Ellen Ochoa Elementary School, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was among the dozens of schools that received bomb threats last year after being targeted by the far-right Libs of TikTok account. The account, run by Chaya Raichik, trafficks in anti-LGBTQ bigotry and has previously been suspended by social media platforms for “hateful conduct.” Raichik's posts have also inspired
Thanks for staying on this censorship story, Judd. It is more important than most people realize. Our country already suffers from a major case of ahistoricity and cultural astigmatism. More culture wars and more attempts at suppression—from all sides—will only worsen our difficulty in conducting civil discourse.
From my POV, you've got true believers and grifters. I think there are more grifters using maga as an excuse to do what they've always dreamed of, but how can one qualify or verify such a nebulous thing?.
I think the true believers' heads would explode if the curtain parted and they saw the undeniable facts. Grifters would just move on to the next grift.
Our country suffers from having a policy of finding being stupid acceptable, and seeing schools as commodities, not places to educate children. The fact that most book censorship is coming from around 11 people, who are not brilliant to say the least, is a crime. Stupid, hysterical-nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time people like this Ms. Chaya Raichik is one of the bigger pains for books, and readers and the future of our nation. I am hoping that within the next 5 years, none of this stuff will be in Vogue, and Ms. Raichik would just forget about her vigilance and wonder why anyone would be such a thing.
Of course, eliminate “radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind” and promote the absurd claim that teacher unions are “terrorist organizations” because they favor the education of the diversity in our melting pot culture. Oklahoma's Ryan Walters has made it up to the position of Oklahoma State Department of Education promoter of the de-certification of teachers who show concern about banning books. Walters takes pride in appointing Chaya Raichik famous for her position of "hateful conduct" that has resulted in numerous bomb threats. Thank you for exposing the fanatical underbelly of how fear is promoting violence in Oklahoma.
Not just there. I can see a bunch of grifters all the hell over being inspired by this hateful woman. How much has she received directly or indirectly?
As I recall SCOTUS said that the native american tribes driven into reservations covering most of Oklahoma could assert jurisdiction over those lands. Perhaps it's time for them to do so, and expel these white devils.
One might also wonder why OK citizens are content with an education system that will soon supplant MS as the worst in the country. Do they really want the next generation to be unable to compete in the 21st century?
Don't forget Florida's race down the rabbit hole of 3rd rate education at the hands of DeFraud. Manny Rodríguez, Chris Rofu (think Stephen Miller). Rofu also doesn't live in Florida yet their take over of The New College (in the likeness of Hillsdale Hitler Camp) is going to be the Far Right Indoctrination camp of Florida. A small Liberal Arts school (under 800 students) has just awarded the President (a former Defraud cheerleader) $1.5 million to run a small college, with less students than a Middle School! The cronyism is alive and well in this Republican state. I thought Republicans were fiscally conservative?
This will not stop until colleges and universities in blue states (heck, even in some red states that have not gone crazy) need to tell Florida, OK and others that their HS diplomas are not valid for admission to their universities. Maybe, just maybe, the message will get thru that it is not alright to dumb down the curriculum so that white racist christian adults don't get asked questions over dinner that they don't want to answer.
The state had let the school buildings, including resident halls fall into disrepair. When Mr. Politician was appointed he began a new approach - attracting athletes to athletic programs that didn’t exist &/or were not qualified to compete. He gave them perks, laptops, scholarships & the housing. Others were shoved into arrangements off campus. Then of course transportation was an issue.
With New College, they attracted athlete's to a program that wasn't great to begin with. They watered down academic requirements for those same athletes. They kicked some students to off campus housing to make way for the "athletes". This college also got rid of the DEI office. Now my guess is that Florida just wants White , male students that are fairly wealthy and everyone else will be excluded. The plan, I'm guessing is to eliminate minorities as much as they can. You got college bound kids, keep them far away from Florida! They will be better off outside the state as the education received will be diverse. Add to this nonsense the collaboration with Joe Ricketts (Chicago Cubs owner) who founded Ricketts Great World Books and New College. This didn't come about haphazardly either. Joe is a big GOP donor and founder of TD Ameritrade. Shucks, he even gave Meatball Ron $1 million, you can see why he went to the front of the line with this New Fake Degree offer. Apparently these people come long with massive egos' that need massaging. Cue the fake college in Sarasota and now they will offer an "on-line" degree using this crack-pots "Great World Books" as a basis for a liberal arts degree. Fish wrap is more valuable than a degree from New College.
I’m wondering about whether keeping students in FL with a more narrow curriculum is behind expanding the FL college entrance exam that only FL accepts. Or how it will play out given a couple of the HS curriculum fiascos.
Yes that’s the deal. Of course, New College never focused on sports. (And the new bozo added sports without having programs or enough athletes to support them. Seems fraudulent.)
It is, as we say, hard to suss out. I didn’t keep looking. Don’t know the state that well so I wouldn’t know the schools at all. The state dept of ed should have it. I saw article that OK had hired coaches for teachers to improve. Then headlines that despite spending more $$$ scores were sinking. Explained it this way:
“OSDE officials said the enormous growth in at-risk students is due primarily to two main factors. First, the lack of in-person instruction in many Oklahoma schools over the past two years has had a significant negative impact on reading instruction. Second, many schools effectively gamed the system in past years by using improper assessments that did not show the true reading level of at-risk students. State officials had to implement regulations that subsequently forced districts to be honest.”
Then (desperation?) a real the solution. The one most states have turned to like MS. Not coaches (usually contractors using a failed method).
This is an expanded more science based system with phonics than when I went to school. My first job at 16 was in the summer reading program as a teaching assistant. A lot of times I ran the class on my own.
It is my maybe not so humble opinion that if students had learned this method & their parents had the info, the school closures would not have been nearly as damaging. The majority of students in the failed method struggle and hate reading. If they are behind leaving 3rd grade the odds are against them. If they don’t catch up by middle school they are killing time in HS until they can leave.
I know we are off topic. I’m a true believer that literacy is the key. When reading is not a battle, everything opens up & you have better educated, better employed, more engaged & thinking adults. Billion$ annually are lost from the economy because of low literacy.
Louisiana banned this method which is probably the WORST of them, 3 Cues. At the end is a general comparison between science of reading & 3 Cueing. It relies heavily on images. We all know, there are no images explaining the questions on job apps & college entrance exams.
(If it interests you, google science of reading brain images. You should find more info on the science.)
Amen on literacy! And, when children begin to feel proficient in reading, they feel heroic. I am reminded of Fanni Willis's RICO case against the Georgia teachers who gamed their system by false grading and corrupting their testing. They lost even though they were TEACHERS and many of them, black. Fanni didn't care! I wish the other states could find someone like Fanni Willis to tackle any dishonest gaming their systems--which ends up doing greater harm to their students.
They sure do. I tutored a student who was brilliant; enjoyed math. Low literacy level & avoided reading like the plague. He needed 2 semesters of social studies. Failed 1 and was failing the 2nd. We had 6 wks to fix it. His dream was basketball stardom. I devised lessons relying on math, dates & numbers. He gained 1+ year in reading (I suspect part of that was being more engaged when he tested) & passed content tests for both semesters of Soc. Studies; graduated on time. He was over the moon happy & gifted me his autograph in light of his future fame. 😂
Other places just fire the teachers. Standards can be set so that they are not attainable, material$ are withheld. Standards like in OK, often vague & not evenly applied. Some districts or states use ‘pay for performance.’ Then there are personally motivated maneuvers. Wish a teacher or staff would go away? Load their class with struggling students. Administrators facilitate cheating in an attempt to keep scores up, avoid the school being punished, losing $$ and students.
On a day I was working with 5th graders regular classes were halted for a couple hours. Students got a crash course re: light shadows, solar system. Then the “special team” moved on to the next school. The topic was in “the test” but 5th graders didn’t have much instruction in science or the textbooks. The books were in the 6th grade classrooms due to test questions for them. Our state refuses to fund all day kindergarten & textbooks.
Lots of ways to game the system, pretend to address ed & do nothing.
As you probably know, literacy affects all areas of learning. On average about 40% will learn despite the literacy teaching method. That’s comparable to the rate of US adults who read above a 6th grade level.
I feel compelled (as an advocate for greater literacy) to point out MS ed has numerous flaws BUT has greatly improved its methods of teaching literacy. It is working. When literacy improves learning in all areas improves; students engage & communities do better as do reasoning skills.
I have read that MS is making great strides in literacy and you are right, that's a good thing. But at the same time radicals like @LibsofTikTok, Moms For Liberty, their governor and fascists like the OK School Superintendent are doing everything in their power to make sure that they have nothing to read that matters or helps them compete in the 21st century.
Absolutely. However, MS 4th graders have already surpassed OK 4th graders in literacy. This is a key age/grade level for future success. This tells me 2 things - These moves in states may be to leverage fear as a distraction from their failures as much as it is politics. - In the future increased literacy means opening eyes, widening lives and derailing the political agenda.
In Ky this woke blather was making headway in the legislature. Pleas & outrage had been ignored. Then moms from one of the whitest, wealthiest counties dragged their middle school children before the ed committee. The moms cried, vented & presented data showing the middle schools had a 3rd grade reading level. Their kids were smart but couldn’t read. Teachers trained by the state funded “literacy” center thought it was normal. The dem gov’s dept of ed got permission to defund the center. Moms [against] Liberty have lost momentum. The legislature is flummoxed about how to attack public ed without attacking their own voters. Their last resort: to put it on the ballot. We’ll see how it goes. The new buzz is anti-DEI.
I sincerely hope this is picked up by national news. Tax payer dollars being used in a dramatically irresponsible manner. Those tax dollars are invested in education to represent all students and ensure they receive a good education. Apparently the definition of good has taken a major hit.
Basically, Oklahoma--one of the poorest and least-educated states in the union--is openly declaring to teachers that they are not welcome there. Winning strategy there. <eye roll>
"Former President Donald Trump hosted the conservative influencers behind Libs of TikTok and The Babylon Bee at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of a new charm offensive as he runs again for president, according to a source with knowledge of the strategy.
In addition to the creator of the controversial Twitter account Libs of TikTok, Trump also hosted Seth Dillon, who owns The Babylon Bee, a conservative political satire website, the source said. Dillon could not immediately be reached for comment."
It's time for the Southern Poverty Law Center to declare the Republican Party a hate group and a terrorist organization. All Republican officials should be disqualified under state and federal insurrection laws. They are all secesh traitors.
Oklahoma where things are not OK. Native Oklahoman Will Roger's would be astonished with all of the rich material these right-wing fanatics offer up in the process of offering up education to the false gods of ignorance and intolerance.
Imagine if ClassWallet helped “those people” in Detroit or Chicago use the relief funds for similar purchases. Cue the outrage and bile from Mr. Walters and his handlers. Pharisees all of them.
How sad is it that such news no longer shocks me? How maddening is it that such crazed zealots are validated by those in authority? With no qualifications whatsoever, this individual is charged with guiding the education of children. I continue nonetheless to hope that the majority of citizens who do not ascribe to the hateful premises of the book banning, censorship movement will raise their voices. This is not going to just fade away. It has to be aggressively discredited and dispelled.
In the past, the Catholic church published a Condemned list of books, movies, and even songs. I think "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was on it. We received the list regularly in my Catholic high school. I think the list is gone, but Catholics, in collaboration with the Evangelical right, have found a way to recreate it. The main difference is that non-Catholics and even Catholics were free to ignore it in the past (although if we did, we were supposed to confess our sin). Now it's imposed on everyone, and if librarians or teachers try to ignore it, they're legally punished. it's most likely a small step between this and a high schooler bringing his/her own copy of a banned book to school and being punished.
Part of American has been taken over by the worst of the worst, the kind of people who have destroyed literate civilizations in the past.
Thanks for staying on this censorship story, Judd. It is more important than most people realize. Our country already suffers from a major case of ahistoricity and cultural astigmatism. More culture wars and more attempts at suppression—from all sides—will only worsen our difficulty in conducting civil discourse.
Civil discourse. What a novel concept. I'd love to see all of us use the same set of facts.
But if, for example, the one you're attempting to commune with insists on believing that Biden is a crook sans ANY evidence, how can we discourse?
The question would then become, how sincerely do they believe that, even though they insist on it.
That's a great question.
From my POV, you've got true believers and grifters. I think there are more grifters using maga as an excuse to do what they've always dreamed of, but how can one qualify or verify such a nebulous thing?.
I think the true believers' heads would explode if the curtain parted and they saw the undeniable facts. Grifters would just move on to the next grift.
Our country suffers from having a policy of finding being stupid acceptable, and seeing schools as commodities, not places to educate children. The fact that most book censorship is coming from around 11 people, who are not brilliant to say the least, is a crime. Stupid, hysterical-nothing-better-to-do-with-their-time people like this Ms. Chaya Raichik is one of the bigger pains for books, and readers and the future of our nation. I am hoping that within the next 5 years, none of this stuff will be in Vogue, and Ms. Raichik would just forget about her vigilance and wonder why anyone would be such a thing.
Of course, eliminate “radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind” and promote the absurd claim that teacher unions are “terrorist organizations” because they favor the education of the diversity in our melting pot culture. Oklahoma's Ryan Walters has made it up to the position of Oklahoma State Department of Education promoter of the de-certification of teachers who show concern about banning books. Walters takes pride in appointing Chaya Raichik famous for her position of "hateful conduct" that has resulted in numerous bomb threats. Thank you for exposing the fanatical underbelly of how fear is promoting violence in Oklahoma.
Not just there. I can see a bunch of grifters all the hell over being inspired by this hateful woman. How much has she received directly or indirectly?
Yet another example of the "If you hide history and dumb down / slant education, Republicans can stay in power."
Nice reporting folks!
As I recall SCOTUS said that the native american tribes driven into reservations covering most of Oklahoma could assert jurisdiction over those lands. Perhaps it's time for them to do so, and expel these white devils.
One might also wonder why OK citizens are content with an education system that will soon supplant MS as the worst in the country. Do they really want the next generation to be unable to compete in the 21st century?
Don't forget Florida's race down the rabbit hole of 3rd rate education at the hands of DeFraud. Manny Rodríguez, Chris Rofu (think Stephen Miller). Rofu also doesn't live in Florida yet their take over of The New College (in the likeness of Hillsdale Hitler Camp) is going to be the Far Right Indoctrination camp of Florida. A small Liberal Arts school (under 800 students) has just awarded the President (a former Defraud cheerleader) $1.5 million to run a small college, with less students than a Middle School! The cronyism is alive and well in this Republican state. I thought Republicans were fiscally conservative?
This will not stop until colleges and universities in blue states (heck, even in some red states that have not gone crazy) need to tell Florida, OK and others that their HS diplomas are not valid for admission to their universities. Maybe, just maybe, the message will get thru that it is not alright to dumb down the curriculum so that white racist christian adults don't get asked questions over dinner that they don't want to answer.
...and don't get asked questions during job interviews...
The state had let the school buildings, including resident halls fall into disrepair. When Mr. Politician was appointed he began a new approach - attracting athletes to athletic programs that didn’t exist &/or were not qualified to compete. He gave them perks, laptops, scholarships & the housing. Others were shoved into arrangements off campus. Then of course transportation was an issue.
With New College, they attracted athlete's to a program that wasn't great to begin with. They watered down academic requirements for those same athletes. They kicked some students to off campus housing to make way for the "athletes". This college also got rid of the DEI office. Now my guess is that Florida just wants White , male students that are fairly wealthy and everyone else will be excluded. The plan, I'm guessing is to eliminate minorities as much as they can. You got college bound kids, keep them far away from Florida! They will be better off outside the state as the education received will be diverse. Add to this nonsense the collaboration with Joe Ricketts (Chicago Cubs owner) who founded Ricketts Great World Books and New College. This didn't come about haphazardly either. Joe is a big GOP donor and founder of TD Ameritrade. Shucks, he even gave Meatball Ron $1 million, you can see why he went to the front of the line with this New Fake Degree offer. Apparently these people come long with massive egos' that need massaging. Cue the fake college in Sarasota and now they will offer an "on-line" degree using this crack-pots "Great World Books" as a basis for a liberal arts degree. Fish wrap is more valuable than a degree from New College.
I’m wondering about whether keeping students in FL with a more narrow curriculum is behind expanding the FL college entrance exam that only FL accepts. Or how it will play out given a couple of the HS curriculum fiascos.
https://www.npr.org/2023/09/10/1198638538/what-to-know-classic-learning-test-florida-sat-act-colleges#:~:text=How%20does%20it%20compare%20to,can%20adequately%20assess%20college%20preparedness.
Yes that’s the deal. Of course, New College never focused on sports. (And the new bozo added sports without having programs or enough athletes to support them. Seems fraudulent.)
Good information. ...which OK schools?
It is, as we say, hard to suss out. I didn’t keep looking. Don’t know the state that well so I wouldn’t know the schools at all. The state dept of ed should have it. I saw article that OK had hired coaches for teachers to improve. Then headlines that despite spending more $$$ scores were sinking. Explained it this way:
“OSDE officials said the enormous growth in at-risk students is due primarily to two main factors. First, the lack of in-person instruction in many Oklahoma schools over the past two years has had a significant negative impact on reading instruction. Second, many schools effectively gamed the system in past years by using improper assessments that did not show the true reading level of at-risk students. State officials had to implement regulations that subsequently forced districts to be honest.”
Then (desperation?) a real the solution. The one most states have turned to like MS. Not coaches (usually contractors using a failed method).
This is an expanded more science based system with phonics than when I went to school. My first job at 16 was in the summer reading program as a teaching assistant. A lot of times I ran the class on my own.
It is my maybe not so humble opinion that if students had learned this method & their parents had the info, the school closures would not have been nearly as damaging. The majority of students in the failed method struggle and hate reading. If they are behind leaving 3rd grade the odds are against them. If they don’t catch up by middle school they are killing time in HS until they can leave.
https://www.kosu.org/show/stateimpact-oklahoma/2023-11-16/oklahoma-schools-turning-to-the-new-old-way-of-teaching-students-to-read
I know we are off topic. I’m a true believer that literacy is the key. When reading is not a battle, everything opens up & you have better educated, better employed, more engaged & thinking adults. Billion$ annually are lost from the economy because of low literacy.
Louisiana banned this method which is probably the WORST of them, 3 Cues. At the end is a general comparison between science of reading & 3 Cueing. It relies heavily on images. We all know, there are no images explaining the questions on job apps & college entrance exams.
(If it interests you, google science of reading brain images. You should find more info on the science.)
https://www.louisianabelieves.com/docs/default-source/literacy/act-517-three-cueing-system-ban-guidance.pdf?sfvrsn=98016318_2#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20“Three%2DCueing,%2Dphonic%20(spelling%20patterns).
Amen on literacy! And, when children begin to feel proficient in reading, they feel heroic. I am reminded of Fanni Willis's RICO case against the Georgia teachers who gamed their system by false grading and corrupting their testing. They lost even though they were TEACHERS and many of them, black. Fanni didn't care! I wish the other states could find someone like Fanni Willis to tackle any dishonest gaming their systems--which ends up doing greater harm to their students.
They sure do. I tutored a student who was brilliant; enjoyed math. Low literacy level & avoided reading like the plague. He needed 2 semesters of social studies. Failed 1 and was failing the 2nd. We had 6 wks to fix it. His dream was basketball stardom. I devised lessons relying on math, dates & numbers. He gained 1+ year in reading (I suspect part of that was being more engaged when he tested) & passed content tests for both semesters of Soc. Studies; graduated on time. He was over the moon happy & gifted me his autograph in light of his future fame. 😂
Other places just fire the teachers. Standards can be set so that they are not attainable, material$ are withheld. Standards like in OK, often vague & not evenly applied. Some districts or states use ‘pay for performance.’ Then there are personally motivated maneuvers. Wish a teacher or staff would go away? Load their class with struggling students. Administrators facilitate cheating in an attempt to keep scores up, avoid the school being punished, losing $$ and students.
On a day I was working with 5th graders regular classes were halted for a couple hours. Students got a crash course re: light shadows, solar system. Then the “special team” moved on to the next school. The topic was in “the test” but 5th graders didn’t have much instruction in science or the textbooks. The books were in the 6th grade classrooms due to test questions for them. Our state refuses to fund all day kindergarten & textbooks.
Lots of ways to game the system, pretend to address ed & do nothing.
As you probably know, literacy affects all areas of learning. On average about 40% will learn despite the literacy teaching method. That’s comparable to the rate of US adults who read above a 6th grade level.
I feel compelled (as an advocate for greater literacy) to point out MS ed has numerous flaws BUT has greatly improved its methods of teaching literacy. It is working. When literacy improves learning in all areas improves; students engage & communities do better as do reasoning skills.
https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/mississippi-students-surged-in-reading-over-the-last-decade-heres-how-schools-got-them-there/2023/06
I have read that MS is making great strides in literacy and you are right, that's a good thing. But at the same time radicals like @LibsofTikTok, Moms For Liberty, their governor and fascists like the OK School Superintendent are doing everything in their power to make sure that they have nothing to read that matters or helps them compete in the 21st century.
Absolutely. However, MS 4th graders have already surpassed OK 4th graders in literacy. This is a key age/grade level for future success. This tells me 2 things - These moves in states may be to leverage fear as a distraction from their failures as much as it is politics. - In the future increased literacy means opening eyes, widening lives and derailing the political agenda.
In Ky this woke blather was making headway in the legislature. Pleas & outrage had been ignored. Then moms from one of the whitest, wealthiest counties dragged their middle school children before the ed committee. The moms cried, vented & presented data showing the middle schools had a 3rd grade reading level. Their kids were smart but couldn’t read. Teachers trained by the state funded “literacy” center thought it was normal. The dem gov’s dept of ed got permission to defund the center. Moms [against] Liberty have lost momentum. The legislature is flummoxed about how to attack public ed without attacking their own voters. Their last resort: to put it on the ballot. We’ll see how it goes. The new buzz is anti-DEI.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state
appreciate this link!
I sincerely hope this is picked up by national news. Tax payer dollars being used in a dramatically irresponsible manner. Those tax dollars are invested in education to represent all students and ensure they receive a good education. Apparently the definition of good has taken a major hit.
Basically, Oklahoma--one of the poorest and least-educated states in the union--is openly declaring to teachers that they are not welcome there. Winning strategy there. <eye roll>
We need to start paying attention to where all this hate is coming from - and who is profiting from it. The list of haters is astounding --
"All Scripture Baptist Church
Knoxville, Tennessee
Alliance Defending Freedom
Scottsdale, Arizona
American College of Pediatricians
Gainesville, Florida
American Family Association
Indianapolis, Indiana
Tupelo, Mississippi *
Franklin , Pennsylvania"
and the list goes on.....
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/ideology/anti-lgbtq
Wow we have readers who know and share to our greater benefit!
We need to arm ourselves with the TRUTH!
Precisely the point I made quite poorly in comparison to yours.
Thank you Julia. Follow the GD'd money.
And.... look who's coming to dinner?
"Former President Donald Trump hosted the conservative influencers behind Libs of TikTok and The Babylon Bee at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida as part of a new charm offensive as he runs again for president, according to a source with knowledge of the strategy.
In addition to the creator of the controversial Twitter account Libs of TikTok, Trump also hosted Seth Dillon, who owns The Babylon Bee, a conservative political satire website, the source said. Dillon could not immediately be reached for comment."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-hosts-conservative-influencers-libs-tik-tok-babylon-bee-dinner-rcna67396
i don’t know about the SD but the others are all ones welcomed back to the new X by Elon.
No comparison needed. The point is - how much is this chic getting to peddle this crap in the name corporate greed and POWER?
It's time for the Southern Poverty Law Center to declare the Republican Party a hate group and a terrorist organization. All Republican officials should be disqualified under state and federal insurrection laws. They are all secesh traitors.
Oklahoma where things are not OK. Native Oklahoman Will Roger's would be astonished with all of the rich material these right-wing fanatics offer up in the process of offering up education to the false gods of ignorance and intolerance.
Thank you to the Popular Information team for this article.
Judd, You keep me awake at night. Keep up the good work.
Imagine if ClassWallet helped “those people” in Detroit or Chicago use the relief funds for similar purchases. Cue the outrage and bile from Mr. Walters and his handlers. Pharisees all of them.
How sad is it that such news no longer shocks me? How maddening is it that such crazed zealots are validated by those in authority? With no qualifications whatsoever, this individual is charged with guiding the education of children. I continue nonetheless to hope that the majority of citizens who do not ascribe to the hateful premises of the book banning, censorship movement will raise their voices. This is not going to just fade away. It has to be aggressively discredited and dispelled.
In the past, the Catholic church published a Condemned list of books, movies, and even songs. I think "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was on it. We received the list regularly in my Catholic high school. I think the list is gone, but Catholics, in collaboration with the Evangelical right, have found a way to recreate it. The main difference is that non-Catholics and even Catholics were free to ignore it in the past (although if we did, we were supposed to confess our sin). Now it's imposed on everyone, and if librarians or teachers try to ignore it, they're legally punished. it's most likely a small step between this and a high schooler bringing his/her own copy of a banned book to school and being punished.
Part of American has been taken over by the worst of the worst, the kind of people who have destroyed literate civilizations in the past.
The Project Veritas of TikTok bringing fakery to the schools to own the libs. Where fakery and lies go, it seems corruption comes to light.
As always, this piece packs a punch! Thanks for exposing these scoundrels.
I really appreciate you and your work!