The Orlando Sentinel published a two-page print spread Thursday listing 673 books that have been removed from classrooms in Orange County in 2023 due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning “sexual conduct” from public schools.
Teachers with any of the 673 books on their classroom shelves have been instructed by the school district to remove them, the newspaper said, also noting that the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) staff will review the list of rejected books once again, so it’s possible the books will eventually be returned to the classroom. The district began compiling the list over the summer.
The list stems from two Florida laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis ®, who is also running for president. They require media specialists to review books in libraries and classrooms, and to exclude books that include sexually lewd material or pornography. The legislation also aims to give parents greater ability to raise objections to their children’s education.
A mass reading would be a cool protest tactic. Get hundreds of kids hundreds of copies of banned books. Have them sit outside a state legislature - clogging up traffic to and from the building as they read to themselves. Have extra books on hand to give out to people trying to get through, while encouraging them to just sit and read for a bit.
They’ll just pass laws making it legal to run over kids if it’s making you late to work.
They banned Brave New World.
Wouldn’t surprise me if they also banned fahrenheit 451
they see that one as a utopian story
Take your soma. There’s obviously no fuckery going on here.
Sounds more like conservative thinking is so shitty they have to ignore the thinking part entirely for people to follow it
When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn’t anger me.
-Mark Twain
If I was a kid right now, the absolute first thing I’d wanna do is read all of these books. These dipshits made sex even more alluring by trying to hide it entirely from kids.
My 16 year old has done that. He finds a book that’s banned, takes it out of the library (either physical copy, eBook, or audiobook) and then reads it. While doing so, he keeps an eye out for why it was banned.
He noted that one book was banned because one page describes a sexual encounter. It was about 3 lines and wasn’t extremely graphic. It just got the point to the reader that an event happened and then the book moved on. But apparently any mention of sex even existing is enough for a book to get banned.
Unless, it’s the Bible, of course. Then you can have daughters sleeping with their fathers and it’s all good for kids to read!
You have a cool kid. All these things Republicans act like they’re going to stop will just become bigger “issues” because of their actions. History is full of lessons about this type of thing but honestly your 16 year old probably absorbed much more of those lessons than every Republican alive
Florida, home of the dumbass
I bet many of these removed books won’t be noticed if they were let alone. People overestimate the knowledge of other people.
Gee it’s almost like we need some goddamn freeze peach in the place.
It’s shit that shitty people say shitty things, and the urge to stop them from doing so is understandable.
But freedom of speech - as a general principle, not just the legal interpretation of the US constitutional amendment - saves us from a lot worse.
Once you start poking holes in it, you start getting this kind of bullshit: being prevented from saying good things, or from calling out shitty things.
What was absolute has become negotiable, and shitty people don’t negotiate in bad faith; almost by definition, they have fewer scruples than you., and will ruthlessly and cynically exploit any edge they can lever up.
They will abuse their power against you, while giving themselves a free ride. That’s why it always had to be a seamless, all-encompassing ‘no, fuck off’, no matter what the provocation.
But now -
Fools. God damn fools.
Are you chat gpt?
If only. I’d be rich.
Free Speech!
