Two 'conversations' talking over each other in two different instanstances. So, four conversations total?
First, in Tennessee. Where they 'banned' Maus. But I heard reports it wasn't a ban. It was "maybe this is more appropriate for a later grade?" I have no problem with a school system deciding that, say, 5th grade was too young to introduce such a complicated subject in graphic novel form. Maybe wait til 8th to bring it into the classroom. I can see that. Maus is good, but if it was my first graphic novel at at 11, I'd have sworn off the platform forever after.
Then in Pennsylvania. Closer to a 'real' ban. Where Asimov would kick in. Gonna need a list of all the excised whypipo authors? But the organizers are going, "Oh, but that was all satire! Can't you take a joke. Sheesh." Mmmm. Or did you get caught? Or it could have been a great way to score surplus uncontroversial titles! Something I'd have been thrilled to be in on.
I am more worried about the progressive woke latter, and less the reactionary holocaust-denying former, assuming the worst from both sets. Why? They are both awful, but there's a lot more of the woke types about, in sheer numbers. I see them every day. I never run into a troglodyte that goes Marge Schott on the 1940s.
But that may be a factor of where I live. I live is deep blue DC suburbs. Maybe Texas is like that. Full of holocaust deniers, while here I can't swing a dead cat and not hear "real communism has never been tried".
Every teacher and librarian makes decisions on what to stock and what to require students to read - that isn't banning books.
ReplyDeleteBanning books is preventing local stores from selling them, or punishing people who bought them.
Also, did you ever notice how the only "banned" books that get showcased by people complaining about the subject are very liberal? The most banned book in the world is the Bible, which is illegal to posses in a bunch of countries - but it is never in a display of "banned" books. Neither is Mein Kampf, which was blocked from publication in English for many years by Bavaria, who owns the copyright.