Brownshirt cop storms school to find LGBTQI book

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A Massachusetts police chief has been forced to issue an apology for any “distrust and alarm” that was caused by an officer who searched a middle school library for an LGBTQ+ book that drew a complaint over “concerning illustrations” — the latest incident linked to a rash of book bannings and debates over what constitutes appropriate material for children.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/maryroelof ... gbtq-book/

The Great Barrington, Massachusetts, police department received a complaint from a resident who was worried about the graphics included in a copy of the book “Gender Queer: A Memoir," the Berkshire Eagle reported, which prompted a plainclothes officer to visit the school in search of the book.

Great Barrington Police Chief Paul Storti said in a statement on social media that the complaint made the department "obligated" to examine the book, which explores gender and sexual identity and features several illustrations depicting sexual experiences.

The search drew outrage from some parents and community members, who said the police have no authority to intervene in school matters, and more than 100 students from the district’s high school walked out of class in protest.

Morons.

I like how every time these goofballs ban a book it adds to the list of books people will seek out to read and learn from.

If they banned textbooks of trig. and calculus then...America would streak ahead in the STEM fields in NO time!

True story - in our school library in the late 1970s there was a standing joke. Students rarely borrowed anything so in our book collection the calculus and biology texts remained sparkling clean like they were just removed from packaging.

But two publications were very popular. The first was Paris Match, a French magazine. We assumed this was for students studying French. Most editions were borrowed almost immediately after getting returned. We kids thought "wow" the French students must really need them. And then one day I opened a copy out of curiosity three things struck me. First everything was in French (which I kind of expected). Second there were multiple pages ripped out and the magazines looked like they were used by a lot of students. And the final thing I observed explained the popularity of Paris Match. Lots of nude french models. In the late 1970s seeing this blew my mind.

The second publication was the most borrowed book in the library, It was published in the US. The title of the book was (and I am not kidding) "How to Pick up School Girls". My gosh this book was so popular. My understanding (at the time) is the book was for human relations studies for school boys who had trouble finding a date. In the pre-electronic era highschool books needed to be manually borrowed which included writing your name + date stamp for return. Included in the names of male students was the names of three male teachers. Rather than setting of alarm bells from seeing their names it was just (as I remember) incredibly funny. One of the teachers did infact have a reputation for hitting on female final year students where he would turn up at their parties (remind you of anyone? Ron De Santis?). Where was the police you ask?

My point is this, there are always things that are questionable in school libraries but parents normally have no idea what their kids read or what is going on in their school libraries. So the idea that conservative parents storm school board meetings to express outrage over a sudden concern over what their kids are allegedly learning seems horribly staged to me,.

Know what I find amusing about all this? The irony in the fact that the left is trying to ban books like "To Kill A Mockingbird".

https://www.washingtonpost.com/educatio ... ashington/

Why not actually look at the reasons this book has created controversy as a school reading (this was also mandatory reading for Australian English students).

The objections to the book have shifted over time. In 1966, a Virginia school board banned the book for its “immoral” depiction of rape. Forty years later, a California school district forbade teaching “Mockingbird” after parents alleged it was racist for its use of the n-word and portrayal of Black people.

The book was a product of its time, There is some irony that conservatives want this book in the school curriculum but if a teacher tried to explain why in the 1960s it was acceptable to publish a book with the n-word the teacher would likely be fired under draconian republican laws for inciting racial division.

So in other words its only ok for your side to choose which books to ban but not the other guys. That's called hypocrisy.

I don't really follow a "side" and I have no objections to "Kill a Mockingbird" being mandatory reading. What I would like is protection for teachers to do their job and explain to students why the language of the book reflects the time it was published in the 1960s when white supremacy ruled supreme.

Right because now any book that tries to teach kids about how injustice happens against black people in the deep south all the time is indeed the epitome of "white supremacy".

Then again I'm now living in a world where they make crappy movies like "The Woman King" to rewrite the actual true history of slavery that involved Dahomian Africans brutally raiding villages and selling their own people into slavery to the Europeans (the movie from what I understand basically twists historical facts to suggest that these women warriors were fighting to free slaves or some bs like that).

It's funny that he's basically described a hypocrisy, but you're accusing him of being a hypocrite.

The book should be taught, but the discussion over why the n-bomb was acceptable in a publication back then is probably warranted. If that discussion isn't suitable for the classroom, it might be fair to say the book might not be suitable either.

No one's prevented from reading it, but it's no longer forced.

Ugh, that's bloody distasteful.

My comment or the movie's total disregard and outright lying about history?

The outright lying about history.

The history of the triangle trade, and of European slavery of Africans is always ridiculously oversimplified which leads to really bad takes, regardless of the angle people are coming from.

People feel guilty over imagined atrocities when the actual condemnable actions were quite different from the ones they believe they should feel guilty for.

That's not to say those actions shouldn't trigger shame or guilt responses, only that abandoning historical precedent about slavery because suddenly there was a large source with willing sellers and there was a recognized economic benefit is an example of a real action, whereas Europeans didn't go around literally kidnapping people from their villages... locals were already doing that, Europeans just gave them additional incentive.

They dumb things down to the point people don't just have an oversimplified understanding, but an incorrect one.

I feel the exact same way. Even the Smithsonian Channel documentary about the Dahomian Women Warriors really downplayed the fact that these people were brutal slavers who terrorized villages and were responsible for playing a huge role in much of the slave trade even after it was outlawed.

WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BRING UP HISTORY?! CAN'T YOU JUST SAY YASS QUEEN LIKE THE REST OF US?!