“Roots was recently elevated to the district’s review committee for consideration of a passage in chapter 84 for alignment to the state statute. Upon review, the committee determined that the identified passage met the legal threshold for “sadomasochistic abuse” as defined by the law.”
They’re removing the Bible too then, right?
Don’t be ridiculous, they don’t have any consistency in their beliefs.
I’ve never read the book but when I was young the miniseries came out and I watched it. From that point forward I always doubted what my family said about black folk. Somehow they watched it and came out as racist and bigoted as ever. I rewatched it and caught shit for doing so. To ban it is to know it really happened and to want to hide the truth.
I remember watching “Roots” in school, in 8th grade as part of our teacher’s material for the year. We did reports about it. Levar Burton acted his ass off for that film. Same teacher had us watch “Beloved” too. I grew up in a very rural area too.
White people: Why do blacks hate and distrust us?
Answer: Shit like this is why.
Are they finally going to add the books of Clayton Bixby?
/s
Gonna be replaced by “All I ever needed to know, I learnt up in that thar holler”.
lol, i blocked that one jackass and now there’s only 2 comments in this thread. folks, it’s okay to block people for literally any reason at all. it can make the places you’re in feel normal again. i entertained the thought process, but being compared to a pedophile for being more flexible with the literature with content appropriate for a high schooler is a pretty reasonable place to draw the block line, imo.
fuckin hell, so much “great american literature” that is considered a staple in the public school system has objectionable content at some level. many high schoolers have sex. being educated on it, and understanding what is fiction and what is academic is fully within their abilities and shouldn’t be considered crazy. I don’t know what’s in roots, but this dude was spouting off about other banned books anyway.
i’m meandering a bit, but anyway i just want to reinforce that it’s okay to just mute the noise.
Wish we had a nuclear block here like BlueSky. Would make it a lot better
Removing “Roots” is deplorable, it’s an important time piece that captures the narrative and conditions of slavery in the United States…
but… removing “A Court of Thorns and Roses” from children’s school libraries seems appropriate. It’s an introductory book to a series of adult fantasy novels (yes, that kind of adult fantasy) that get progressively more “spicy” (see: pornographic) as the series continues. And it being the first book doesn’t mean it’s tame and gets worse in later books. It’s a bit more explicit than “and then they held hand and fade to black”. It’s more like “and then the main character stradles a hairy man in an animal mask to climax”… yea, that book doesn’t need to be in a school library.
EDIT: ohshi, actually it’s not just that they had to remove the first book, they had all of them removed.
Which implies there was possibly a time when those books were in school libraries. Which is basically just smut at that point. We don’t stock Playboys in the school library either.
It boils down to this. You want to ban something you don’t like. There is clearly disagreement in this thread about whether the content you want to ban is inappropriate, and you dont seem to be anywhere near in the majority on that.
So if we went and banned everything in school libraries, public libraries, or whatever other space we are calling under the control of the public (loosely paraphrasing you) on the basis of extremely vocal minorities, then we will have very little left on those shelves. The least common denominator of things so inoffensive no one thought to ask for them to be removed.
If you think there should be a conversation about whether a particular book or book series is appropriate, and you want to submit your thoughts in the correct forum to help decide that one or another book shouldn’t be there, great. Participate in the process.
Here, though, you seem to have tried hijacking a post about a book on a very different topic and turning it into your own soapbox for railing against a book you declared to be smut.
You’re not changing minds in this Lemmy thread. You’re not making friends. What you are doing is making a lot or noise a out a topic you seem to be widely disagreed with on, and you seem to be badly reacting to it. Among other things, you repeatedly declare everyone who disagrees with some of the specific things youre declaring isn’t a parent. That’s rank horseshit. It makes me wonder how well you understand parenting yourself, if your solution to being disagreed with is to yell, flail, call people names, question their morality, and so on.
Take a breath, re-examine your reasons for thinking what you do, and remember to occasionally check reasonable scholarly authorities on what has been found to be harmful to children. Something may seem perfectly obviously harmful that actually isn’t harmful, its just distasteful to you and some others. That isn’t the same thing.
How about you let publicly funded libraries be libraries and you worry about your own kids?
What a completely devoid of thought thing to say. You’re either a child or have the mind of one.
The SCHOOL library is not the same place and context as a traditional public library. Regular public library you (presumably) go with your family who can supervise and make decisions on what material is appropriate for you, because they know you. As opposed to the SCHOOL library, which is largely unsupervised and would be impossible for educators to make individual decisions for each child, nor should they. I don’t think teachers should be specifically limiting what kids can/can’t learn. But as the school library IS a PUBLIC library, then the PUBLIC should have a say in what goes there for kids. And I think, generally, drawing the line at smut romance books is a pretty reasonable line to draw. There’s no educational value in smut books, so they don’t need to be in the educational library…
Lemme guess, your argument boils down to some kind “just let kids learn”, boiling down all children into some kind of monolith of behavior. Forgetting that kids brains are not fully developed, that they lack impulse control, they don’t have the experience or context to understand the consequences of their actions, and range wildly on levels a maturity even amongst those in the same grade level. What one kid can handle and respond to is going to be a trigger or elicit dangerous thoughts in another.
So maybe, instead of just letting kids go willnilly at the school library unsupervised; consuming a bunch of adult material without understanding how they may react to that, we just don’t stock obviously adult materials for them to grab. If it’s really important that the child read the fantasy smut, then they can head on down the regular public library and get their parents (who presumably have a better understandig of what their child is capable of) to get it for them. And if your issue is about parents parenting… then you really are a child.
Which implies there was possibly a time when those books were in school libraries
It implies no such thing. Before that, it would have simply been the school administrators decision as to whether or not to have those in the school library. There’s no evidence that any school actually did.
The school board bans come from a blanket list they get from probably some far-right evangelical consulting firm somewhere. It’s pre-emptive. And it never used to be needed because we trusted our teachers and long-suffering librarians to do their job. THEY made sure that what was in THEIR library was appropriate.
The school board is just making smoke in order to pretend that there’s a fire.
I never read them but looks like those are bestsellers with good reviews. By calling them “smut” and calling for bans you’re not different than christian fundamentalists trying to ban Harry Potter and LOTR.
whatever man, whatfucking ever. You think that adult fantasy with explicit sex scenes written for adults is good for kids. Whatfuckingever man. Holy fuck, you lost the plot if you’re arguing for that. It’s not even on the same level as HarryPotter/LOTR.
Ey, why stop at erotic books. Just put porn on school computers. Do away with any internet controls. Put a shortcut on the school computer that goes to Pornhub, for education… don’t wanna censor anything. Afterall, Pornhub and Wikipedia are basically just places to learn things. Same sames.
The thing is, it’s just your opinion. You think those books are not for fit for high schoolers are say they should be banned for everyone. You’re forcing your morality and opinions on everyone else.
ohmyfuckinggod. REVERSE that line of thought. It’s YOUR opinion. YOU think it’s fit for kids. So YOU can give them to YOUR kids.
In a PUBLIC library, the PUBLIC (that’s the average person) decides on the morality and topics that are approrpiate for children. It’s the general average consensus. If you want to show them more YOU CAN, with YOUR KIDS. I’m not forcing you not to. The PUBLIC is saying “I dont’ think kids should read erotic fantasy” and I, LIKE MOST PARENTS, agree with that sentiment… I think the line should be drawn somewhere, and erotic explicit sex fantasy books is over that line, for me, and most people.
I get it, you had a traumatic controlling childhood and now you wanna rebel against the system with “I would never tell my kids no, I’ll let them do anything they want”. But not everyone wants to raise their kids in the same fuckedup way as you.
I’m saying each parent and kid above certain age should be free to decide. You want to decide for them. Even if it’s majorities consensus it’s still one group of people limiting the rights of other group.
The point of public library is to offer access to books for free. By banning those books from library and saying “parents can show them to their kids if they want to” you’re basically saying that parent can show kids those books if they can afford and find them. Next you will decide that if majority decides those books should not be sold in local bookstores and if parents want to they can look for them elsewhere.
The books were already there. It’s not people democratically deciding how to spend public money. It’s zealots policing what other people should and should not like.
kid above certain age
the age is 18.
That’s the certain age we, as a public society, have decided that they are free to decide for themselves about what’s appropriate for them. Because they are adults. Fullstop.
You want to argue lowering the age where a child is considered an adult?.. is that where you want to go? I mean, you have been arguing in favor of showing porn to kids… so, maybe it is. Maybe it’s in your interest that kids are considered “mature” at a younger age.
It’s all just your opinions. It’s your opinion it’s porn, it’s your opinions 16yo should have have access to it. You’re calling something porn and then attacking people for showing it to kids. You’re exactly like christian zealots. I’m done talking to you.
i think you were being a little bit crazy, but mostly reasonable until i read this. the age is most definitely not 18.
So you’re ok with books that describe killing and gore but sex is off the table?
no, where did I ever say that? You’re just making up some le reddit level gotcha.
No you said you’re ok with LOTR, which describes killing and gore, but you’re not ok with sex. So yes you did say that.
are you trying to imply that because LOTR has violence, that it is a book primarily about killing and gore? What in the false equivalency bs is this?
LOTR also Hobbits smoking pipeweed. Is it also a book primarily about drug use and addiction? Is Harry Potter a sports series because quidditch?
How you fail to see that the line of thinking you have below doesn’t also extend to the books youre trying to censor (while only relying on things youve read instead of actual interactions) is insane to me.
I’m torn on this one because these books are smut, and not particularly good smut. but Porn is different, it’s visual. The distinction between school libraries and public libraries is important, and school libraries cannot be infinite, so choosing to remove books like the ACOTAR series in favor of other, more relevant books for kids is fine. but in High School I had access to some gruelingly violent books in our school library, I struggle to see how violence should be considered acceptable but sex shouldn’t be.
In HS, as part of the official curriculum decided on by the lit teachers in my school, I read “Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes” which contains discussions of many controversial topics, landing most of its focus on abortion. The teachers correctly understood that we were old enough to take in and have out own thoughts on the topics discussed in the book. It seems insane to try to gate keep topics that teens are definitely aware of and discussing and seeking out on their own. I’d rather my kids read stuff in text and ask questions about it and make decisions about it on their own than fully block it out so they just seek out actual porn. I think ACOTAR, which I’ve read the first 4 in the series, is fine for a teenager to read, and shouldn’t be banned. And I think if a 5th grader tried to read it, they’d probably reject it for being a bit tough to read anyway.
I struggle to see how violence should be considered acceptable but sex shouldn’t be.
I think that’s a fair distinction to take issue with.
I don’t think that any one person should dictate what schools can or cannot have. It’s a collaborative decision. And I think that maybe if society puts more emphasis on limiting children’s exposure to violence like they do sexual content, that’s how a cultural change happens. And that’s all well and good. People having different views are fine, encouraged even. But getting mad that their fringe views aren’t immediately adopted by the majority… feels a lot like one person trying to dictate for the majority based on their personal views…
I am surprised at the onslaught of downvotes about not wanting ACOTAR in a school library, seems pretty sane to me.
Are school libraries also public libraries in some places? Where I am at, they are not. They are only accessible to the children attending the school and maybe the staff working there.
I wonder if there is some confusion about the difference between school libraries and public libraries.
Obviously school libraries - especially at the K-6 level - should have different guidelines than public libraries.
Obviously school libraries - especially at the K-6 level - should have different guidelines than public libraries.
I mean, that’s literally what I’ve been arguing the whole time… but nope… people are like “you have to let kids read erotica!!! Stopping schools from giving smut to kids is wrong!!! parents who set boundaries are bad parents!!!”
Seems pretty sane to me too, man. I don’t know. A lot of people seem to really want kids to read porn without any restrictions… at a school library.
Right, that’s what the public library is for! Do kids no longer have access to both?
I think a lot of the commenters here didn’t have access to adult materials as kids and they’re real salty about it.
Lol our school librarian would recommend them to us if we brought it up and tell us what librarian at the public library has the best smut recommendations.
Wtf are you talking about, I have clear memories of my elementary school classmates pointing out things in anatomy books and talking about sex, are you really such a prude that you don’t think or even remember that you were interested in such things as a child?
you’re kidding right?..
an anatomy book is a educational guide and reference for understanding human biology. It’s a textbook, explicitly and primarily written for learning… that’s quite a large step away from a fantasy erotica novel… just because they’re both books with dicks in them does not mean they’re both appropriate for kids.
Intention matters. Unless you’re an idiot, I guess?
You cannot stop children from looking at the things/ finding the things that they want to, and trying to block access to those things is just censorship for the sake of making yourself feel better.
It’s not sane at all.
The biggest struggle is getting kids actually reading. You don’t do that by forcing them to only read books that don’t interest them at all.
If the entire purpose is to encourage kids to read (it’s not…not in 'murica, anyway), but you take away anything they want to read, you’re defeating the purpose.
I can’t believe this is actually something people want to debate! It’s ludicrous. Reading improves a kids cognition and ability to process complex thoughts. That’s the entire purpose of a school library.
How in the fuck did we go from a world where your teacher would tell you to go pick three books from the library to take home and read, to a world where your teacher tells you to not read books you like for some obscure reason?
Getting kids reading IS the entire point. It’s the foudational skill to everything else that comes along with it.
Kid starts reading “Mein Kampf”, hey at least they’re reading!
Oh, they picked up “The Turner Diaries”, cool, that’s educational! Don’t wanna restrict or redirect at all… that would be bad parenting.
Stopping a child from reading inappropriate content for their age and without context? Practically ruins a child, right?
A child who has the presence of mind to make it 10 pages into either of those books is ready to have the important conversations that come with the territory.
That goes for books in general.
Stop catastrophizing. You know as well as I do that isn’t what I’m referring to. I’m talking about putting fantasy books and other “non-educational” books in school libraries.
No one is saying that libraries should have porn and mein kampf. What you’re doing is the classic slippery slope fallacy and no one is dumb enough to fall for it, so shut it.
lol, you can’t get any more le reddit, than misusing a logical fallacy in attempt to look smart.
That isn’t a slippery slope… slippery slope is, “if kids read spicy books, they’ll have unrealistic ideas about sex, and if htey have unrealistic ideas about sex then they’ll all become furries, and if they’re all furries then everyone will be gay and no one will have kids ever again…”
Taking your point and giving an example where it doesn’t hold isn’t a fallacy on my part. It’s a logical inconsistency that you’re demonstrating. That you’re too dumb to understand that isn’t my fault. If I were you, I would just shut it, quit while you’re behind and whatnot.
Slippery slope is “If we let libraries carry un-educational books like fantasy novels, we’ll end up having to let libraries carry porn and mein kampf.”
And that’s the last I’m going to bother responding to idiot trolls.
Never read that book but if you consider Playboy and it’s tasteful vanilla nudity section to be pornography then I feel justified in dismissing your judgement on this subject.
Softcore porn is still porn.
You’re just desensitized due to the modern internet and years of hard-core video pornography. What used to be hard-core porn 20 years ago is the standard average faire on every site today. And what used to be considered porn is “tasteful vanilla” now.
Playboy has always been a porn magazine. You just dont get off to it because you watch too much hard-core porn on the hub.
So, anyways, I dont feel bad being dismissed by a massive gooner.
:popcorn:
I think the kids call this a crashout. But I’m getting old.
I didn’t realize how many Lemmings are really passionate about letting kids read erotica. It’s kinda creepy.
Getting downvoted to hell for saying “hey, maybe a school library for kids is not the place for sexually explicit material. Maybe parents should make that decision”.
You’re currently 13/16 on that top post, so some people are presumably siding with you.
I’m just somewhat amused at how crazy the subsequent thread got.
I felt my original post was reasonable. Topics of educational importance should not be restricted. But books that are primarily adult in nature and serve no educational purpose should be restricted.
To better illustrate the difference, a book about gender and queer studies should NOT be restricted, because it’s education, even if the topic is frequently sexual in nature… however a pornographic yaoi manga isn’t exactly high lit and probably doesn’t serve some educational purpose… so probably shouldn’t be accessible to kids without explicit parental consent and knowledge.
People: We think that if parents decide those books are appropriate for their kids they should be able to access them for free
You: EVERYONE WANTS TO SHOW PORN TO KIDS. YOU PEOPLE SHOULD NOT BE PARENTS!!!
People: disagree
You: my original post was reasonable. why are people downvoting?
You keep intentionally conflating library with school library interchangably as though they are the same thing. It’s so slimy and you do it everytime.
me: “I don’t think kids should be able to buy wine, but if their parents let them drink at home, that’s their decision”
you: “OMG you think kids shouldn’t be allowed to be allowed to drink!!! you want them to die of dehydration1!111”
me: drinking and drinking alcohol are not the same, and they can drink alcohol, but only if their parents allow it…
you: RAAAAAA kids should be able to drink whatever they want!!! you want to kill kids!!!
I don’t actually. I realize those are school libraries. I just don’t care. Those are not private schools, parents can still have oversight of what their kids are reading. The fact that this is in school doesn’t change anything.
You’re the one swearing and screaming. Everyone else is very calm.
Wonder if the Xanth series is going to get caught up in this. Fun, punny adventures in a fairly unique fantasy land, lots of coming of age stories. But also varying degrees of pedo shit, never ending mysogyny, and of course the questionable bestiality (the animals are sentient so they can give consent but uh, yeah, it’s questionable). My school had tons of them lol
Thought that was an http header.
I really don’t give a shit let kids read fucking porn if they want at this point as long as its queer or femme do it just yo piss off the fascists I don’t buy that its bad for kidseven if it was I say keep it just to piss off fasch and push window
You’re not a parent, obviously.
Maybe some kids can read it. Or maybe, brainrot world of free information shows that, actually, kids aren’t good at consuming adult material because they lack the context and understanding of consequences. Kids don’t think long term, they don’t comprehend abuse and trauma right. Letting kids read smut and bascially normalizing its content is going to leave them with a severely fucked up sense of sex and relationships because they have nothing else to base it on.
Is sex in real life like it is in porn? No. And if you watched a lot of fucked up porn and then just tried to do that shit like you thought “thats how sex is, right?” you’re going to have a bad time. And that’s neverminding that A LOT of adult fantasy is “Consensual Non-Consent” (or adjacent, stalkery stuff). So that’s going to be kids baseline for how to behave in a relationship. What else would they have to compare it to? Is that a good idea? Do you think that it’s smart to normalize to a bunch of teen boys that it’s normal to just force yourself on women, because actually, just like in the books, that’s what they really want and like…
That’s why kids don’t need to be reading adult smut, they don’t have the understanding to know that it’s FANTASY.
I cannot adequately express my disdain for your response
“Youre not a parent, obviously”
Gooooo fuck yourself, buddy.
I want you to hear this loud and clear. Every decent parent read you write that and thought: “Holy shit, this person’s poor children have this twat as a role model…”
I don’t give a fuck what you think. Gooooo fuck yourself right back.
Your child (that you don’t have) is not my child. And my child’s problems are not the same as every other childs. That’s how things work.
That you think, somehow, your parenting approach should be universal, or widely adopted, without considering that, i dunno, every child’s needs are different… shows you don’t know shit about parenting or kids. You seem to think that children are a monolith, that they all behave and respond the same way to things, and can all be trusted to do the same thing with the same materials.
That’s not how kids are. Some kids have diagnosed, alarming and problematic issues with mental health and violence. And maybe, letting them just consume material unsupervised and without and controls is not in their best interest, or the interests and safety of other around them. But you dont seem to get that. You want to live in this world where every kid is perfect, and totally reasonable, mature, healthy and understanding of morality. If you’re one of the lucky ones to have a kid like this, maybe you’d have a different view on just letting them consume whatever material they want.
Kids go on a shooting spree and everyone goes “why didn’t the parents do anything???”… “how did this kid get access to all this violent material???” And here I am, advocating that maybe parents should parent, and not let their kids just do whatever they want, get invovled with whatever they want… Maybe parents, who know their kids, should have some say in exactly what kinds of materials their kid has access too.
and ya’lll are like “UMMMM actually, trying to restrict any kid is evil and bad, and you should let them do whatever they want”. Jesusfuck.
I am not reading that much drivel from a bad parent.
the fuck off? You’ve already proven you don’t give a fuck about kids anyways.
“then fuck off” he said, continuing the exchange.
Stop pretending you’re a good parent, your emotional immaturity is apparent in this thread.
Your poor fucking kids.
Imagine being the child of a parent who desperately needs the last word. Misery.
Man, I love that Lemmy has a “label” function
I feel so fucking sorry for your kids if you actually have any. Hopefully they have a decent amount of friends with parents who aren’t pearl-clutching lunatics so they can get some exposure to functional adult behavior, holy shit
okay.
glad you, who doesn’t know anything about my kid, has such strong opinions on what they’re capable of handling. You, who has no idea what they’ve been through or experienced, yet you seem to think YOU know what’s best for them.
Yea… cool.
Your kid is your kid. Every library in the fucking world doesn’t need to cater to your kid’s needs. “Parent” is a verb, but you only get to do it to your own children.
Parent here, you sound completely unhinged. I would rather my school’s library have an entire section of pokemon bdsm slashporn than the level of censorship that’s currently happening.
Go read some Phyllis Schafly op eds and leave the rest of us alone
you want to have a school library stocked full of furry porn… but you think I’m unhinged…
If they can tell that wizards and elves are fantasy, they could see how porn is a fantasy, too. Try talking to your kids about it instead of letting their imagination run wild.
Actually I need to circle back around to how fucking dumb this comment is.
If they can tell that wizards and elves are fantasy, they could see how porn is a fantasy, too
Except kids aren’t going to someday encounter wizards and elves and magic shit in real life. That won’t happen to them, ever, it’s actual fantasy, not real.
They will (probably) someday get involved sexually with someone.
And if their formative experience and education on the matter heavily revolves around “fantasy” scenarios (ala porn/smut), and not, “the real world” then they’re going to have a very fucked idea what that means. Because kids will have no other context or experience by which to judge and examine the material. From their perspective, that’s just how sexual relations work, or could work or should. So you’re setting up kids with these massively unrealistic and sometimes violent and dangerous expectations of sex.
They won’t encounter a hobbit ever, not matter how many times they read LOTR. But they will encounter a woman, who will say “no” and it won’t mean “secretly she wants it”
Do you have kids?
I’m a step-father.
Cool, then you get to fuck up your kids however you want.
What is so hard to understand about this concept?
You want to just hand your kids porn, do that, that’s your right. I don’t give a fuck. But saying schools should give kids porn, objective pornographic material, is NOT your right. You’re insane if you that’s your view. Detached from the real world where you think that every kid can handle any content of material without issue.
That seems like an argument for only letting them see good porn and good stories about violence and trauma and stuff not none owning the fasch worth it anyway and I don’t think the exclusion mechanism is worth sorry I don’t really care about your middle ground bullshit owning the fasch never surrender an inch even if it isn’t one you want let them fight it exhaust themselves on it
No, the argument is, YOU can show YOUR CHILD this socalled “good porn”, that’s your kid, you’re free to fuck them up however you want. But maybe, we don’t all want to have fucked up kids just because you don’t want to teach yours. Mabye, different people have different views. I know, crazy, it’s like we’re not all like you.
No you say the argument is that they’ll be shown unrealistic shit and not know its unrealistic and hurt themselves ir others and that’s a very real concern why do you think it only applies to porn why is media depicting sexuality dangerous but media depicting violence and politics and life ways not what the hell is wrong with you also it owns the fasch to include it and I think upsetting them and making them whine about that means they won’t be doing guaranteed harm to kids so its at worst literary chemotherapy and literary chemotherapy is the coolest thing I’ve said in like a year so I’m down for it besides your children are people they don’t fucking belong to you they aren’t property they’re people
don’t have kids.
Its that lat part that made you so sure isn’t it
