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9Local politics, the county, and the world, as viewed by Tammy Maygra Tammy’s views are her own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Bill Eagle, his pastor, Tammy’s neighbors, Wayne Mayo, Betsy Johnson, Brad Witt, Former President Trump, Henry Heimuller, Joe Biden, Pat Robertson, Ted Cruz, Joe Biden’s dogs, or Claudia Eagle’s Cats. This Tammy’s Take (with the exception of this disclaimer) is not paid for or written by, or even reviewed by anyone but Tammy and she refuses to be bullied by anyone. See Bill’s Standard Disclaimer
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"Krause's List," in reference to the 850 titles that state Republican Rep. Matt Krause wants removed from schools
Book Banning
The Republican party is at it again, trying to control people by
controlling what they are “allowed” to read.
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.
Book banning has been a thing for decades in America but has had no real traction or influence. But social media is now playing a huge part in pushing for book bans. Conservative groups in particular, fueled by social media, are now pushing the challenges into statehouses, law enforcement and political races.
Like young adults have not heard a cuss word, seen nudity, and heard about sexual preferences, on Twitter, Facebook, snapchat, movies, TV or whatever social outlet young people use. The fact that Republicans want to control books is truly what their party is about Nazism. It’s different than before in the aspect that instead of just preaching their values on people, they are now using political legislation to force their beliefs on others.
Many Classic books are targeted, To Kill A Mockingbird is such one, it has been on the best book list for 125 years, other books targeted are books about the Holocaust, slavery in the United States, and the most hated book by the republicans is The 1619 project which is…Acknowledging a historic moment. In August 2019, The New York Times Magazine launched the 1619 Project, spearheaded by Nikole Hannah-Jones. The project explored the history of slavery in the United States and was released to coincide with the anniversary of a ship carrying the first enslaved Africans to the English colonies.
The newly elected governor of Virginia, Glenn Youngkin, a Republican, rallied his supporters by framing book bans as an issue of parental control. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott demanded that the state’s education agency “investigate any criminal activity in our public schools involving the availability of pornography. The governor of South Carolina asked the state’s superintendent of education and its law enforcement division to investigate the presence of “obscene and pornographic” materials in its public schools, offering “Gender Queer.
I personally believe that we ,live in a world where kids are going to be exposed to all kinds of different situations in life and I would think the more they have learned and understand what these differences are they will be able to make the best decision for their selves one way or the other or to understand people which they see as different. And will be able to see that people who may appear to be different in one way or the other are the same as they are. People who live, love, laugh, cry hurt, experience loss sadness, rejection, friendship are caring etc. Color or gender does separate the experiences of life.
Many kids that are afraid of reveling their gender , read these books to feel good about themselves, so they don’t feel isolated. How is it any ones business to butt in their life? As the republicans are doing.
A Houston suburb, asked the district to remove a children’s biography of Michelle Obama, arguing that it promotes “reverse racism” against white people. A parent in the Dallas suburb of Prosper wanted the school district to ban a children’s picture book about the life of Black Olympian Wilma Rudolph, because it mentions racism that Rudolph faced growing up in Tennessee in the 1940s. In the affluent Eanes Independent School District in Austin, a parent proposed replacing four books about racism, including “How to Be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi, with copies of the Bible.
Read more: Here are 50 books Texas Republicans want banned from school libraries
A group of Texas school librarians has launched a social media campaign to push back. There have always been efforts to censor books, but what we’re seeing right now is frankly unprecedented,” said Carolyn Foote, a retired school librarian in Austin who’s helping lead the #FReadom campaign. “A library is a place of voluntary inquiry. That means when a student walks in, they’re not forced to check out a book that they or their parents find objectionable. But they also don’t have authority to say what books should or shouldn’t be available to other students.” Ten current or recently retired Texas school librarians who spoke to a reporter described growing fears that they could be attacked by parents on social media or threatened with criminal charges. Some said they’ve quietly removed LGBTQ-affirming books from shelves or declined to purchase new ones to avoid public criticism — raising fears about what free-speech advocates call a wave of “soft censorship” in Texas and across the country.
One librarian said “I got out because I was afraid to stand up to the attacks. I didn’t want to get caught in somebody’s snare. Who wants to be called a pornographer? Who wants to be accused of being a pedophile or reported to the police for putting a book in a kid’s hand?”
Free speech advocates and authors deny that any of the books in question meet the legal definition of pornography. Although some include sexually explicit passages or drawings, those scenes are presented in the context of broader narratives and not for the explicit purpose of sexual stimulation, they said.
Several queer students, meanwhile, said the arguments by some parents, specifically the idea that it’s inappropriate for teenagers to read about LGBTQ sexual relationships, are making them feel unwelcome in their communities.
Hello republicans!!!!
Reading books or consuming any kind of media that has LGBTQ representation, it doesn’t turn people gay or make people turn out a certain way.
Every year for nearly two decades beginning in the late 1990s, the Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union surveyed every public and charter school in Texas to document attempts to ban library books. The annual reports paint a picture of past censorship movements, and make clear that the volume of challenges now hitting schools is unlike anything previously recorded in the state.
In the early 2000s, a conservative backlash to the Harry Potter book series, which some Christian leaders condemned as a satanic depiction of witchcraft, fueled a surge of book banning attempts in Texas, according to the ACLU data. But even at the peak of that wave, the Texas ACLU never documented more than 151 school library book challenges in one year. About half that many were documented in just the first four months of the 2021 school year at only a small sampling of Texas school districts, according to the records obtained by NBC News. During the 2018-19 school year, the last time the ACLU conducted the censorship survey, Texas schools reported only 17 library book challenges statewide. Twice as many have been filed so far this school year at Keller ISD alone.
In response to past censorship movements, the American Library Association developed guidelines for schools to prevent the sudden and arbitrary removal of books. Under the guidelines, which have been adopted by most large districts in Texas and nationally, parents are asked to fill out forms explaining why they believe a book should be banned. Then a committee of school employees and community volunteers reviews the book in its entirety and determines whether it meets district standards, keeping in mind that a parent’s ability to control what students can read “extends only to his or her own child,” according to language included in most district policies. A challenged book is supposed to remain on shelves and available to students while the committee deliberates, and the final decision should be made public.
But even this process is not enough for the book burners, we’re seeing these days is a short-circuiting of that process, despite the fact that school boards often do have these reconsideration policies on their own books They’re ignoring them to respond to the controversy and the moral panics that they’re getting targeted with at school board meetings, and books are being abruptly removed.
The North East Independent School District in San Antonio hadn’t received any library book challenges But administrators directed librarians to box up more than 400 titles dealing with race, sexuality and gender.
At a subsequent school board meeting, North East leaders said that they had pulled the books for review after Krause, the Republican lawmaker, distributed his list of 850 titles that he said violate new state laws governing how sex and race are addressed in Texas classrooms. in December the district asked staff to review books on Krause’s list “to ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material in them.
So now personal likes and dislikes of a politician can dictate what is ok to read and what is not! There is a photo taken by a student in Granbury, Texas, shows men hauling away boxes of library books labeled "Krause's List," in reference to the 850 titles that state Rep. Matt Krause wants removed from schools.
Just because the republicans do not approve of or like other people’s life styles or beliefs does that give them the right to demand the access or limit the reading materials from the population. What are they going to do next, go to publisher and threaten them with jail time if they publish a book which the republican party does not like.
I personally do not believe in the Bible. Yet does that give me the right to demand that it is not allowed to be read or checked out from the school’s library? If we are to allow the censorship of one book than we must allow the censorship of all books including the republicans beloved Bible. The Bible excuses adultery, incest, murder, slavery, and domination over women and weaker people. They behead people, whip them nail onto poles. Why would we allow our kids to read such evil and horrible things?
When do we allow the banning of one book enabling that one book to be banned will be the one book which will begin the slippery slope of complete censorship in this country, What ever happened to individual freedoms?
Who is the quote “moral compass” who decides what is ok to read or not? Just who’s moral compass are we to follow?
Educate your kids to what is going on in the world around them, don’t stick your head and their head into the sand. Hoping that something you don’t want them to see or read will go away. Because quess what its still going to be there. And in order for a young person to make the right decision or follow their own path they will need to understand all that is around them, they will need to have compassion for people who are different than them. It’s not a right or wrong issue. It’s an issue of understanding that the world is not a black and white place or a one belief and that too is ok.
That is what makes all of us so special , because we are not all alike.
Tammy
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