Banning books and making sure that young people cannot participate in discussions of topics such as CRT (Critical Race Theory) and gender identities (other than male/female) – these are two new entries in our American culture wars. We on the left are no longer surprised, although we are sometimes shocked to see fascist tendencies popping up with such speed and intensity. There were explosive reactions to the 1619 project and to health mandates, which may not seem related items on the right-wing protest agenda, but they are. Conservative citizens have been encouraged (propagandized) by media to react against whatever the supposed experts in conservative thinking see as anathema. Conspiracy theories give a framework to the anti-intellectual movement on the right. Right-wing activists are told that they are protecting the world from leftist politicians who are child traffickers and who hold ceremonies that involve child sacrifice and drinking the blood of babies. If you can bring yourself to believe these outrageous stories, I suppose you would think your actions to prevent progress are heroic (and good for the economy).
We are less astonished on the left as we see the right giving ever more expression to fascist methodologies than we are that right-wingers think these attacks on tolerance will work in the 21stcentury when everything is accessible right on the internet. Since sites like Amazon are all about providing all things people desire and earning enormous profits from it, parents will eventually learn that their children will still find ways to read banned books.
Half of America seems to want the 1950’s back, to erase the lessons of the 1960’s, lessons which they believed destroyed the America they knew and loved. The middle-class dream ended for them not just because of the drugs, the music, and the love, but because they came to believe that people in the hippie movement stopped going to church and stopped living the American dream and even stopped believing that America was perfect. Of course, the Vietnam War was rapidly disabusing many of that notion. We learned lessons of tolerance; we learned the lesson that the only people happy with 1950’s America were white people. We learned the lessons of capitalism, that when new markets open all bets are off; and American workers can be highly valued one day and practically worthless the next.
A second goal on the right is to work on erasing the sins of the South, which the right -wing seems to believe is simply a matter of not teaching these things in school. There are no perfect people. Everyone has sins. The best way to wipe out sins is to “go forth and sin no more,” or at least not commit the same sins again. We seem unable to free ourselves of racism, and although much has been said and written about conscious and unconscious racism, America seems stuck in this regard. Lately we have had to experience the depths of our remaining racism through the eyes of those who have been victimized by our ingrained negative attitudes. The list is long.
Even if red states become “Luddite” states that ban all modern technology, people of color have made profound contributions to our culture, have become powerful, and will not be banished from red states by actions like banning books and denying the racism that never died when slavery ended. If these states believe that they can cancel America’s history as easily as they can ban a book, they are deluding themselves. The world points to nations that rewrite their history and mocks them when they deny the records others keep of their history because there are books that record the truth, there are videos about it, movies about it and recordings that document it. The world understands that the citizens of that state are in a sort of prison, and while we may revile the state, we are sad for the citizens of such a state that saves a revisionary version of its own history and teaches it to those who live there. We never imagined that America might become such a state, and that we might do it by an enabled minority’s choice.
I guess it is entirely possible, given attacks on our voting rights, that the right-wing could win power in Washington soon and could deny certain American freedoms, as they claim the left has been doing with mask mandates, vaccine mandates, shutting down businesses. It seemed acceptable to many of us to temporarily lose rights in a situation where public health and human lives were at risk. We were perplexed when others thought that beating up neighbors who wanted to wear a mask and threatening to harm them were actions taken supposedly in defense of freedom (punishment for sheeples?). It’s possible that right-wingers could threaten violence and somehow force the left to let them pass laws to suppress our history and our current struggles with tolerance. But Europe would still know. We would be the new laughing stocks; everyone would be talking about what American democracy had come to. What would we call our curtain or wall around America then – the Propaganda Wall – the White Supremacist’s Wall?
Suppose these fascist ideas only are implemented in the South and in other red states. How will we live as one nation when half of the United States are suppressing truth and historical fact, genetics, and heredity as in the case of gender realities, filling their children’s minds with information that they will most likely learn at some point in their lives is not accurate, and eventually learning that the suppression was purposeful. Perhaps these children will turn into clones of right-wing thinking and will be forever stuck in 2022, or 2023. But things we do to children do not always turn out in predictable ways. When children learn what has been withheld, they may rebel and turn into the most progressive generation ever. Experienced parents understand that this can happen. Some children rebel against the teachings of the parental generation. Only a strong grip of an iron fist of control could ‘cancel’ decades of enlightenment and affirmation.
At this very moment the people of Ukraine are saying “no” to exactly the fascist policies that some Americans are trying to implement. Watching a bully swallow a neighboring nation whole and knowing what their lives will be like, watching Ukrainians lose their fledgling democracy should lead Americans to reject the reactionary moves of our own right-wing.
What the Media Has to Say – For the Nerds
https://www.salon.com/2022/01/26/book-banning-heats-up-in-red-states/
“Kris Kleindienst, owner of Left Bank Books in St. Louis, told a Fox affiliate that the board's vote sweeps important discussions of race and sexual abuse under the rug.
‘Kids are growing and developing and should have access to as much material as is out there,’ Kleindienst said. ‘It shouldn't be the decision of a few parents what kids should read.’”
Mississippi
Ridgeland Mayor Gene McGee is currently engaged in a budgetary standoff with Madison County Library System. McGee is attempting to deprive the school board of $100,000 in funding because the Republican wants to see a spate of LGBTQ-themed books banned from school libraries.
Tonja Johnson, executive director for the Madison County Library System, told The Mississippi Free Press that McGee is withholding the money due to his own personal beliefs. "He explained his opposition to what he called 'homosexual materials' in the library, that it went against his Christian beliefs, and that he would not release the money as the long as the materials were there," Johnson said. "He told me that the library can serve whoever we wanted, but that he only serves the great Lord above."
Tennessee
The books were reportedly first called into question by the Williamson County chapter of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing advocacy group that advocates for "parents' rights" in education. The committee concluded that the text contained "objectionable content," which according to Moms for Liberty, included "stick figures hanging, cursing and miscarriage, hysterectomy/stillborn and screaming during labor."
Overview
The bans in Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee are part of a larger right-wing movement to crack down on books with "objectionable" works often featuring Black and LGTBQ+ themes. According to the American Library Association (ALA), between June and September of last year, the U.S. saw "155 unique censorship incidents" in cities and districts across the nation.
"We're seeing an unprecedented volume of challenges in the fall of 2021," said Deborah Caldwell-Stone, the director of the ALA's Office of Intellectual Freedom, last year. "In my twenty years with ALA, I can’t recall a time when we had multiple challenges coming in on a daily basis.
A Texas school district pre-emptively pulled more than 400 books from its libraries for review following an inquiry from a Republican state lawmaker.
North East Independent School District in San Antonio said it determined its libraries contained 414 books on a list of roughly 800 targeted by state Rep. Matt Krause. Krause, who chairs the House General Investigating Committee, has asked school officials to search their campuses for copies of the books from the list and respond with how many they have, among other questions such as how the books were paid for.
The school district said in a statement Tuesday that it was reviewing the books “out of an abundance of caution” to “ensure they did not have any obscene or vulgar material in them.”
Last month, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott told state education officials to develop a standard to ensure “pornography” and “other obscene content” was not present in schools. The governor’s letter cited parents’ concerns about “highly inappropriate books and other content in public school libraries.”
Stalin’s USSR banned the novel “Doctor Zhivago” for its unflattering portrayal of the Russian Revolution. East Germany’s communists forbade Mickey Mouse comics in East Berlin because they said the cartoon figure was an “anti-Red rebel.” As journalist Sophie Whitehead wrote in the University of Edinburgh’s Retrospect Journal in the spring, “All book banning revolves around fear of change.”
In the internet age, taking books off library shelves is unlikely to close informational channels to diverse thinking, historical fact or human sexuality. Thus, the current Republican initiatives seem mainly aimed at gaining and holding power by appealing to conservative parents and organizations like Moms for Liberty, which focused on banning school books on racial and LBGTQ subjects. This grassroots support can then be harnessed for things like Matt Krause's campaign in Texas.
Krause’s purported motivation, protecting students from racial or gender discomfort, might sound laudable. But as Yale University historian Timothy Snyder observed this summer: “Discomfort is part of growing up. ... Teachers in high schools cannot exclude the possibility that the history of slavery, lynchings and voter suppression will make some non-Black students uncomfortable.”
A month later, in November, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott targeted “overtly sexual” book content with a censorship directive that specifically called out two books on teenage gender identity. Try as he might, Abbott can’t wish the reality of LGBTQ youth away, but putting books about them in the closet can sure make their challenges harder. In early December, a San Antonio school district said it hadremoved 400 books from its library shelves. Texas censorship has now officially infected public libraries.
The aim of education is opening minds through access to ideas. The Supreme Court recognized the importance of this concept in Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico by Pico, which noted how access to diverse ideas “prepares students for active and effective participation in the pluralistic, often contentious society in which they will soon be adult members.” Fear stifles citizenship and the ability to get ahead. The road to a better future is not paved by study of the purely conventional.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/states-that-have-banned-critical-race-theory
States with Bans Against Critical Race Theory
Arkansas
Florida
Idaho
Iowa
New Hampshire
Oklahoma
Tennessee
States with Bans Moving Through State Legislatures
Georgia
Alabama
Kentucky
Louisiana
Michigan
Missouri
Montana
Ohio
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
Texas
Utah
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2021/07/02/why-are-states-banning-critical-race-theory/
Opposition to Banning Critical Race Theory
In each of these states looking to eliminate or reduce the level of Critical Race Theory-based instruction, there is a vocal opposition to the move with two states, Arizona, and Mississippi, have defeated attempted CRT bans. However, supporters of the failed legislation have vowed to reintroduce those measures in future legislative sessions.
Indeed, to date, only Delaware has passed legislation to positively affirm the goals and intentions of teaching about racism, and the deleterious effect that that has had on generations of minorities of Black Americans in the United States.
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2021/05/04/is-the-united-states-a-racist-country/
Fox News has mentioned “critical race theory” 1,300 times, says Media Matters, in less than four months. Why? Because critical race theory (CRT) has become a new bogeyman for people unwilling to acknowledge our country’s racist history and how it impacts the present.
Opponents fear that CRT admonishes all white people for being oppressors while classifying all Black people as hopelessly oppressed victims. These fears have spurred school boards and state legislatures from Tennessee to Idaho to ban teachings about racism in classrooms. However, there is a fundamental problem: these narratives about CRT are gross exaggerations of the theoretical framework. The broad brush that is being applied to CRT is puzzling to academics, including some of the scholars who coined and advanced the framework.
CRT does not attribute racism to white people as individuals or even to entire groups of people. Simply put, critical race theory states that U.S. social institutions (e.g., the criminal justice system, education system, labor market, housing market, and healthcare system) are laced with racism embedded in laws, regulations, rules, and procedures that lead to differential outcomes by race.
Scholars and activists who discuss CRT are not arguing that white people living now are to blame for what people did in the past. They are saying that white people living now have a moral responsibility to do something about how racism still impacts all our lives today. Policies attempting to suffocate this much-needed national conversation are an obstacle to the pursuit of an equitable democracy. Supporters of CRT bans often quote Martin Luther King Jr’s proclamation that individuals should be viewed by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, ignoring the context of the quote and the true meaning behind it.
Nine states (Idaho, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Arizona, and North Dakota) have passed legislation. Arizona’s legislation was overturned in November by the Arizona Supreme Court.
None of the state bills that have passed even actually mention the words “critical race theory” explicitly, with the exception of Idaho and North Dakota.
The legislations mostly ban the discussion, training, and/or orientation that the U.S. is inherently racist as well as any discussions about conscious and unconscious bias, privilege, discrimination, and oppression. These parameters also extend beyond race to include gender lectures and discussions.
State actors in Montana and South Dakota have denounced teaching concepts associated with CRT. The state school boards in Florida, Georgia, Utah, and Alabama introduced new guidelines barring CRT-related discussions. Local school boards in Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, and Virginia also criticized CRT.
Nearly 20 additional states have introduced or plan to introduce similar legislation.
The approach of some Republican-led state legislatures is a method for continuing to roll back racial progress regarding everything from voting rights to police reform. This is a horrible idea and does an injustice to our kids. Laws forbidding any teacher or lesson from mentioning race/racism, and even gender/sexism, would put a chilling effect on what educators are willing to discuss in the classroom and provide cover for those who are not comfortable hearing or telling the truth about the history and state of race relations in the United States. Ironically, “making laws outlawing critical race theory confirms the point that racism is embedded in the law,” as sociologist Victor Ray noted.
Some parents are worried about their kids learning things in school that they do not have the capacity to address. As a college professor who does teach CRT as one of the many theoretical frameworks that I bring into the classroom, students are alarmed by how little they have learned about inequality. They are upset at their schools, teachers, and even their parents. So, this is the conundrum: teachers in K-12 schools are not actually teaching CRT. But teachers are trying to respond to students asking them why people are protesting and why Black people are more likely to be killed by the police.
Ultimately, we cannot employ colorblind ideology in a society that is far from colorblind. Everyone sees it, whether they acknowledge it consciously or not. As I wrote in a previous Brookings article onwhether the U.S. is a racist country, systemic racism can explain racial disparities in police killings, COVID-19, and the devaluing of homes in Black neighborhoods. If we love America, we should want it to be the best it can be. Rather than run from the issue of racism in America, we should confront it head on. Our kids and country will be better for it.
Early subscriptions are free.
It's amazing to see how many states have been shanghaied by --one can only guess--racists and God's annointed, here to do what He is was unable to prevent.....or He took a holiday and didn't finish bleaching everybody the same white-ish color.
I can understand why they want to prevent teachers from teaching and kids from learning. All that takes too much time away from nakedness, how to have sex, exciting torture and murder, how to skip the divorce and to put a padlock on the home freezer, how-to and not-how-to and so on and so forth on the TELEVISION babysitter/entertainer/homework obstructor.
And the when the kids get out of school unprepared and find the real world operating in their lives in real ways, wow, are they gonna disown the folks who lied and cheated about the way life works, while keeping them ignorant of what could/will happen in a god-ordained hell on earth.
I'm guessing they will either find themselves raising their grandkids themselves or never seeing the kids b/c of the venom and hatred they taught their children.
And today's kid next door will turn into a prison guard for those who don't agree with the wingers' version of the good life.
That the USA allows winger-propaganda radio and tv is shameful and is destroying the country as a leader among nations--and leading USA into another civil war. Luckily, I'm old and not going to be here long enough for this to work itself out. Dems really missed the boat on keeping fairness in broadcasting. How I miss the 7 pm evening news--just the facts, no propaganda.
Yeah, right, kids. NO PROPAGANDA. That's a word your parents dont even recognize. See how easy it will be to lead a nation over the cliff?
.