I would say (and it's been mentioned elsewhere in this thread) that ideally the entire community along with educators should be involved. Since getting the entire community involved is next to impossible, educators have to take a greater role so that the school library has relevant literature for the entire community. If there is objectionable material, there is typically a mechanism for review taking into account a wide variety of factors. Are you contending that ONLY the local community should decide? What happens if a very small subset of the community with especially loud voices and only interested in one particular worldview starts raising "concerns" about certain books? Is that a healthy way of determining what books are available to read? |
"Local community"??? You make that sound like everyone in that district agrees with the decision. There are parents in that local community who WANT Maus to remain on the book list. Tell us whey their opinion doesn't count? Please. |
In any meaningful population it is basically impossible to get everyone to agree on much of anything. Maus hasn't been "banned" in the sense that it isn't available from Amazon $13.50. |
A parent in Texas demanded that a children's book about Michelle Obama be removed from the library because it promoted "reverse racism":
https://dailygazette.com/2022/02/02/parent-wanted-burnt-hills-residents-book-about-former-first-lady-banned-from-texas-schools/ |
How can you have reverse racism if you don’t even believe racism exists? |
Just a reminder that the "local community" objected to the use of the word "damn" and nudity. The nudity was an image of a dead 70+ year old in a bathtub in a book about the Holocaust. |
They want it removed from school libraries, not banned. |
Not true. It's all right there. They claim it violates state obscenity laws. That means they claim it is illegal and want it banned from the entire state. The full implication of their claim would also criminalize both authorship, publishing, distribution and ownership of the book. As they say "this book needs to be investigated as a crime". |
What do you want to bet that these same scandalized citizens are the ones who thought Donald Trump was a great guy for swearing and being indecent? |
. If they want a book banned they should have to read the entire book and do a two page report and explain the context of the offensive parts or pictures. An elderly nude Holocost body is not there to appeal to prurient desire. I bet they cannot explain it. I recently read that 54% of US adults are illiterate. Here it is: "According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old - about 130 million people - lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level." https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/09/09/low-literacy-levels-among-us-adults-could-be-costing-the-economy-22-trillion-a-year/?sh=60d6e0c04c90 That's a conservative publication. Having an illiterate population is a national security problem as well as affects business interests. End the low literacy crisis first, Republicans. |