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A Texas School District Banned My Book. Then Things Got Ugly
- LongTimeAnon 5y ago
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoI don't want to see districts banning books frivolously. But I think it's worth keeping things in perspective. Individual school districts do silly things all the time. There are more than ten thousand of them in the country. I sometimes wonder if our liberal outrage over these conservative stunts isn't just giving more fuel to the fire. Just offer a free digital copy to any student who can supply an ID from that school district. You can get wound up about it: it is your right. But it might be good to stop to ask whether you need to.
- supernovae 5y agoBanning books isn’t a “silly thing”. Turning a blind eye is.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y ago"silly thing" in my comment is a euphemism. I agree it's not good to ban books frivolously. I said it in my original comment, so I think you should understand that I agree with this view. What I'm questioning is whether the ever ratcheting level of outraged dialogue is the optimal response. We have been trying that for the last decade or two and it doesn't seem to be moving us in the right direction. Maybe it's time to try something else.
- freedomben 5y agoYes it can be, it depends of course on scale. If the Johnson family bans a book from their household, it's silly and turning a blind eye to it (i.e. just letting them run their house the way they want) is not silly. If the US government bans a book, we should be (figuratively) marching in the street with pitch forks.
- etchalon 5y agoThat's true on both sides of the discussions. As best I can tell, the whole "CRT!" issue has been fueled by decisions and events in a handful, if that, of specific classrooms or districts. So we get a handful of, generally smaller and ideologically homogenous, places doing absurd things, and then suffer the backlash as those events are elevated culturally. And that elevation gives way to a movement, and then a backlash to that movement, on and on and on. But I think it's absolutely worth getting riled up about.
- sersi 5y agoWhat is the CRT issue? Tried googling it but didn't find anything related to book banning
- etchalon 5y agoI live in Texas. It's a whole goddamn thing here: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/texas-critical-race-theory-ban-books.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/10/us/texas-critical-race-th...
- CRConrad 5y agoI can imagine that would find mostly references to what we used to have for screens and TVs back in the old days. Central (book) Repository of Texas, perhaps? (You know, where a guy is supposed to have been hiding with an old [Mannlicher?] carbine just over 58 years ago...)
- res0nat0r 5y agoI think the bigger issue as of right now is that this book banning and "anti-CRT" nonsense is actually becoming a major rightwing talking point driving voters and is backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line. These folks are working now to take over at the local government / local level then start working up the chain to impose whatever crazy talking points they're currently drowning in.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago> backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line I believe this is what they call, "the iron law of woke projection".
- bitwize 5y agoIt's well known that unfounded conspiracy theories are hallmarks of the right, not the left. An example is the irrational and dangerous suggestion that George Soros has been doing what the Koch brothers have clearly been doing for decades.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago- Covington Catholic Kids - Jussie Smollett - The Steele Dossier Should I go on?
- res0nat0r 5y agoThis is actually happening in the real world and has already been documented, so not sure what this means.
- slowmovintarget 5y agoSo the people on the right have learned from the people on the left (I guess it eventually happens) and are now doing what they did. Progressives have forty years of work to dominate school boards, starting with University administration, on down through K-12 administration, to the point where some elementary schools are teaching "white" children they should feel guilty for being born "white." No, this isn't happening everywhere, but it is happening in some schools. Progressives have blown past Martin Luther King's "content of their character" and haired off into Animal Farm territory. This is why MLK is now being claimed to be "problematic." His way led to reconciliation, rather than a new dominance hierarchy. Progressives in general seem to be playing to "win" not to solve, as MLK was. When one force pushes that hard, it's likely to cause a reaction. I think we're seeing it.
- alistairSH 5y agoThe problem is that Texas, as a state, is the second largest consumer of school books in the nation. This gives Texas massive influence on the overall school book market and impacts other states because publishers don’t want to publish multiple versions for multiple states. This may be more a problem for textbooks than for novels, but I imagine it applies to both to some extent. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservative-activists-texas-have-shaped-history-all-american-children-learn/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/10/19/conservati...
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoI understand but this is a single district in Texas, and it's a library book, not a textbook. If the whole state banned the book it would be a bigger deal but I still question how productive getting outraged about it is. If anything, making this a statewide or national issue would probably increase the likelihood of the book getting banned elsewhere, although I reckon it would also be good for sales.
- buerkle 5y agoIt's multiple districts in Texas, just around the Austin area they are attempting to remove these books from both LISD and RRISD. The Williamson County commissioners recently tried to withhold CARES act funding from both these districts because of these books, however, they had no problem releasing funding for other school districts within the county even though their school libraries have the same books. This is all political stunts pulled by various right-wing groups. They are specifically targeting LISD and RRISD because these areas have recently trended towards Democrats.
- jskrn 5y agoThis is but one symptom of a larger curriculum disease being inflicted on schools across the country. "Just" providing a digital alternative to the book doesn't solve the root problem.
- freedomben 5y agoThank you for this. This is a really thoughtful and nuanced comment and I'm grateful for it. Sorry for the reply with no substance, but I'm so rarely impressed by comments as much as this that I wanted to let you know.
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoWe've got conservatives pursuing and implementing rules against anything that conflicts with the myth of American creation, or pays homage to anything LGBT. So I'm not sure we can dismiss this as a conservative "stunt" and then accuse liberals of driving the issue by being concerned about books being banned.
- selimthegrim 5y agoOh, like these 12 year olds don't watch King of the Hill where the exact same words are mentioned. e: Do you see the black community in Texas agitating to ban Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner where the title character has an explicit fantasy of raping a white woman?
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoHeck, the Virginia governor-elect cashed in on this "faux outrage" because a high school senior was so mentally injured by the book Beloved, one of the most regarded pieces of American fiction in the past 50 years.
- selimthegrim 5y agoI think there was a rape case in some high school bathroom that probably he got more mileage out of.
- j_walter 5y agoI think it was two rape cases by the same person at two different schools I believe...and that the first case was covered up and/or dismissed by the school admins.
- j_walter 5y agoWhy do some people feel that all college age kids needed a day off for mental health because Trump won an election or safe spaces because life is hard...but at the same time it's ridiculous that a high schooler was troubled by reading a graphic depiction of rape?
- cultofmetatron 5y agoagree that it was a little ridiculous to require a mental health day but Trump's presidency DID cause significant physical harm to a lot of people vs perceived mental trauma.
- swearwolf 5y ago“Rather than focus on what their kids are actually reading, these parents often take their lead from social media pages and conservative organizations that list which books to target and provide talking points, as well as screenshots of school library catalogs. Parents’ outrage may be genuine, but their actions create an even more hostile environment for already marginalized kids.” Crowdsourcing our outrage like this is a hugely destructive behavior, and yet it’s one that both “teams” engage in regularly. News sources on both sides are in the business of telling you what will make you engage the most, and usually that’s whatever makes you the angriest. You really do need to look into things for yourself. When you do you’ll often find that there’s way more nuance there than you thought, no matter how straightforward the original reporting seemed to be. If you can’t spare the time to do that, you have no business engaging in activism pertaining to that topic.
- WoahNoun 5y agoBoth sides is a reductionist argument that ignores the extremes one side is taking versus the other.
- jokethrowaway 5y ago
- jlongr 5y ago>Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. >Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
- freedomben 5y agosuggesting that anything that mentions "both sides" as having a problem is a reductionist argument, is itself a reductionist argument, and a major logical fallacy. It is perfectly possible for there to be issues that affect "both sides" to either different or equal extent, and an extreme position that one of those sides has on some other issue is irrelevant. Just think about which "side" is worse on the drug war and the incredible damage it has caused? If you come up with an answer of "which side" is worse, does that mean that everything the other side did is totally cool, totally non-destructive, etc? Of course not. sorry for the lecture, but this argument is one of the few that triggers the hell out of me. the other one is, "I don't care about privacy violations because I'm not doing anything wrong"
- tyingq 5y agoI imagine Kara is confident that students can put Ezekiel 23:20 into the context of the larger work though.
- walrus01 5y agoOr 2 Kings 2:23-25
- j_walter 5y agoIt does seem that perhaps parts of the book are more mature than what should be on the shelves of middle school library (although that could be taken out of context because I haven't read the book). I'm not sure why people are up in arms that parents feel like they should have some say in what their kids are being taught or what access they have to specific material. They aren't 'banning the book' so much as saying it's not appropriate for kids of a certain age. This isn't like Nazi Germany where books were not allowed to be owned or sold...and it certainly isn't because the author's race or religion.
- etchalon 5y agoThe idea "parents should have a say in what their children are taught" sounds well enough, until you consider the conflicts and overlaps that type of argument leads to.
- j_walter 5y agoIs there much overlap when discussing a book in the middle school library that talks about dreaming of sexual assault? That seems to be the issue at hand here. What about if those libraries had movies and they allowed rated R movies in middle schools? Would that be acceptable...or would it be censorship?
- etchalon 5y agoIt's a public institution. "Censorship" isn't likely the right word, but broad, public access to culture is exactly why libraries exist. The entire "Rating" system for movies is absurd, inconsistent, and deeply flawed as it is.
- j_walter 5y agoSure and it's still at the public library. This isn't a public library where parents take their kids and approve of the books they are getting. This is a middle school library where books are curated to the audience of middle schoolers. Same reason there isn't porn mags at middle school libraries... Do you feel super violent video games should be accessible by young kids as well?
- kerneloftruth 5y agoI mostly agree with the author's conclusion: "Parents have a critical role to play when it comes to what their kids read, and Out of Darkness isn’t for everyone. But it is a book that matters to someone, and that student deserves to be able to find it in their school library." ... except for it being the school library. A library, yes, but I understand a school library not having it.
- WoahNoun 5y agoWhy? My high-school library had a large selection of books with controversial topics. Should we remove "Catcher in the Rye" or "To Kill a Mockingbird" or "Huckleberry Finn"?
- j_walter 5y agoDid your middle school though?
- WoahNoun 5y agoYes, we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" when I was in 7th grade.
- tlear 5y agoThey purged those in some places already. This is also middle school. Fantasies of rape for a 12 year old? let me pass. My 8 year old got "Our House on Fire"(the Gretta story) as the holidays reading. It is a hilarious fear porn with multiple bullshit claims. Idea is to scare, make the kid feel anxiety and get them to do "something". Reminded me of the old posters in USSR, What did you do for the 5 year plan???!! In some ways I am glad I can start working with her on recognizing this shit early, never though I would need to after I immigrated in my teens here... but here we are. I wonder if she will bring a rewrite of Pavlik Morozov and COVID for summer light reading.
- josephcsible 5y agoWhen a school district bans a book, students who want to read it anyway can get it from somewhere else, though this is extra effort on their part. When Big Tech bans an article, users who want to read it anyway can get it from somewhere else, though this is extra effort on their part. If you think one of these scenarios really needs to be fixed, but the other is perfectly fine, then you're probably part of the problem.
- slg 5y agoSchools are part of the government and the government does and should have different restrictions on how it operates compared to a private for profit business.
- WorkingDead 5y agoThose things are not equal. It's perfectly reasonable to take books with graphic depictions of sex and violence out of the children's section.
- WoahNoun 5y agoAgreed, we should definitely keep the bible away from children.
- etchalon 5y agoWhy?
- j_walter 5y agoFor the same reason a 17 year old can't go to a movie theater and watch an R rated movie by themselves. Society has said certain aspects of life (violence, sex, language) need to be restricted until people reach a certain age.
- lostlogin 5y agoIt isn’t applied quite like that though. The bible is likely in the library and kids could reach it, and violence is acceptable to an arbitrary point which changes based on the media.
- jokethrowaway 5y agoThere is nothing wrong with the book and it sucks for the morons sending you hate mail - but I agree it doesn't sound appropriate for middle schoolers. I remember secretly reading my parents' books as a kid and being puzzled at sexual references, racism and dark jokes. They don't even have the tools to understand them.
- renewiltord 5y agoThis sort of jibes with my experience living in Texas. There are many personal freedoms that Texas will not let you have. That’s the big contrast for me between Texas and California. CA has lots of personal freedoms. TX has lots of economic freedoms. Ideally, I want both. But having to choose between the two, I think I prefer the relative liberty the Bay Area offers me. What would be cool is if we had a digital school library. Authors could make their book available to school students who had a school ID anywhere in America.
- dekhn 5y agoWhat economic freedoms does Texas have that California does not? Do you mean, like relaxed environmental regulations (note that California's strong constraints on the emissions of cars and trucks that came after dangerous pollution in LA, leading to policies that are now applied more widely)? Lower taxes? Easier opportunities (due to law or economic climate) to start businesses?
- tyingq 5y agoI think it was the taxes being referenced. Other than property tax, Texas has significantly lower rates than California. And the property tax being higher in Texas is offset by lower overall property prices.
- renewiltord 5y agoTo start with, I’m carbon negative, so you can be assured I’m not some “fuck the environment” dude. - Easier to build homes - Faster to start businesses - No societal veto on businesses; reliance on rules instead California’s societal veto is a bad thing for people, in my opinion. The “do we need another ice cream shop?” question should be left unasked.
- 762236 5y agoA common cycle: lots of creative, hard-working people build a thriving business district, where it is thriving because customers find it an interesting place to be; then the banks want to locate there, which kills the vibe (people can walk around the banks, but density of interesting places matters), and the district stagnates as the original people sell out to uninteresting replacements. Does it not make sense to enforce some rules on who can move in next if you want to keep the place thriving? But the rules easily can go too far. For example, many a dog walker would love it if vendors could sell good, hot coffee along the dog walks or at the dog parks, but vending is forbidden nearly everywhere where it would be beneficial.
- stakkur 5y agoIt's a novel that begins with a school disaster and includes all kinds of violence, including sexual. Deciding what books are appropriate for a high school library isn't an exact science, and it's often down to a few people carrying out a district selection process. It's not as simple as "you have to stock every book else you're guilty of censorship", regardless of the motives of people seeking to exclude (or include) specific books. And for what it's worth, thousands of books are rejected each year by American school districts. Publishers, authors, and other interests push hard to get 'their' books into schools.
- vb6sp6 5y agoThe novel doesn't start with a school shooting. It starts with a school blowing up due to a natural gas leak (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_London_School_explosion)
- stakkur 5y agoYep. One of the worst disasters in school histories. The app autocorrected 'disaster' to 'shooting'. I edited my comment. But the point here is the inclusion of a disaster that killed hundreds of children, not my grammar. To be clear--since this is HN--I haven't read the book and don't have an opinion about it's inclusion in a school library. But I do resist the temptation to accept articles like this at face value, without context or critique.
- onphonenow 5y agoIs this actually banned? Ie, if a student posses this book at home they face school discipline? Or is that the school libraries won't stock the book? There is a somewhat big difference between a school library not stocking a book and a school district banning it for all students. Iran school district bans bible might be very different from this texas "ban". Why is it so important that children have access to this book? Do (local) parents working with a (local) school district not have some right to input on these things?
- LamboJ 5y ago"In Lake Travis ISD, all copies have been removed from library shelves. And just last week, Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access to Out of Darkness in all high school libraries, citing the book’s “violence and difficult imagery.” Students in the district must ask a librarian for the book and show proof of parental consent." I see your concern that a district choosing not to stock a book is not news, but in this case it sounds like the book was available and used in the curriculum in many districts for the past 6 years, and then only banned this year after the video by Kara Bell was publicized.
- watwut 5y agoSchool ban literally always means that the book can not be present in school library and can not be talked about in the class. It literally never ever means the student can't possess it.
- jasonlotito 5y agoWhy is it so important that children have access to books? Answer this and that will answer your question.
- onphonenow 5y agoThen it's clear why texas might not stock a book right? I let my kids look at Nat Geo Kids. I don't have them looking at hustler. This is parenting 101 stuff. Every study shows that letting kids be kids is a good thing for their development. Yes, some kids (often without good parental involvement) get exposed to "adult" topics much earlier. This is correlated with plenty of miserable and sad outcomes. Let me ask you this. Why should you, who is not a parent of the kids in this school, have a right to force violent imagery on those kids? Or force the procurement and availability of this material? Or of any material? Answer that question - and you will answer your own question. Some reviews here: http://commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/out-of-darkness/user-reviews/adult http://commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/out-of-darkness/use... Example: This novel crosses some legal boundaries with the adult/child abuse and rape scenes. It is VERY detail, vivid, and graphic. It includes descriptive scenes of the main character being sexually abuse by her father. Years later, her pastor encourages her to marry her stepfather as a child. This book continues to get worse as it include graphic images of children violently harmed. Eventually, a bomb goes off at school and her little sister is killed- graphic descriptions of her body parts are all over. This novel is a canvas, showcasing child abuse. There isn't any healthy themes or solutions. The poster demands your child be exposed to this - no regard to age or your own parental views.
- bjt2n3904 5y ago> "Take her out back, we boys figured, then hand on the titties, put it in her cornbox, put it in her cornhole, grab a hold of that braid, rub that calico" Ah yes, the pinnacle of English Literature. Very suitable for an eleven year old to be reading.
- notfed 5y ago"There she lusted after her lovers, whose genitals were like those of donkeys and whose emission was like that of horses. So you longed for the lewdness of your youth, when in Egypt your bosom was caressed and your young breasts fondled." - The Bible (Ezekiel 23:20) Ah yes, the pinnacle of literature...
- daniel-cussen 5y agoThat absolutely is the pinnacle of literature and it's part of life so it is important to talk about. And it's a very relevant passage these days, as men are culturally expected to actually have "genitals like those of donkeys" to be attractive.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- CRConrad 5y agoSo then this book is also a Pinnacle Of Literature, right?
- finite_jest 5y agoIf we are being fair, I think it is quite clear (as far as humanities go) that overall the Bible's literary value is much higher than the book in question. If we do a PageRank-like ordering of all books based on quotes and cross-references, quite likely the Bible will come on top.
- 5y ago
- qaq 5y agoIs it me or would shitload of issues just go away if there was a viable centrist party?
- root_axis 5y agoThere is no agreed upon definition of centrist.
- ethbr0 5y ago"Whatever makes all other sides equally angry, or at least disappointed."
- x86_64Ubuntu 5y agoThat's what centrist would mean in a vacuum, but in the US it generally means concern-trolling the Left while being a full-time apologist for the Right. I have yet to meet a "centrist" who is more concerned about what the Right is doing than they are about how the Left speaks about what the Right is doing (tone-policing and such).
- ethbr0 5y agoDoes it? I've met a ton of self-described centrists that think people being unreasonable is unreasonable.
- ceejayoz 5y agoThat's the Democratic Party. What we don't have is a viable leftist party.
- space_fountain 5y agoHow do you define leftist? I think I hear this complaint online about nearly every country. I think something about the population’s opinion would be how I would define it
- dudul 5y agoI don't know, when a conservative book is removed from libraries I read that "librarians are free to stock their shelves the way they want". The word "ban" seems exaggerated here. It's not banned- as in sanctions if you get caught with it - it's just not in the library. Like thousands of other books.
- sophacles 5y agoThis isn't librarians choosing what to stock. This is librarians being mandated on what they cannot choose to stock. That is the librarian is in fact banned from choosing that book, because if they put it on the shelves they will be in trouble. What "conservative" books have been mandated off the shelves?
- dudul 5y agoOh you're right, good distinction. And that makes this story even more of a nothing burger. It wasn't the authoritative and unilateral decision of a librarian. Tax payers brought forward a concern, made a case explaining why they were unhappy and the district agreed with them. That's the system working.
- buerkle 5y agoIt was a loud small minority of taxpayers complaining about the books. Many of the people going to the school board meetings don't even have kids in the district or live in the district. The districts have processes in place for parents to request the district to review books available from their libraries. These people chose a different route by showing up to school board meetings, yelling at the board members (I know a few board members who have received multiple death threats), telling board members "karma is a bitch and it's coming for your kids", and in general making a mockery of the whole process.
- vb6sp6 5y agoOne of the reasons I laugh when people talk about "escaping" to TX. We are basically burning books, controlling women's bodily autonomy, blame green energy for the failure of natural gas plants during cold snaps (and then make citizens foot the bill for the next 30 years while they made record profits). And when a fertilizer plant exploded due to improper storage and lax regulations, the governor went on a publicity tour bragging about the lax regulations (15 people died, mostly first responders) And this news report from 2006 is a real gem: 'Peggy Fruge told me she'd welcome blacks to her neighborhood. Then she said this: "I don't mind being friends with them, talking and stuff like that, but as far as mingling and eating with them, all that kind of stuff, that's where I draw the line."' We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue. Just know this is a backwards place in many ways.
- adamrezich 5y ago>We do need people to come to texas to flip it blue. Just know this is a backwards place in many ways. putting aside the specific political affiliations mentioned here, I find this sentiment generally offensive. what could possibly compel you to encourage people of a certain political persuasion to move to a specific region so as to topple the existing, different-than-yours, popular political persuasion? if you live in a Republic of fifty States, why can't you and everyone that agrees with you politically find another state to take your political values to? what makes you think that your perspective on how things should be should matter more than the millions of people already living there, such that your ideal worldview should replace the existing popular one in a specific state, via interstate mass migration? obviously there's nothing wrong with people who live in a given state having different political values compared to the prevailing local political values and trying to change things locally themselves and/or with the assistance of other like-minded locals. but when you advocate for mass migrations of people to come and change things...
- unethical_ban 5y agoIt's a value statement. You can't put away the specific political affiliations in this discussion. Examples: "Putting aside the Uyghur genocide and one party system of China, who are you to say China should change any of their behavior?" "Putting aside banning Christianity and subjugating women to be objects of their family and murdering journalists and activists in their embassy, who are we to wish Saudi Arabia would change their political behavior?" I'm a lifelong Texan, and it's possible I will remain such. The Texas GOP is an embarrassment to enlightenment. As I've stated elsewhere in the thread, I wish we had more political parties so that "reasonable conservatives" had a party that incorporated good faith debate and values in their platform rather than hatred of the "other" and performative outrage. That's why we need Texas to flip. If you're a conservative or otherwise a GOP voter and live in Texas, I'd be interested in what drives you to that decision, though it may be off-topic for HN.
- joshuaheard 5y agoSchool districts curate the material in their libraries and curricula to make available the selections appropriate for the age of the students. Restricting inventory in the school library to appropriate material is not "banning" the material. It is well within the power of parents to complain to their school boards about inappropriate materials, and well within the school boards' power to decide the curricula and materials available to students on campus. There is nothing wrong with this and happens all over the country on a daily basis. In this case, it is reasonable for parents to complain about a book containing descriptions of anal sex being in a library available to teenagers. One may disagree, but that is why the school board had a public meeting to debate this issue, and the school board properly decided. Describing this as some sort of book banning or book burning is misleading and should be avoided.
- fareesh 5y agoMight be politically incorrect to say but if you are a kid and your home living situation is one where you don't have access to the Internet and there is no public library that is nearby - chances are that your financial situation is quite poor. If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers. Inflation is rising and times are going to get tough for you and your family. Provocative topics are for rich kids.
- plouffy 5y agoAm I getting whooshed ? This is surely satire.
- not-my-account 5y agoWho is to say if that is politically correct, but I think your statement is certainly wrong. > If you are willing to invest your time in reading - then any book that is being targeted by the current culture war is very likely to be an inefficient use of your time. Focus on books that will generate maximum value for you to become a productive member of society, who can be rewarded for the value that you bring to an organization, or learn topics that will enable you to build a business that provides value to paying customers. The article is about a book being banned in middle school. If you were in grade 8 concerned with whether the books you are reading will give direct profit to an organization, more power to you. But this isn’t the way that the majority of eighth graders think (nor the way that they should think). The value of fiction books may be less direct that non-fiction reference (to which I assume you are referring, happy to be corrected), but the value is there nevertheless. A great banned fiction book is To Kill A Mockingbird- it has strong themes of right and wrong, justice, and of youth. Though I may have not identified those directly when I read it (in ~grade 8), it was fascinating and made me very excited to read. Just because the value is longer term, doesn’t mean that it is of lower value.
- vlovich123 5y ago
- mdavis6890 5y agoNothing is being banned anywhere, per se. School libraries have to pick and choose which tiny fraction of available books to stock. Different schools will make different choices about which books to include. What about all of the other millions of books this school isn't including? Are all of those banned as well? Certainly not, they just didn't make the very-very-short-list. This author is suggesting that because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school, that she is somehow aggrieved. I disagree. But I with her well and I hope she finds her book in other places. Sounds like an interesting and thought-provoking read.
- zimpenfish 5y ago> because HER book, in particular, wasn't chosen by this particular school It was specifically removed from shelves: "Lake Travis ISD removed all print copies of Out of Darkness from its middle school libraries", blocked: "banned from use in classroom libraries and the school book clubs", restricted: "Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access", etc. This isn't "some schools didn't stock my book" at all.
- mdavis6890 5y agoComplete quote: "In Leander, students are currently allowed to check out my book from the school library, but it is banned from use in classroom libraries and the school book clubs." That's a pretty narrow ban. Also "And just last week, Keller ISD, north of Fort Worth, restricted access to Out of Darkness in all high school libraries, citing the book’s “violence and difficult imagery.” Students in the district must ask a librarian for the book and show proof of parental consent. " - Meaning it's still available from the library, but parents have to give consent. Also well short of a ban. Look - I'm very liberal in my beliefs about speech. If it was my school it would be treated like any other book. But we have to accept that different people in different places will have different values and educational priorities and standards. It is not completely unreasonable to put guards around the material we expose our kids to, especially in middle school. Would you feel differently if this book were about other topics you might feel are sensitive? What about guns, Nazism, Marxism, lizard-people, etc?
- jasonlaramburu 5y agoKara Bell (the woman mentioned in the article who got the book banned) is infamous around Austin and Central Texas for creating inflammatory viral videos. She was recently cited by police for assaulting a Nordstrom Rack employee after they asked her to wear a mask [0]. The only reason this person has such an outsized impact on children's education is that relatively few people vote in school board elections, or attend the meetings. [0] https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/lake-travis-school-board-candidate-given-assault-citation-after-mask-confrontation-at-store/269-18005d40-6142-490e-a30a-25c16c5494bb https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/lake-travis-school-b...
- newbie789 5y agoThis sort of stuff is abhorrent. Anecdotally, I went to a high school in Utah where the librarian would use a sharpie to censor sexual content. The weird thing was that she’d only censor consensual sexual content. I remember reading a book (I think it was maybe one of the Bourne novels?) that had big paragraphs redacted, but it included quite a few very graphic rape scenes that were left in. This sort of censorship is why I think it’s absolutely critical that young people learn how to pirate stuff as early as possible. I think that self-directed learning is important to avoid children failing victim to the brainwashing of this ~culture war~.
- mschuster91 5y agoSerious question from a German here: why are school boards democratically elected in the first place, and why the f..k do they have the power to censor books from a library that violate no laws and have been selected by the administrative staff responsible for maintaining the library?!
- pseudo0 5y agoBecause parents are the primary stakeholder group for public schools, and elections provide a mechanism for a modicum of accountability. Although it's rare for parents to get outraged enough to actually turn up en masse for school board elections and vote for substantive change. As for why school boards have editorial oversight... What do you do if a school librarian goes off the deep end and starts spending 100% of the library budget on say, Scientologist propaganda? It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight?
- mschuster91 5y ago> Because parents are the primary stakeholder group for public schools, and elections provide a mechanism for a modicum of accountability. Here in Germany, we have an entire bureaucratic apparatus (the Ministries of Education) to hold school staff accountable. For me, the US system is simply incomprehensible because it is plainly visible that the system can be commandeered by tiny minority action groups that have a lot of free time (i.e. conservative pensioners). > It's not against any laws and has been selected by the administrative staff, so how would that situation be resolved without oversight? Ideally, you'd have a set of policies that would put a serious limit on political, religious and sectarian propaganda materials... and in the case of disputes, it would be the job of the school administration (=the principal / vice principal) to deal with them.
- pseudo0 5y ago> Here in Germany, we have an entire bureaucratic apparatus (the Ministries of Education) to hold school staff accountable. For me, the US system is simply incomprehensible because it is plainly visible that the system can be commandeered by tiny minority action groups that have a lot of free time (i.e. conservative pensioners). At least in my experience, most of the people who bother to research candidates and vote in school board elections are parents with kids in the public system. Turnout is typically low because those people are the only ones with skin in the game. Pensioners typically don't care as long as their taxes don't go up. The plus side to this system is that you get much more direct accountability. In the German system, if your Ministry of Education is performing poorly, how would you effect change? Vote for a national party and hope that they have the will and political capital to fight an entrenched bureaucracy that will delay and fillibuster any attempt at reform? From the US side of things, it's incomprehensible that you'd have so much faith in a bureaucratic entity that makes competition (homeschooling) illegal, and would want less direct democracy by voters. https://m.dw.com/en/us-judge-grants-german-homeschooling-family-asylum/a-5174919 https://m.dw.com/en/us-judge-grants-german-homeschooling-fam...
- j_walter 5y agohttps://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/out-of-darkness https://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/out-of-darknes... A website that reviews books and suggests when they are age appropriate says this book is suggested for 15+ year olds. The story is talking about middle school libraries... It also says this book is A+ for educational value...it just has a significant amount of mature subject matter.
- zephrx1111 5y agoSo, it seems the author is worried the current middle school kids don’t have enough good books to read, so, they have to read this book? Should a middle school kid read books proved overtime? I believe they still have enough time in their life to build the immune systems for such controversial topics.
- martin8412 5y agoParents should have no say in what books are available at school libraries. They don't like it, they're free to move their kids to another school. From an outside point of view, the extremes that the US goes to, to shield kids from adult themes is awful. Damaging even. No, they should not be showing porn in school, but explicit movies were absolutely part of my health class when discussing sex at age 12.
- m0llusk 5y agoThe liberals do it too argument is not entirely correct. Though both sides do engage in this kind of political theater, conservatives dominate and have disgust sharing as a central pillar of their politics. This is in part because the nature of conservative politics is to be more easily disgusted and to have moral judgements that instead of considering only harm focus on fairness and include purity, loyalty, and sanctity. Some supports for this include The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt: righteousmind.com, the Is disgust a "Conservative" emotion? paper: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31619133, and the study of conservatives on social media by Politico in cooperation with the Institute for Strategic Dialog: isdglobal.org, www.politico.com/news/2020/10/26/censorship-conservatives-social-media-432643. Outrage drives much media, but favors conservative views and outlets.
- pandaman 5y agoI have a question: how has a 2015 fiction book by an author who does not have even a Wikipedia page ended up in all the school libraries? It's #102,753 in Amazon's bestseller list so does not seem to be some kind of Hunger Games or Twilight phenomenon, do school libraries just buy everything that comes out?