It's kind of weird to think that we're at a point in our history where books are a huge part of the culture wars. That sounds like something from last century or the century before that.
But here we are, in 2023, burning books once again. OK, not burning books, but banning them. OK, not actually banning them, either. More like trying to keep sexually explicit books out of school libraries and classrooms.
Book bans reek of fascism and are a gross affront to free speech. And it's only natural for Americans to be against them. But the Americans screeching right now about far-right Republican state legislatures and parents trying to ban books are getting it all wrong, either because they fundamentally don't understand what's actually happening or because they're willfully lying about what's actually happening. Axios would fall into the latter category:
States fight to save books from growing number of bans across U.S. https://t.co/FVZAwlIvDQ
— Axios (@axios) June 22, 2023
"Bans."
Which books exactly are being "banned"?
— THE OCpatriot™ (@OCpatriot_) June 22, 2023
We'll wait.
More from Axios:
Recommended
The book banning movement — which often targets books written by or about members of the LGBTQ community and people of color — is not taking place through "isolated challenges," Kasey Meehan, director of the Freedom to Read project at PEN America, told Axios.
- "[It's] an organized effort to push censorship in education," Meehan said.
What they're saying: Banned books have been targeted for including sexual content, profanity, LGBTQ themes, or critical race theory.
- "Curating a children’s library is not banning books," Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice told Deseret News.
- But it's unfair for a minority of parents to dictate what's in libraries, social studies teacher Erin McCarthy previously told Axios.
- "They're kind of overstepping their boundaries," she said. "Books really allow you to dive in and understand another perspective."
Opponents of sexually explicit books in K-12 schools aren't averse to exposing kids to other perspectives; they just don't think kids should be reading books that graphically depict and glorify child sexual experimentation and statutory rape. And they're right. That stuff doesn't belong in schools, and schools shouldn't be making it available to kids. It fundamentally undermines parental rights as well as promotes the sexualization of children.
Keeping resource material featuring erotically eating poop out of middle school libraries was just the last straw!! https://t.co/R8ZoLdYSPn
— Chad Felix Greene (@chadfelixg) June 22, 2023
For Axios to frame what states like Florida are doing as part of "the book banning movement" is just so insanely dishonest ... it should make you furious. It makes me furious. If I tell my kids' school that I don't want that garbage in the library or classroom, I'm not some book-banning fascist. I'm just a parent who wants to protect my kids from an insidious form of sexual predation (I am fortunate in that my kids' school is very much against that particular form of "education," but I know that there are a lot of other parents who aren't so lucky and have to fight tooth-and-nail to protect their kids).
No book is banned. What you are trying to say is that you want porn involving minors in school libraries.
— Andreas (@sf_andreas) June 22, 2023
"A pornographic book getting removed from a school library" is not the same as "a book is banned by the state".
— Rightwing_Vet🐾 (@Florida_Veteran) June 22, 2023
...it's not even in the same ballpark. pic.twitter.com/Yzys22CD0I
What's stopping Axios from trying to dive in and understand the perspective of parents who don't want books like "Genderqueer" available to their fifth graders?
That's a rhetorical question, of course. It should be obvious to everyone what's stopping Axios.
The media knowingly lies for the sake of the cult and agenda https://t.co/DA4UiYXkdP
— Ahmed Al Asliken 🕋☪️✈️ (@assliken) June 22, 2023
True story.
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Related:
Axios' spin on heated response to prospect of gas stove ban 'is actual, literal gaslighting'
Axios: Books most targeted for censorship in California all included LGBTQ themes
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