I don't want to see districts banning books frivolously. But I think it's worth keeping things in perspective. Individual school districts do silly things all the time. There are more than ten thousand of them in the country. I sometimes wonder if our liberal outrage over these conservative stunts isn't just giving more fuel to the fire.
Just offer a free digital copy to any student who can supply an ID from that school district. You can get wound up about it: it is your right. But it might be good to stop to ask whether you need to.
The problem is that Texas, as a state, is the second largest consumer of school books in the nation. This gives Texas massive influence on the overall school book market and impacts other states because publishers don’t want to publish multiple versions for multiple states. This may be more a problem for textbooks than for novels, but I imagine it applies to both to some extent.
I understand but this is a single district in Texas, and it's a library book, not a textbook. If the whole state banned the book it would be a bigger deal but I still question how productive getting outraged about it is. If anything, making this a statewide or national issue would probably increase the likelihood of the book getting banned elsewhere, although I reckon it would also be good for sales.
This is but one symptom of a larger curriculum disease being inflicted on schools across the country. "Just" providing a digital alternative to the book doesn't solve the root problem.
It's multiple districts in Texas, just around the Austin area they are attempting to remove these books from both LISD and RRISD. The Williamson County commissioners recently tried to withhold CARES act funding from both these districts because of these books, however, they had no problem releasing funding for other school districts within the county even though their school libraries have the same books.
This is all political stunts pulled by various right-wing groups. They are specifically targeting LISD and RRISD because these areas have recently trended towards Democrats.
That's true on both sides of the discussions. As best I can tell, the whole "CRT!" issue has been fueled by decisions and events in a handful, if that, of specific classrooms or districts.
So we get a handful of, generally smaller and ideologically homogenous, places doing absurd things, and then suffer the backlash as those events are elevated culturally. And that elevation gives way to a movement, and then a backlash to that movement, on and on and on.
But I think it's absolutely worth getting riled up about.
I can imagine that would find mostly references to what we used to have for screens and TVs back in the old days.
Central (book) Repository of Texas, perhaps? (You know, where a guy is supposed to have been hiding with an old [Mannlicher?] carbine just over 58 years ago...)
Thank you for this. This is a really thoughtful and nuanced comment and I'm grateful for it. Sorry for the reply with no substance, but I'm so rarely impressed by comments as much as this that I wanted to let you know.
"silly thing" in my comment is a euphemism. I agree it's not good to ban books frivolously. I said it in my original comment, so I think you should understand that I agree with this view.
What I'm questioning is whether the ever ratcheting level of outraged dialogue is the optimal response. We have been trying that for the last decade or two and it doesn't seem to be moving us in the right direction. Maybe it's time to try something else.
Yes it can be, it depends of course on scale. If the Johnson family bans a book from their household, it's silly and turning a blind eye to it (i.e. just letting them run their house the way they want) is not silly.
If the US government bans a book, we should be (figuratively) marching in the street with pitch forks.
We've got conservatives pursuing and implementing rules against anything that conflicts with the myth of American creation, or pays homage to anything LGBT. So I'm not sure we can dismiss this as a conservative "stunt" and then accuse liberals of driving the issue by being concerned about books being banned.
I think the bigger issue as of right now is that this book banning and "anti-CRT" nonsense is actually becoming a major rightwing talking point driving voters and is backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line. These folks are working now to take over at the local government / local level then start working up the chain to impose whatever crazy talking points they're currently drowning in.
So the people on the right have learned from the people on the left (I guess it eventually happens) and are now doing what they did.
Progressives have forty years of work to dominate school boards, starting with University administration, on down through K-12 administration, to the point where some elementary schools are teaching "white" children they should feel guilty for being born "white." No, this isn't happening everywhere, but it is happening in some schools.
Progressives have blown past Martin Luther King's "content of their character" and haired off into Animal Farm territory. This is why MLK is now being claimed to be "problematic." His way led to reconciliation, rather than a new dominance hierarchy. Progressives in general seem to be playing to "win" not to solve, as MLK was.
When one force pushes that hard, it's likely to cause a reaction. I think we're seeing it.
> backed by coordinated dark money groups which are trying to take over school boards and harass / oust all educators who don't toe the current propaganda line
I believe this is what they call, "the iron law of woke projection".
It's well known that unfounded conspiracy theories are hallmarks of the right, not the left. An example is the irrational and dangerous suggestion that George Soros has been doing what the Koch brothers have clearly been doing for decades.
Just offer a free digital copy to any student who can supply an ID from that school district. You can get wound up about it: it is your right. But it might be good to stop to ask whether you need to.