Unprecedented effort in 2023 to ban books

After binge watching all of his Ozark, Yellowstone and NCIS series episodes for the second time, DH was looking for something else to watch. I suggested he watch The Handmaid’s Tale on Hulu since he hadn’t ever watched any of it. I only got through about half of the second season before school closed down and DD was home with me all day, every day for over a year running, and I didn’t feel comfortable having that on while she was home during the day. (I’d watch a couple episodes here and there while folding laundry or doing some other mundane household chore while she was at school.) He just finished season one last night.

Anyway, the reason why I bring it up in this thread is because in some of the scenes, DH would just roll his eyes and say, “That would never happen here.” To which I just looked at him and said, “What are you talking about? It is ALREADY on the way to happening here in some of the southern states! All you have to do is look at the anti LGBTQIA+ legislation that has ALREADY PASSED in several states. Look at all of the anti abortion legislation that has ALREADY PASSED in several states. Roe v Wade is in the crosshairs at the Supreme Court this year. Books are being banned all across the country. Fox spouts Russian propaganda daily. This is how it starts! They are going to come after birth control, gay marriages and mixed race marriages next if they get the chance. This is exactly the kind of society they are striving for.” I’m especially interested in seeing his reaction to what comes up in season two, where more of Serena Joy’s back story is revealed to show how some of the evangelical women helped bring about their own repression. That too is happening right here in this country, right freaking NOW.

He tries so very hard to bury his head in the sand and not think about all this stuff because he’s a fairly well off straight white older male who those policies will never directly affect. But I can’t help but worry about all of it for our DD and her peers in her generation. That is not the world I want them to live in so I pay attention and vote accordingly. I’m so glad we live where we do in a mostly blue state, but the stuff that is happening elsewhere is a cancer that seems to be spreading, and it will continue to do so if people choose to not educate themselves on how this happens.

The bolded feels very much like DH and I. He hates to feel uncomfortable and hates conflict, so he often plays ostrich on these issues. It's maddening. 

Here, finally...

Florida atheist petitions to have Bible banned in Broward, Miami Dade County schools
Meaghan Ellis, AlterNet
April 24, 2022

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Now, he's reportedly sending out petitions to Miami-Dade County Public Schools (MDCPS) and Broward County Public Schools (BCPS) demanding that the Christian bible be banned from schools' libraries and classrooms "citing its inclusion of inappropriate topics."
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In a letter sent to MDCPS Superintendent Jose Dotres on April 19, Stevens wrote.

"I wish to file such an objection, requesting the Miami-Dade County Public School system immediately remove the Bible from the classroom, library, and any instructional material. And, as is often the case with banned books, I ask your agency lay flame to that giant stack of fiction in a pyre worthy of a Viking sendoff."

Stevens also named a number of reasons why he wants the Bible banned including: "age inappropriateness, social-emotional learning, mentions of bestiality and rape, and "wokeness" as reasons to ban the Bible."

With the constant babbling concerns about teaching Critical Race Theory, should we not take stock of the Bible’s position on slavery? I am concerned our young white students will read such passages and wake up to civilization’s sordid past," Stevens wrote following a biblical passage from the book of Ephesians that discusses slavery and being obedient to masters.

www.rawstory.com/florida-book-ban/

Well, this list is super helpful! I homeschool my daughter (13) and am thinking of creating a banned book reading list for next year! That could be fun, read the book together and then examine the reasons it was challenged/banned.

It makes my brain and heart hurt to think of kids that won't have access to some of these books.

She accuses the school district of showing porn, posts the wrong website that ends up being porn. She refuses to apologize because there's porn on the correct site. All I see is sex ed and teaching inclusivity.

Apparently, this is the CORRECT site
www.scarleteen.com/

What is wrong with the publishing world . Giving a GQP recognition while he agrees with banning book?!?!?

Companies that published '1619 Project' joins in award for Republican who tried to get it removed from schools
Sarah K. Burris
May 10, 2022

Publishing houses are coming under fire after a group of them named Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) as a "distinguished public servant" in an event where they warned there is a war against books.

The American Association of Publishers is a board of publishers like the Hachette Book Group, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., John Wiley and Sons, Books, Tayor and Francis Group, the Disney Publishing Group, Scholastic, Pearson, Teacher Created Materials Inc, Penguin Random House, Princeton University Press, Simon and Schuster, University of Chicago Press, Chronicle Books, HarperCollins Publishers, the American Psychological Association, and McGraw Hill.

Some of the publishers on the list have authors whose books made it to the American Library Association's list of "book titles that were banned, challenged, or restricted." Yet, Sen. Tillis is among those leaders who fought for that same philosophy.

Scholastic is well-known as a children's book leader, but it joined with Random House (also on the list) in the production of the "1619 Project," which Tillis has targeted.

"Random House Children’s Books announced plans to publish four 1619 Project books for young readers—one young adult, one middle-grade, and two picture books. Upfront, a newsletter that the New York Times produces for schools with the publisher Scholastic, used the 1619 label on an article about 1960s student activism for civil rights and desegregation, linking that to 'the Climate March to demand action on global warming, and March for Our Lives to call for an end to gun violence" reported Education Next in their Spring 2022 issue.

According to Sen. Tillis, The New York Time Magazine’s "1619 Project" and critical race theory have no place in America’s classrooms. “This is why I have significant concerns with the Department of Education’s recent effort to reorient the bipartisan American History and Civics Education programs away from their intended purposes toward a politicized and divisive agenda. These proposed changes include implementing new federal grant priority for projects using The New York Time Magazine’s '1619 Project' and Critical Race Theory (CRT).”

He introduced a bill that would slash any federal funding to programs using the "1619 Project," then the publishers of the project gave him an award.

www.rawstory.com/thom-tillis-award-publishers-1619/

I've only gotten to the letter B, and this list is just appalling in how many there are.  Someone needs to tell me what would be objectionable about this: Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain.  It's a picture book about the TRUE story of 18th century mathematician Sophie Germain. I guess we can't have girls learning they can do math, after all!!!

or the series Ruby and the Booker Boys, which (from the Amazon blurb) sounds an awful lot like Ramona and Beezus, except for the family is black-- ?!? (except it was written by a person who won the Newberry Honor and the Coretta Scott King honor-- we can't have kids asking questions about who she is, after all...)

We are soooo doomed in this country.

Pre-ordered this lovely shirt today after seeing LeVar Burton post about it: Good stuff.