NBC News posts an insightful story about the need for school libraries to have books on sexuality and race relations–the opening account of a girl who hasn’t told her evangelical parents about being queer but reads books in her high school library to understand her situation about is heart-wrenching–also links to a list of books the neophyte Fascists in Texas want to ban. A sample:
- A Katy mother wants to ban a biography of Michelle Obama written for children, “Michelle Obama: Political Icon,” by Heather E. Schwartz, because she says, it unfairly depicts Donald Trump as a bully.
- Also in Katy, a parent demanded a school district
burnban “New Kid” by Jerry Craft, a book about a Black seventh grader going to a predominantly white school, because it mentions microaggressions, which the parent mistakenly believes was the basis of Critical Race Theory. - One that everyone could see coming a mile away is “How to be an Antiracist,” by Ibram X. Kendi, a book on how to overcome racism. A parent suggested that the book be replaced by the Bible, a story about a person of color murdered by a corrupt European emperor because he is a threat to white power.
- Parents in Keller, Texas want Jon Ronson’s “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed,” a book about cyberbullying, banned because it contains one interview of a teen who considered suicide after online bullying and another interview in which a girl says she was bullied because she was raped. Suicide and rape apparently cannot be mentioned.