Texas school district agrees to remove ‘Anne Frank’s Diary,’ ‘Maus’ and 670 other books after right-wing group’s complaint
forward.com
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.
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It isn't about them being available. Its about discussing the content and the deeper meaning. I would be totally fine with reading Adolf Hitlers - Mein Kampf in School, as long as the content gets discussed and why what he wrote wasn't good.
Nothing is going to be discusses it would just be sitting on the shelf and available. So I think we should all agree that censorship of books in public schools makes sense. I personally am fine with siding on the side of being more cautious and having kids less able to get books people think are not acceptable, and catching books that probably should be available in schools.
If kids are only exposed to kid friendly stuff, then they will never learn anything and stay kids long into adulthood.
I guess so, but if kids are exposed to adult things their mind is not ready for it will harm them.
They already deal with the fact that someone can just go in and shoot them the middle the middle of class. Those books are nothing compared to that
Two different discussions.
Not really. Kids have active shooter drills, but you get your panties in a bunch because they might read Anne Frank?
You don't really care about kids, you are just an hypocrite.
Prove they are trying to remove Anne Frank from the libraries, it might be true, but I think that sounds like propaganda.
And yes they are two different things. The big problem here is that people like you dont realize how to stop school shootings, and even if you did, you are unwilling to take the actual steps to do so.
Do you even read the titles before you come here saying dumb shit?
Yeah obviously you have problems distinguishing truth from propaganda, we're all aware.
Maybe you should read beyond the titles... A quick google tells me they are not removing anne frank, they are removing a book with anne frank in it because "it contained a 'graphic scene' in which Anne Frank asks a friend to expose themselves to each other." If accurate, why do you want books about minors exposing themselves to one another to be available to minors?
On the odd chance you aren't completely trolling. Anne Frank was a girl going through puberty. She had a crush on her friend and like any normal young person had to deal with scary, unknown, but very normal human feelings and desires of intimacy and love. It's her own fucking diary, she didn't self censor herself for prudes in 2024. She had a war and death hanging over her head at any moment.
And if you actually go look at the book, there is nothing graphic about it. To these prudes having these normal feelings and describing them in a diary is what they consider to be graphic. Here's a Dutch talkshow host absolutely clowning on these people just by showing the passage the controversy is actually about (with English subtitles)
"Anne Frank's Diary, too sexual? That sounds like 'Tucker Carlson, too athletic'" I lol'd.
You can not agree with it, but do you understand how they are objecting to sexual material in the book not that it has to due with history?
There is no such sexual material in the book. An innocent teenage girl asked a raunchy question to a friend she had a crush on because that's the kind of behavior teens display while they grow up and develop themselves. And she got shut down. Nothing graphical was ever shown. It's showing only what was written by that same normal girl disconnected and hidden from the world as they hide from murderous tyrannical nazi's. Raw and unfiltered thoughts and feelings of a normal developing teen, as the girl wrote it for herself, not us. As the Anne Frank Foundation said in the video "A book written by a 12 year old can be read by 12 year olds."
No it seems to be the Diary of Anne Frank and 600+ other books.
Have you read the book because that definitely "sounds like propaganda" and we've already established you have problems discerning the difference between that and reality.
But hey, why do YOU mindlessly parrot talking points put out by far right Latino zionists like Luis Cabrera? Jk we all know the answer, dumb little tankie parroting a fucking evangelical, fuck off.
https://www.au.org/the-latest/articles/texas-pastor-book-bans24
No, the Diary of Anne Frank is not the same as Anne Franks Diary. I have read the one that they dont object to, it was a good book.
Why do YOU mindlessly parrot talking points put out by far left?
Literally the article.
Literally misleading.
The article states first that a Texas district banned Anne Frank's diary. Don't play dumb.
Every fucking other countries don't have mass shootings pretty much everyday. Only in the US. In Australia, when they banned gun ownership after a mass shooting in 1996, the shootings dropped drastically.
The school shootings are a multi-faceted problem which requires many changes, one of which is the gun culture.
There is a toddler every two weeks that shoot someone in the USA, how are guns not the problem?
You know where this doesn't happen? Everywhere else in the world.
Ban guns for pretty much anything that is not hunting. Fund social services to provide quality mental health treatments to anyone that needs it. That should get you started in the right direction.
Yes exactly, they want to band "Anne Franks diary", which is a distinct book that is not "The Diary of Anne Frank". Do you understand how they used propaganda and it works?
I'm not sure why you keep referring to that dumb argument. There is two distinct book, I know that, but the second book is called the secret annex and is rewritten and more tame.
Otherwise, diary of a young girl is referred to as Anne Frank's diary and all the other similar name. So shut the fuck up with your propaganda.
Neither book should be banned and for a right winger, you seem to be more about big government than personal responsibility that your ilk like to spout.
There is nothing offensive in the book and parents can decide for their child without being a bunch of christo-fascists cunts trying to ban anything they don't like.
Walk the talk for once in your life and stop being an hypocrite. If you don't mind toddlers shooting people and the mass shootings but you get your feelings hurt by a young girl describing what she is going through at puberty, there is no mental gymnastics that can justify that.
So go live in the wood with all your troglodytes so that you can live your christo-fascist life like you want. You can bring your bible with you, we don't need it.
What year do you think the rewrite of the anne frank book was took place?
It doesn't matter. You are trying to steer the conversation away from the subject.
You do realise that there's a version of Mien Kampf that's four times as long because there's several experts annotating and debunking Hitler's ideas right there on the page.
Thats fine, what would be so bad if a signficant part of the population dont think its appropriate so its not provided to kids at a public school?
History is uncomfortable. Revising it to tell lovely stories is all well and good for building a national identity.
However, sugar-coating, ignoring, or even flat-out erasing parts of history benefits no one. People started writing events down accurately because the orators of old never intended paint an accurate picture of the past. And therefore lessons learnt from the failures of humanity (lost causes, preventable catastrophies, perspectives of people on the wrong side, genocides, etc.) were also lost.
History should be uncomfortable, so we can collectively learn and have a chance to do better the next time.
You are believing the propaganda not what the real critique is.
I literally said the opposite. How did you come to that conclusion?
You didnt say the opposite, you repeated the propaganda that is an attack on people that want to censor books. The books that are getting censored are not due to them being about history or learning.
How is this propaganda?
Also you are completely incorrect. Those books are ABSOLUTELY are about history and learning.
Anne Frank's Dairy is a first hand historical account of life an oppressed and genocided group under facism. Maus is another recollection of first-hand historical accounts of a polish Jew being interviewed by his son but shown visually in a cartoon graphic novel to make the context more visually palatable for a younger audience without avoiding the horrific events of history.
What next? Are you going to claim the Horrible History books are neither educational or historical as well?
Its propaganda because you are literally believeing something false, you comment proves that it works. They are not removing the book we all read in school "The Diary of Anne Frank" they are remvoing "Anne Franks Diary" because "they objected to the book as it contained a 'graphic scene' in which Anne Frank asks a friend to expose themselves to each other."
The part about them wanting to remove lessons of history is just bullshit, they are wanting to remove typically things with sexual content in them. Why are you fighting for books that have sexual content in them so kids can read them?
From the article, talking about the complaints citing the Moms for Liberty rating system:
Would you look at that: non-sexual nudity, oh the shock and horror, children might learn that underneath clothes people are naked 😱
As shown by the complaint quoted in the article they're removing these books because they discuss historical horrors, violence, and hate, therefore your argument holds no water at all.
I looked at the page, its about sexualizing whom I assume is Anne Frank. Why are you okay with one minor asking another minor to expose themselves to one another?
Do you undestand yet that the book was not banned due to anything but sexual content?
Don't clutch your pearls too hard.
What would be so bad with...
...checks notes...
...informing young people about the most horrible decisions made throughout history, why they were flawed, and how not to repeat the same mistakes today?
Hmm....
Just take a look at the world around you. That's a fucking start...
That is not what is happening...
No, history never repeats itself! Just like that old expression says, "Those who forget history are doomed to a life of happiness and prosperity."
I agree, but that is not what these book removals are about
A significant part of the population doesn't think it's appropriate for a picture book about two male penguins that adopt a chick to be in a public school.
In fact, a significant part of the population doesn't think white kids and black kids should go to the same school. And have found ways to do things about it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academy
Why should we cater to these significant parts of the population?
You're a fucking troglodyte.
Censoring books due to reasons like "these books provide a point of view I'm not comfortable exposing my kids too" is usually a bad reason to censor books.
Problem I see is its all a pendulum on these issues where the reaction swings wildly back and forth the more energy were putting into it rather than having it settle the fuck down.
For instance these books being removed aren't produced in spite of this issue. But for sure if we dig into censorship topic then pro censorship groups start bringing out books to be edgy cunts and prove a point.
Every issue has edge cases and we live in a time where people are so willing to be right they will make every edge case the center of an issue. Like in order to keep Maus on shelves we will now need to have a copy of Bomb making 101 or a book were one of these people wrote FUCK a million times just so they can get anti censorship people to say "hey that isn't cool guys" but also the problem is I often find people are so militant in our beliefs that we have a hard time saying "that isn't cool" when faced with something not cool but also that grinds against our moral beliefs
What you are saying makes sense, I just dont see an issue if XX% of people dont want a book to be in PUBLIC schools, then I am okay with restricting it unless there is some kind of cultural significance, and within reason. I am probably okay with Maus from what I have heard, but I dont see it as an issue to take it off the shelf if people feel strongly and there is some level of logic.
Do you realize how many books are in a literary? The odds they will chance on one particular book are really small. And ig they do it's far from the worst thing that can happen to them in a school