GOP Extremists Are Banning Books
While the whole country is facing a teacher and substitute shortage, many extremist school board members are deciding it would be a better use of time and resources to ban books.
As we already know, many of the same right-wingers who perpetrated and applaud the Jan. 6 attack are fighting a new front at our school boards. The reasoning given by the extremely conservative school board members for the ban of important classics—especially those dealing with race, gender, and sexuality—is to prevent children from seeing "pornography and inappropriate content." Additionally, while our schools are already in a funding and teacher crisis, Republican officials are threatening to pull money from their local library systems because they carry "homosexual materials" against Christian values.
Display of banned books or censored books at Books Inc independent bookstore in Alameda, California, October 16, 2021. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
Book banning fever heats up in red states, Salon | 1/26/2022
By Jon Skolnik
This attack on information and knowledge is not protecting our kids, in fact, it is hurting them. Honors students have spoken out about the effects of pulling important books from their school libraries, namely, the intentional prevention of students from gaining "access to the full extent of their education." The students are right, "no government—and public school is an extension of government—has ever banned books and banned information from its public and been remembered in history as the good guys."
Video: Texas Students Push Back On School Book Ban:‘Stop The Censorship’, MSNBC | 1/26/2022
Texas students are rightly pushing back on the book ban occurring in their school districts. The high school students gave public comments against their school board's decision during a board meeting, one of them rightly saying "so many histories such as that of the LGBTQ+ people, indigenous people, and that of the true history of our country will be erased if this book ban follows through."
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