it up they realize it exists and provided the smallest justification to ban it.
It makes me glad that my state passed a law against banking books (in public libraries at least). Hopefully it’ll spread to public schools. Religious schools are probably a lost cause though.
They can link them to their own goals. They want to avoid that people might notice the signs and recognize them as a warning. Let me guess, “The Wave” has been banned there, too?
See, us Jews control Hollywood, so all of that is just PR messaging about our Holocaust lie. And we also control the banks, so we’re the ones buying these books and bribing school librarians to put them on the shelves. Whereupon, I guess, something about the trans agenda happens? I’m a cishet Jew, so I’m only up on our side of the conspiracy.
It’s amazing that Republicans are both pro-Israel and anti-Jew at the same time.
Well it’s a trick, they are more anti-muslim than anti-jew. They want the war to escalate because both sides die, and the one they hate more has more casualties.
They can also sell them all the weapons used in the war… might as well fill the pockets with the new “solution.”
There’s a reason for that, which I mentioned in a post elsewhere in the thread:
“Outspoken Israel advocates” who are evangelical Christians don’t love Jews. Quite the opposite. They need Israel to exist so all Jews in the world can be forcibly deported to it, and then made to rebuild the Great Temple, so Jesus can come back and throw them all into Hell.
And a red cow comes into the picture as well.
None of that is sarcasm. That is really what they think.
Even without the whole Religion angle, racists the world over just love ethno-nationalism: each ethnicity living in their own corner, separate from the rest, is exactly what these people want.
In my experience something similar exists with a subset of Russians, - they hate Israel the particular way, they just love the fact that it exists and commits crimes.
When you are Jewish and proud of yourself, it makes them just as livid as when you are Armenian and proud of yourself.
Republic of Armenia is quite miserable and they enjoy that, Israel is strong, but lacks dignity even more than RoA and they enjoy that, so the emotion gets especially extreme when you put these states and your own pride and the fact that they can change and have dignity in contrast.
(I have tested that.)
Armenians have suffered their own genocide as well, one the Turks still refuse to acknowledge. At least the Germans acknowledge the Holocaust.
one the Turks still refuse to acknowledge
That’s actually imprecise.
They acknowledge that “something” happened, but deny various separate traits, like intent or numbers or relevance for today or even just say that genocide wasn’t illegal then. There’s also that “it didn’t happen, but they deserved it, and we’ll do it again” thing. Which gives a very special feeling, considering they are well in position to do it again.
And it’s illegal to publicly recognize it in Turkey, so not only malevolent, but also benevolent voices seem to be kinda in denial, while in fact not.
Still had Germany not lost WWII so conclusively, I suspect we’d be amazed at how self-conscious a lot of Turks are as compared to Germans.
True, I was not totally right in that. It just is so sad beyond the genocide and the genocide denial that Ataturk was such a force for good when it came to his own people and such an evil fuck when it came to Armenians. Until Erdoğan, Turkey was a generally secular state, a rarity for a predominantly Muslim country and that is down to Ataturk, who was an atheist. I wish I could praise him, but I can’t. He was part of the Young Turk movement and he was instrumental in trying to erase what happened from history.
They are only pro-Israel in because an united Israel will help kick off the events in the Book of Revelations.
It tracks! Nazi Germany was actually pro Jewish state as well, the rationale was that it gets all the Jews out of Germany. It also supposedly kicks off the rapture when the Jews return to Israel.
Isn’t it about time to fire up your space laser?
Why do you think Oregon is on fire right now? I swear, it’s like people don’t think I even know how to do my job sometimes…
‘Never again’ is now.
Utterly moronic to see.
My partner is an educator in Texas and I showed this to them. So thanks for posting, OP, getting the word out and such.
i did nazi that coming
This is infuriating. This is hate. This is danger.
I’m interested in what their reasoning was for banning Maus - I certainly don’t recall any sex or amti-christian material.
Oh, I think you know
IIRC there is a brief depiction of a (possibly human rather than mouse? It’s been a while since I read it) woman whose body is in a tub after committing suicide, which is what I’ve read other groups trying to get it banned object to. Because titty.
It hurts their feelings that Nazis are the bad guys.
I hate this dumb fuck country 😔
Shit states gonna shit state
