Florida’s fascist book ban campaign has spread like a virus around the state. There are more than 500 entries for Florida in PEN America’s ever-expanding list of books banned in American schools. These include what should be obviously innocuous titles like the “Zen Shorts” series by Jon Muth, which are some of the best children’s books available to parents and teachers. This effort to remove books about Black and LGBTQ+ people and characters from schools and libraries is a part of a larger effort to sanitize our country’s history. Like almost all efforts that pass for conservative “policies” these days, citizens of all ages are widely opposed to the bans.
The lack of popularity doesn’t matter to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, though. During the first quarter of 2023 he began a disinformation campaign, telling reporters that the idea of banning books is “a hoax.”
“And that’s really a nasty hoax, because it’s a hoax in service of trying to pollute and sexualize our children,” DeSantis claims. But that claim belies the information available to anyone reading about the various books being pulled off of shelves for supposedly being “pornographic.”
DeSantis and his team of book-banners also highlighted the need to criminally punish teachers or librarians who give out books people like DeSantis deem pornographic. Mind you, our federal government (and Florida itself) already has laws outlining what is and is not considered pornographic. And there are also laws that prohibit books, images, and videos that sexualize minors—just ask former Republican National Committee aide Ruben Verastigui, who is serving a 151-month sentence for being involved in a child sexual abuse materials ring.
Judd Legum over at Popular Information has gotten his hands on some of the Florida books that have been banned and the stated reasons they were banned. You would be hard-pressed to figure out how the previous statements above have any bearing on the decisions being made about libraries in the Sunshine State.
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One of the books banned? The 1995 photo book “Houses and Homes” by Ann Morris. The book is a photo essay featuring pictures of families around the world and their dwellings. You can watch a walk-through of the book down below. But it has a single racy photo in it, according to Florida’s handmaid braintrust. Here it is. Can you see the problem?
If you guessed “It’s because the people on the left are Black,” I suspect you are right. However, the official reason seems to be that the child’s naked buttocks make this an “offensive” image. Another butt-shot that earned a Florida ban appears in Trina Schart Hyman’s 1977 title and four-time winner of the Caldecott Medal, “The Sleeping Beauty,” where a single illustration of the queen bathing in the distance seems to have gotten this decades-old classic pulled from the shelves.
Duval Country, Florida, has made the news for participating in some of the state’s most egregious book-banning, and Legum’s found that to be very true. Mem Fox’s “Guess What?,” published in 1988 in Australia and in 1990 in the U.S., is a picture book that guides the reader in guessing main character Daisy O’Grady’s occupation. This photo seems to have been beyond the pale according to Florida’s book-banners. Content warning: Illustrated witch wearing a snorkel while bathing in an industrial sink and holding a fish.
It is important to note that while a few books are deemed “pornographic,” most of the book bans are filed under the catch-all term “inappropriate.” While we can speculate whether or not what someone found “inappropriate” about the above image was the bathing or the fact that the book’s protagonist is (spoiler alert) a witch, the justification is pretty cryptic.
However, the fact that “Jalani and the Lock” by Dr. Lorenzo Pace was banned really gives away the racism in this game. DeSantis and others are playing with history and reality. It is an absolutely beautiful and deceptively simple rendering of the story of American chattel slavery. It is such a true children’s book–I cannot speak highly enough of it. It tells the story of a young African boy who is captured and shipped to America, enslaved, and then freed. In the end, he finally passes down to his great-great-grandchildren the lock that kept him shackled on that voyage to serve as a talisman of his family’s history.
Duval County banned this book under the designation “pornography.” At the same time, the Florida Department of Education announced on Tuesday that it rejected 35% of social studies textbooks submitted to them. What were the rejections about? A section for sixth through eighth graders, which reads:
“New Calls for Social Justice
During the 2000s, one effect of an increase in the use or mobile devices and social media was the spread of images of police violence, sometimes deadly, against Black Americans. The deaths of Black Americans outraged many Americans and led to a crowing awareness of systemic racism that permeated the broader society.
In 2013, a new social and political movement called Black Lives Matter formed to protest violence against Black Americans. The movement called for an end to systemic racism and white supremacy.”
Meanwhile, more mature books like Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” and “Beloved” have also been banned in Florida. The argument is that there are depictions of rape, incest, molestation, and violence in those books—so I guess only senior citizens should be allowed to read them? Surprisingly (see: not surprisingly), Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” where a guy obsessed with his mother’s sex life ends with everybody being murdered, and “Romeo and Juliet,” where two minors have sex and then die by suicide, are still on the shelves. Also not on DeSantis’ ban list is “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Ernest Hemingway, which features descriptions of gang rape during the Spanish Civil War.
Ever since the Republican Party decided to forgo having even the most basic policy platforms, they have run far afield from the majority of Americans’ concerns and headlong into the dangerously absurd.
“Jelani and the Lock” read aloud:
“Houses and Homes” read aloud:
“Guess What?” read aloud:
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