All across the United States, books are getting banned for a number of various reasons. Obviously, one of the biggest hotbeds of this sort of hairbrained behavior is in our lovely states in the South.
Places like “America’s Swamp Dick,” Florida. Then you also have “America’s Lice-Ridden Pubic Regions” in South Carolina and Georgia. Then there’s “America’s Turtle Head,” Texas, and “America’s Taint” Mississippi. And don’t forget “America’s Grundle,” good ol’ Alabama.
It’s true that a majority of the books are LGBTQ in nature and the states banning them are below the Mason-Dixon line. According to a report from ABC News, more than 2,500 books were targeted for censorship in 2022, more than half in “red states.” Within the report, the American Library Association said that among the majority of those banned books, most of them were written by or about the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color.
Take the situation with SC Governor Henry McMaster, and how he urged the state Department of Education to remove a YA book about gender identity, “calling it obscene and pornographic.”
Or Gov. Greg Abbott’s call for the state’s attorney general to investigate “sexually explicit material in schools” in reference to a book about gender fluidity.
Then of course you have the most interesting case down in Florida, where Governor Ron DeSantis (clearly an angry closet queen himself), has pressured districts to fire teachers and librarians for offering books to students that are in opposition to his “Culture War Agenda.”
It came as a surprise then when it was announced that the latest book to be banned by this cabal of southern governors who share one brain cell (and probably still communicate with each other using AOL emails) was not a book with “woke” subject matter, but Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.
The book has been pulled from shelves in an effort to curtail prudence, good judgement, and any display of intelligence.
According to one spokesperson for Mr. DeSantis, the book has been pulled from shelves in an effort to curtail prudence, good judgement, and any display of intelligence.
DeSantis also demanded that all libraries in his state purge their collections of other books that might be deemed “harmful publications.” These include John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty and Paine’s other famous work The Age of Reason.
These titles are being replaced with books praising fundamentalist religion, fanfiction books about the South winning the Civil War, and biographies from the likes of Kirk Cameron.
Not to be outdone in the South’s “War on Knowledge” are the likes of the lesser known Republican governors trying to make a name for themselves. Even more shrively and pasty white guys are trying to appeal to their fanbase and get mentioned on Fox News.
You have Idaho’s Brad Miller banning Civil Disobedience.
Eric Holcomb in Indiana just banned Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny.
And don’t forget how Mike Parson of Missouri canceled de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America.
In other news, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee just banned a nonpolitical piece of fiction strictly based off of it’s title: Sense and Sensibility. Many assume this is a lame attempt to draw favor from her political party and draw attention away from how much more crooked her eyes have become ever since she gained that office.
It’s clear to everyone else in the country that this most recent onslaught of book banning is clearly ridiculous: no one believes any of these governors have actually read a book aside from Bill O’Reilly’s Killing Jesus or The Greatest Speeches of Donald Trump.
But yes, there is clearly something more sinister going on here. One reason for a surge in book bans is dark money from conservative groups like the “Florida Citizens Alliance” or Texas’s “Patriot Mobile Action.” A recent New York Times article covered how these political action committees are stuffing Board of Eds with conservative candidates with traditional views on race, gender, and sexuality.
Groups like these claim they are “defending parents’ rights” but more and more the focus seems to be on curriculum, literacy, and books. These groups are heavily involved now in local politics and understand how shaping the minds of their youth will also help shape the political landscape of their state in the future.
The thinking is, “if we protect them from sinister and threatening subject matter now then they won’t become queers in drag later.” Honey, due to your state’s unemployment rate, your children are going to have to grow up and shake their ass on stage or give handjobs behind the truckstop to make a living.
But seriously, these groups think that woke educators are trying to groom or indoctrinate their kids with a structured and well-organized plan. Honestly, teachers are just trying to survive day to day and barely know what they are teaching next period. There is no scope and sequence, no strategic long-game… just a lot of mandated testing and worksheets pulled from the internet.
But yes, if anything, teachers and school librarians are trying to use books to “propagandize” literacy and “groom” them to prepare for a life of learning.
Educators are using books with diverse characters to “brainwash” their students to have empathy for others and understand experiences outside of their own.
Yes, liberal schools want to “indoctrinate” students to not be merciless pieces of shit who can’t think for themselves.
Like their state governors.