A HS student to their TX school board, which is banning books:
“I’m not going to sit here and talk about the slippery slope that book banning leads to because I learned from a book, that I checked out from my school’s library, that I don’t need to resort to logical fallacy to make a point. I’m simply going to say that 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.”
@reardon15 @bodhipaksa I checked. The last one did unfortunately. It prohibits the use of sexually explicit material in schools except if “The exempted material possesses serious educational value for minors or possesses serious literary, artistic, political or scientific value.” And parental consent is given.
@reardon15 @strong_sue "Such materials"? It sounds like you're assuming there is some merit in these bannings.
The purposes of the current rounds of book bannings are 1) to stop kids being aware of racism. 2) To ban any mention of sexual orientations except straightness. 3) To make the claim that teachers are sexually "grooming" kids, in order to undermine faith in the public education system.
It's a dishonest attempt at authoritarian social control.
@reardon15 @strong_sue Yes, teachers and librarians are trained in what materials are suitable for children. Governments and school boards aren't, and they make political decisions based on things like, "Let's not teach much about slavery, because it might make white people look bad."
Hence the desire to ban a biography of Michelle Obama, who is descended from people who were enslaved. "You can't have white children thinking about things, because it might harm their self-esteem."
@bodhipaksa @reardon15 @strong_sue
Fortunately the law of unintended consequences makes it much more likely that the books banned in Florida schools will be read, see the Streisand effect. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
Bodhipaksa
Sue Strong
Cheryl
copsewood
Simon Brooke