Conservative activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate, pushed the district, Mission CISD, to excise books mostly about gender, sexuality and race. Their demands represented an extreme version of a nationwide culture war over books that has played out in recent years — and ensnared a number of books with Jewish themes.

In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus”; “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and “Kasher in the Rye,” a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher.

  • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    My fragile mind doesnt want minors to see things they shouldnt see till later. That should be a pretty obvious thing that everyone wants for children…

    • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Get rid of anything that mentions rape, prostitution, genocide, or god forbid SODOMY?

      Out goes the bible then. No one under 18 should read it.

      • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        The difference between the Bible and other more modern books is that the Bible is the most influential book in western civilization. If you want to have a censored on that removed those exact passages then that seems like a reasonable compromise.

        • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          Fuck that, the wretched thing doesn’t deserve special treatment. There is nothing about the contents of the bible that are worth granting exception for. You want to ban adult themes? I can think of nothing more deserving of such a ban than the oldest book to incorporate rape, divinely ordained murder (all over the place), instructions on how to perform an abortion, incest, and the severly mixed message of “god loves everyone, unless you don’t worship them, then you get tortured forever”.

          • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Like it or not the Bible is the most influence book in western history, so yes it gets special treatment. But again, if you want to make a censored version for kids that takes out those parts, it seems like a reasonable compromise.

            • Jackie's Fridge@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Fun fact: the events in Anne Frank’s diary and Maus actually happened. They are far more valuable than the Goat Herder’s Guide to the Galaxy.

            • maniclucky@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              What you’re not getting is that it being that influential is a bad thing and that it’s time to pull it from its podium. It’s just a religious text and if you’re censoring any religious texts, you should censor all of them.

            • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              I didn’t know, all the passages they don’t like talking about. Do you know about 2 Kings 2 23-24? I’ll tell you, even in context it makes God look like a psychopath. God literally sends a bear into a village to maul 42 children to death because they made fun of a delicate man’s bald head. That’s not even twisting the story.

    • Jank@literature.cafe
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      4 months ago

      I like how this argument assumes schools are just regularly stocking school libraries with your Literotica history.

      • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        I didnt say they were. If its not happening very often why are you guys so against books being removed?

        • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          If it’s not happening often, why are you hellbent on banning books? They are edge case, but your ilk act like every school library is chuck full of inappropriate books.

          • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            I am hellbent on protecting children from adults that will do them harm. If its only edge cases then why are you hellbent on putting rules in place to remove questionable books?

            • Donkter@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Because the rules are in place and curated by professionals. What I don’t want is every semi-educated group of extremists to have the ability to whine enough that they get important books banned.

              • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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                4 months ago

                Ah yes, “professionals”. After covid you guys should have learned how experts are not so expert. I dont want children to see books with sexual content in them, does that make me an extremist?

                • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  It’s quite clear one group of people only want morons dictating what people can do, as opposed to those who listen and trust experts (who have often spent their entire life’s acquirung knowledge in their area of speciality).

                  After all, who wants a doctor with 20yrs experience operating on their spleen, when Harry the butcher could do it.

                  • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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                    4 months ago

                    You are right, I want to dictate that state funds cant be used to show sexual materials to children. I am guilty!

                • Donkter@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  This is called a motte-and-bailey. We were discussing a group trying to ban books about the Holocaust, and the larger concept about groups of parents being able to ban anything by whining about it enough. You put forward a different argument you think is bullet proof about banning sexual content with the implication that this argument defends the much weaker argument about banning Holocaust books or whatever books the mob may choose.

                  Just pointing that out. It’s a common fallacy and one that feels right, it isn’t necessarily done intentionally.

                  The freakout about sexual content is fabricated and designed to play to emotions. School libraries already ban sexual content. There’s no smut or erotica at them. The small handful of books that people wanted to ban were either educational or were similar to many books that were not targeted by those parent groups and the sexual situations were not the focus of the book. The main similarity was that they were about LGBT sexualities.

            • Jyek@sh.itjust.works
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              4 months ago

              You’ll protect children right until it affects your wallet. It’s not about children, it’s about control. Always has been.

    • cammoblammo@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      I’ve worked in school libraries.

      The funny thing is that kids will only read things that are of interest to them, and if they’re interested in it, they’re old enough to read it. If they borrow it because they like the cover or all their friends have apparently read it or some such reason, you can be assured it’ll be returned after they get through the first page.

      • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        I understand, but there are literally millions of books, why do we have to have the few books with sexual material that a significant portion of parents object to?