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by dfxm12 1y ago
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- rayiner 1y ago[flagged]
- jddj 1y agoDo you think the colour purple and the bluest eye should be banned from schools?
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoSurely it depends on the grade, right? I wouldn’t want my 2nd grader reading them
- davorak 1y agoDo we need the government to write a law and ban the color purple, and similar, from being taught in second grade? I am not a fan of the government doing that level of micromanagement in most circumstances.
- tracker1 1y agoAre you okay putting Penthouse magazine (or similar) in elementary schools? I'm guessing you aren't... people have to draw lines somewhere on this. There's a difference between restricting by age, making available to all and actually assigning material to children. Not all materials are appropriate for elementary school libraries. And I'm not even talking about The Color Purple specifically. Also, none of this stops a parent from buying a book for their children they feel is appropriate for their child.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoIs the reason there is no Penthouse magazine in the school library from a law though? No, it is from common sense.
- tracker1 1y agoCan you clarify what the difference between policy or law is at a given level? Not everyone agrees as to where the line is for "common sense" and will definitely push boundaries beyond what a community would generally agree to. Laws at a higher level are just "common sense" codified.
- kjkjadksj 1y agoThere is so much in life that is deferred to someones best judgement that if we stopped just to annotate and attempt to codify all these 100 such actions each person in positions of power or authority might take a given workday, it would take a century. Not all mountain out of molehill arguments need to be engaged with I think is the broader lesson we need for our times.
- davorak 1y ago> Are you okay putting Penthouse magazine (or similar) in elementary schools? I think the law that the judge is ruling on here does not effect a ban of penthouse or similar material in elementary schools. The preexisting laws already had that kind of material banned in elementary schools.
- mjmsmith 1y agoCurious why you removed "sexual identity" after racial identity.
- lern_too_spel 1y ago> Trump won over 40% of asians and nearly 50% of hispanics last year. I can't find a single exit poll that says Trump won over 40% of the Asian American vote. > I hate the idea that my kids would think that they have more in common with another ethnic Bangladeshi in Queens than she does with a random person in Appalachia. Nobody is claiming otherwise. They're only saying that on the narrow topic of racism, Trump and many (though certainly not all) of his supporters will treat your daughter differently than they do a random light-skinned Appalachian.
- rayiner 1y agoPew’s extensive analysis of the 2024 election results has Trump winning 40% of asian voters and 48% of hispanic voters: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/ https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patte... Your point about hypothetical racist Trump supporters is wrong for two different reasons. First, I’ve been to Appalachia, and my wife is from rural Oregon, and nobody has ever treated me differently. My brother in law (part black, part Samoan, looks like the Rock) went to a Trump rally and Marjorie Taylor Green came to him to introduce herself. In practice, the people who draw attention to my skin color in embarrassing and demeaning ways are white liberals. Second, building a “brown people” identity around the possibility that someone will occasionally treat you differently is bizarre. I don’t claim that my experience as a brown guy (who has spent a lot of time in the rural south and rural west coast) is universal. But if my family and I haven’t noticed it, that suggests a ceiling on how pervasive it could be. It’s positively grotesque to encourage kids to construct an identity that doesn’t reflect them as individuals, because someone, somewhere, might occasionally treat them differently based on skin color.
- FireBeyond 1y ago> won reelection (by 20 points) among both white and hispanics and one of the diverse states in the country How did he do with African Americans?
- tracker1 1y agoA cursory search didn't really reveal this breakdown in the handful of articles I looked at. There is mention that black turnout was a bit lower than other racial groups though. Without specifics, most likely carried more black men than previous elections, while losing with more black women. This seems to be the overall trend in general regarding Republican and Democrat voting from what I've observed.
- TimorousBestie 1y ago> If my kids want to understand her roots, they can read a book about the Mughal Empire. Do you really believe history books are immune from book bans? Historically speaking, they’re usually first against the wall. I wonder what PragerU has to say about it.
- RajT88 1y agoThey like book bans: https://www.prageru.com/search?q=Book+ban https://www.prageru.com/search?q=Book+ban
- ppqqrr 1y agoNo offense, there’s conservatives who want to ban books because they understand the value of literature and education… you’re not it, you should try reading the books they’re trying to ban, because it’s you they’re trying to keep away from reading those books.
- cosmicgadget 1y agoWhile I agree that no one should have their identity defined by their ethnicity, that does not describe many of these books. Perhaps none, it's presumptuous to say that an author writing about oppression wants to increase divisiveness. Beyond that, there is no shortage of people in favor of book bans that absolutely believe in ethnically-defined identity.
- rayiner 1y agoIf you’re in a room full of white people and you’re reading a book about Chinese railroad workers, then you’re correct that’s not divisive. If you add some asian kids, and then treat the Asian kids indistinguishable from the white kids—everyone is a modern american reading about history—that’s also not divisive. But what you have in schools today is an additional layer on top of that, where the non-white kids are treated differently than the white kids. The non-white kids are encouraged in subtle and not-so-subtle ways to identify with the oppressed people in the books in a way the white aren’t. At my kids school, they have racially segregated “affinity” groups to facilitate this. My daughter was invited to the weekly “black girl magic” lunch once a month (because I guess that’s the math for a half white half south asian kid). I know that sounds like something I just made up but it’s absolutely true. This is because academics and authors who write this stuff really do believe in racial identity and solidarity. Specifically, they generalize african american racial identity and solidarity and politics to all non-whites. If you walk into a book reading for some of this stuff, you’ll find way more people promoting “brown people” ethnic identity and solidarity than you will find people promoting “white people” ethnic identity and solidarity at a Trump rally. The vast majority of both white and “brown” Trump supporters just want to go back to the 1990s where we didn’t “talk about race.”
- UltraSane 1y agoI truly cannot fathom how anybody can listen to Trump talk for more than 5 minutes and read more than one of his moronic truth social posts and his constant lies and then still be a supporter.
- ethbr1 1y agoI hear what you're saying, and agree with large parts of it. Ethnic background shouldn't override individual autonomy. But... > The vast majority of both white and “brown” Trump supporters just want to go back to the 1990s where we didn’t “talk about race.” ... there's certainly a chunk of Trump supporters who would like to go back to the 40s and 50s version of US "not talking about race" (or the 1910s for not talking about women). It'd be nice if the reasonable people from both parties could ignore their extremist wings, get to together, and realize they have more in common than different.
- alistairSH 1y agoYou're talking about the guy and party that believe slavery was a good job training program. FFS, this isn't hard - they don't even bother with the dog whistles any more!
- ryandrake 1y agoYou're (arguably correctly) nit-picking OP's choice of the phrase "brown people." We can debate whether it makes sense to lump "brown people" together or not for the purpose of describing Republicans' attitudes toward human rights, but it would probably be more accurate to just reword OP's statement in more general terms: "Republicans have been transparent that they want to dehumanize out-groups." The point would still stand, and we avoid the distraction of whether "brown people" exist as a distinct group.
- rayiner 1y ago[flagged]
- ryandrake 1y agoTo your first point, I'll just say this isn't the first time in history various groups of people (however you want to group them) have by a wide margin voted for a politician who is actually antagonistic towards them. This behavior seems to rhyme all throughout history. Weird to have to define dehumanization but OK. Dehumanization is to deprive people of their positive human qualities. We're about to get political so this is likely way off topic at this point. A common, recurring theme in Republican "culture war" rhetoric and policy is to carve out and target various groups (however they/we want to define that group), ignore those groups' positive qualities, amplify their negative qualities, and portray those groups as "lesser humans than us," ultimately for the purpose of depriving them of rights/freedoms/wealth/livelihoods/etc. Evidence of this target -> dehumanize -> disenfranchise cycle abounds. If we can't agree on at least that baseline, then there's probably no productive way to proceed with a discussion. Yes, the other side divides and groups people, too, and we might not like that. But I'd argue it's for the purpose of uplifting already-vulnerable groups rather than knocking them down. I'd love to live in a world where nobody does this grouping, but we're obviously not there yet.
- rayiner 1y ago> Evidence of this target -> dehumanize -> disenfranchise cycle abounds. If we can't agree on at least that baseline, then there's probably no productive way to proceed with a discussion. We don’t agree on this. Republican efforts are focused on preserving the dominant American culture and norms, which we think are good. At least in the race context, what engenders backlash is not minorities having rights, but them coming together to assert distinct interests as a group to seek changes in the dominant culture. > Yes, the other side divides and groups people, too, and we might not like that. But I'd argue it's for the purpose of uplifting vulnerable groups rather than knocking them down. We agree on this. But I would submit that intent matters less than effect. For one thing, these “vulnerable groups” are less vulnerable than assumed. For example, Hispanics are economically assimilating with whites at about the same rate as Italians or Irish. For another, the well-intentioned divisiveness itself harms minorities. Ethnic identity and solidarity is a toxic force minority communities. It hinders economic and social assimilation, and empowers bad actors within the community. I want to live in a community where, if a Bangladeshi commits a crime, the other Bangladeshis have more solidarity with the white police who come to arrest the criminal than with their co-ethnic. I think this is one reason why even poor Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in America have so much better economic mobility than their counterparts in Europe or Canada.
- didibus 1y agoIf I understand, you're saying that you support banning common literary books in libraries? And likely so do most of Florida constituents, even Asians and Hispanic? But I'm not able to square that with what you said about ethnic identity.
- rayiner 1y agoYour confusion follows from your premise that this is about “banning.” This is about what books are made available to kids in school libraries. It’s a response to a trend in education, which has embraced teaching non-white kids to embrace ethnic identity and think of themselves as oppressed. Florida Hispanics see these trends as well, and one reason they overwhelmingly supported DeSantis for re-election is that’s not the worldview they want their own kids to have. They don’t want their kids to think of themselves as “Hispanic” (which is an artificial political construct anyway) and have teachers assign them books about how Hispanics are “marginalized.”
- xorcist 1y agoAny which words we choose about it, we're still talking about a government mandate which books are not ok to read. I don't doubt your personal experiences, but the leap to blacklisting literature is a huge one and doesn't follow logically at all. While this is a ground one should tread most carefully, surely you can see the historical precedents?
- rayiner 1y agoAgain, this is about school libraries. You can’t retreat to the libertarian bailey. Educating and socializing children necessarily requires the government to pick a viewpoint. Especially against the backdrop of librarians, who are certainly have embraced a particular viewpoint and are pushing it on kids.
- didibus 1y ago> Your confusion follows from your premise that this is about “banning.” This is about what books are made available to kids in school libraries Maybe I'm wrong, I didn't look into the details. But it appeared to be a ban to me. If all they did was say: "these are the books that must be made available at school libraries" That would be very different, and we wouldn't be talking about a ban. But if they specifically targeted certain books (who might have not even been at all the school libraries to begin with), and said here are the books that are not allowed to be made available... I mean, that's called a ban. I support your desire to make sure your kids feel at home and are able to, like everyone else, consider themselves American. I'm from an immigrant family, and it bothers me when people ask "what am I", I'm American, and they're always like... Come on! What are you really? And it's like, dude, you're also 'not really" American, you're German, you're British, etc. Except we're all really American, born and raised. So I'm with you on that point, and the "born and raise" part, yes it means you should be raised the same as well, raised American. Where I'll have to disagree with you, is that the books made available and the school curriculum isn't about any of this. It should focus on education, kids shouldn't be dumb, they need to learn history and it's effects, they should engage with hard topics and real problems, they should be exposed to well reasoned and intelligent diverse opinions from all sides, etc. You don't achieve that by selectively banning books whose narrative you personally don't like. If you came at me complaining that the current selection of books and curriculum goes against that, that it's pigeonholing kids into "brown" and "not brown", and so on, I'd be like, damn right that's a problem, and I'd put forward the same argument I'm making now for why it's an issue that needs addressed. But like I said, banning books just feels like pigeonholing and propaganda the same that you're trying to avoid just someone else's agenda.
- southernplaces7 1y ago[flagged]
- watwut 1y ago[flagged]
- Supermancho 1y ago> What a simplistic take on a much more nuanced set of issues and ideas than that from the Republicans and conservatives in general. "brown people"? What the hell does that generic, i'd say even coddlingly racist, label means specifically mean? It's cut and dry. Plain racism, broadly and slowly applied. Don't try to notice, they hate that. > All that said, this list of books proposed for bans is a laughable idiocy from people who really need to get their heads out of their asses. Ah yes, the foolish "state policy don't matter because you can get it somewhere else". Treating the issue lightly, is part of the problem. Now there's 1 less source BY POLICY and the noose tightens. Weaponizing policy is something politicians are prone to do.
- morkalork 1y agoI don't buy the whole "it's not illegal, just buy it from a bookstore yourself if it's banned from the library" argument after what happened with Steam and payment processors. What's next? "Just buy these books from a physical bookstore (not online) that is cash only because payment processors have booted the store off their platforms. Also, only old/used editions are available because publishers are afraid to print new runs. But it's not illegal so stop crying"
- zeroonetwothree 1y agoI don’t think it’s fair to equate private action with state action. The latter is much more dangerous to freedom
- morkalork 1y agoI am not equating the two, I am pointing out the flaw in the logic of viewing each in isolation and rationalizing. Excusing state-level book bans in libraries with "you can just buy it yourself with your money instead" clearly ignores what has been happening in the private sector.
- AlexandrB 1y ago> They've been transparent about their desires to censor media. 100% agree, but what's frustrating is that "the left" are not much better. We get things like the rewriting[1] of Roald Dahl's books based on the feedback from "sensitivity readers". I don't really know who to vote for to stop stuff like this. No political party seems to be on the side of a principled defence of freedom of speech. Instead it's always about censoring your opponents and their ideas while you're in power. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roald_Dahl_revision_controvers...
- archagon 1y agoExcept these revisions were driven by the publisher and not the Democratic party, as far as I can tell. An entirely different scenario.
- jrs235 1y agoAnything not aligned and christened by the MAGA movement is considered left/woke/Democratic Party/etc. which means it's bad until they change their minds and adopt it, if they ever do.
- add-sub-mul-div 1y agoIt does matter and it is not a minor detail that the left is acting to help people and the right is acting to hurt people. You can always disagree with what the left does, but the left and the right are nowhere near equivalent in the big picture that actually matters.
- kbelder 1y agoIt's indicative of a broken world view if you believe you can help people by censoring speech.
- hofrogs 1y agoIt's not indicative of a "broken world view" at all. There are already laws against defamation, running afoul of those would lead to your speech being censored to help the victim of defamation, for example. This logic can be extended with care.
- thewileyone 1y agoThey don't want to have to pay royalties to Margaret Atwood when they implement the handmaids headgear.