Orlando newspaper publishes spread of 673 books banned in Florida county in 2023

MicroWave@lemmy.world to News@lemmy.world – 269 points – Orlando newspaper publishes spread of 673 books banned in Florida county in 2023
thehill.com

The Orlando Sentinel published a two-page print spread Thursday listing 673 books that have been removed from classrooms in Orange County in 2023 due to fears they violate the state’s new laws banning “sexual conduct” from public schools.

Teachers with any of the 673 books on their classroom shelves have been instructed by the school district to remove them, the newspaper said, also noting that the Orange County Public Schools (OCPS) staff will review the list of rejected books once again, so it’s possible the books will eventually be returned to the classroom. The district began compiling the list over the summer.

The list stems from two Florida laws signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), who is also running for president. They require media specialists to review books in libraries and classrooms, and to exclude books that include sexually lewd material or pornography. The legislation also aims to give parents greater ability to raise objections to their children’s education.

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A mass reading would be a cool protest tactic. Get hundreds of kids hundreds of copies of banned books. Have them sit outside a state legislature - clogging up traffic to and from the building as they read to themselves. Have extra books on hand to give out to people trying to get through, while encouraging them to just sit and read for a bit.

They’ll just pass laws making it legal to run over kids if it’s making you late to work.

They banned Brave New World.

Take your soma. There's obviously no fuckery going on here.

My hot take here is that Brave New World shouldn't be read by high schoolers because it's too complex for most high schoolers.

The book is most definitely not about how "bread and circuses" distract people from an encroaching dystopian hellstate and the number of grown-ass adults I see parroting that is too damn high. See the other comment to your post.

It's instead about how a lack of agency from ongoing institutions already paves the way for dystopian hellstates, and the industrialization of that loss of agency is the core concept discussed in the first chapter. That's why they just ship the main character off to an island with the other people who have figured things out - the dystopia is such that the machine breaks immediately if anyone questions it, so they just let those people go live how they wish.

It shouldn't be banned though, because no books should ever be banned.

That's an even dumber reason to ban that book.

Right, no argument there whatsoever. Banning any book is dumb, full stop. But it is indeed a personal annoyance of mine.

That one absolutely shocks me.

It’s way too on the nose.

I bet 1984 is not banned without a hint of irony though.

When a library expels a book of mine and leaves an unexpurgated Bible lying around where unprotected youth and age can get hold of it, the deep unconscious irony of it delights me and doesn't anger me.

-Mark Twain

Yeah I was going to say Mark Twain would probably think it's funny that Florida is banned his books.

If I was a kid right now, the absolute first thing I'd wanna do is read all of these books. These dipshits made sex even more alluring by trying to hide it entirely from kids.

My 16 year old has done that. He finds a book that's banned, takes it out of the library (either physical copy, eBook, or audiobook) and then reads it. While doing so, he keeps an eye out for why it was banned.

He noted that one book was banned because one page describes a sexual encounter. It was about 3 lines and wasn't extremely graphic. It just got the point to the reader that an event happened and then the book moved on. But apparently any mention of sex even existing is enough for a book to get banned.

Unless, it's the Bible, of course. Then you can have daughters sleeping with their fathers and it's all good for kids to read!

You have a cool kid. All these things Republicans act like they're going to stop will just become bigger "issues" because of their actions. History is full of lessons about this type of thing but honestly your 16 year old probably absorbed much more of those lessons than every Republican alive

They didn't do this banning sooner because the technology didn't exist to easily keyword search for the words "boobs" and "gay". These fascist idiots couldn't sit and read a book for the life of them, let alone consider the context or breadth of potentially "explicit" sections of prose (they also probably think "prose"is some sort of lgbtq slang term because it contains the word rose). You'll probably find that many of these witch hunts actual burn books that do things like mention "race" in the context of a sporting competition, but something that they ignorantly mistake for discussion of a person's race and assume bad :(

I mean, that's fine. The idea is that parents are more aware of what their kids are reading, and have more say in it. Those books aren't banned, they're just not available in a school library. Your kid still has access to the book, just not through the school. They can order it on Amazon. They can borrow it from a friend, they can go to the local public library and borrow it there.

Saying these booked are flat out banned is like saying alcohol is banned from Florida because they don't sell it at fast food joints. ...no, it's not banned, you just have to go somewhere else to get access.

I think it's pitiful to defend the censorship of books considered generally harmless for decades. Shame on you, honestly.

Is withholding pornographic images from school libraries shameful? If it is, shame away. I'm okay with that.

That is an absolute strawman that has never happened and you fucking know it. But go ahead, simp for fascism

Dumbest argument I’ve ever heard. You really think there’s Hustler and Playboy in school libraries? Or are you unable to distinguish between pornography, literature, and educational content? Was I looking at porn when I saw bare tits in the encyclopedia at 7? Should we ban encyclopedias? Should Judy Bloom books be banned because they gasp discuss puberty and masturbation?

If you support this book banning policy you are a fascist.

The reason is because the subordination of individual interests for the ‘good’ of the nation/race is a fascist hallmark.

You may think it’s a huge leap between book bans and gas chambers but Fascism had a legitimate political party that took many policy positions long before people realised it was a bad idea.

If it makes you uncomfortable to think that you support the people that were on the losing side of WWII then I implore you to reconsider how you’ve arrived at this position.

Alcohol isn't banned you just need a license to sell it. The analogy doesn't work though because it's not like beer is allowed everywhere but wine isn't. They are making objective decisions about the content of different versions of the same product.

Also a huge number of those books have been available for decades or even a century so why are they suddenly a problem now?

And these books aren't banned, you just need a library card to take one home. They're far more accessible than alcohol. Anyone of any age can pull from public libraries. The analogy does work, because alcohol and non alcohol are Noth drinks, there are just some that are age appropriate and some that aren't. Kind of like books, but books are far, far more accessible and less strictly regulated, even when they're pulled from school libraries.

They're a problem now because literal pornographic images and descriptions were found in some books in some school libraries, and when it was called to attention, the left doubled-down and tried to gaslight people by saying it wasn't happening. The problem was, it *was happening, there was proof, and images and passenges were leaked.

Now, I think we've got an overreach problem, but don't get it wrong, this was absolutely a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just remove anything pornographic and we would have been good.

So, like, also the Bible right?

Depending on the version, sure.

Is there a version that leaves out the 'let's rape Dad to get preggers' story?

Sounds more like conservative thinking is so shitty they have to ignore the thinking part entirely for people to follow it

What on earth is wrong with Where The Wild Things Are? Sure it's got some monsters in it but so does Florida. It's mostly a book about friendship.

Seriously it's like Texas and Florida are having an idiot contest to see who can be the bigger bunch of lunatics.

A book that teaches it's okay to be friends with those different than you doesn't jive with the in-group mentality of Conservatives. After all, if you did so, you might find that gasp! they are people too!

I suspect it has more to do with the author than the content of the book. What kind of Floridian would you be raising if there's a chance they might admire a gay Jew?

I bet many of these removed books won't be noticed if they were let alone. People overestimate the knowledge of other people.

Gee it's almost like we need some goddamn freeze peach in the place.

It's shit that shitty people say shitty things, and the urge to stop them from doing so is understandable.

But freedom of speech - as a general principle, not just the legal interpretation of the US constitutional amendment - saves us from a lot worse.

Once you start poking holes in it, you start getting this kind of bullshit: being prevented from saying good things, or from calling out shitty things.

What was absolute has become negotiable, and shitty people don't negotiate in bad faith; almost by definition, they have fewer scruples than you., and will ruthlessly and cynically exploit any edge they can lever up.

They will abuse their power against you,, while giving themselves a free ride. That's why it always had to be a seamless, all-encompassing 'no, fuck off', no matter what the provocation.

But now -

Fools. God damn fools.

As long as it's just expelled from school libraries, I'm okay with that.

Regular libraries is way different though. If my kid wants to read a book and it's not offered at the school library, I'm more than willing to take them to the regular library and get it.

From what I've read, these books aren't banned in regular libraries, just in school libraries, right?

School libraries are libraries. Children without parents like yourself will never see those. What kind of "I got mine" world are you people living in.

Yes, they're both libraries. Thats the overall category. Then, they're split into other categories, two of which being school libraries and public libraries.

Do you think that just anyone off the street should be able to walk into a school library like they can a public library? Because that's the same argument. They're both libraries after all. ಠ_ಠ

Wow, that's the flimsiest straw man I've seen in a while. You've gotta be dumber than I thought to think you're making a point.

That's a privileged statement - many don't have the choice of regularly accessing multiple libraries (due to lack of supply or transportation). For some, the school library is THE library.

Also why would you EVER want to hinder a child that's actually intellectually curious and ready to learn (in that magical and increasingly rare moment) to say, "No, you have to find a way to go to another place and maybe they'll have it". They may also walk away feeling judged and othered and avoid seeking that literature, as some children are very sensitive to perception by others.

You just don't have a defensible position as considered by any rational adult. Both of these are public institutions, school libraries should have the same books that a city library would stock for the age ranges of a given school - there is no functional difference. Your "only banned in schools though right?" statement suggests that you REALLY need to go read the poem, "first they came for..."

You're unquestionably wrong, there's no ambiguity there, just hopeful that you can realize that in time and evolve forward - your kids are watching and learning from how you approach these things.

We need to educate kids about sex. Otherwise bad actors will take advantage of them and/or they grow up unhealthily.

We do it with hetero themes all the time. E.g. in Shrek they get married and donkey/dragon have babies. In Cinderella they get married. They give baby dolls to young girls. A common question for 5 year olds to ask is where babies come from.

WE don't need to do anything, it's up to individual parents on how they choose to teach their kids about sex.

Pornography and sex are different, and the removal from schools is a reaction to pornograhy being found in some books offered in school libraries, which I think were appropriate for removal.

The problem came when people doubled down and insisted that pornographic images weren't being found. That left an opening for right-wing outlets to point out that not only was it there, but that people were outright denying it.

What we have now is an overreach. There are certainly age-appropriate books that have characters who aren't straight being pulled, which u agree is bad, but those books are still plenty available in libraries, where... gasp children can still learn about sex, however their parents find appropriate.

I think representation is good in school libraries, but not PORNOGRAPHIC representation. This isn't a hard concept to grasp, and the left dug themselves a big hole for conservatives to fill by literally trying to gaslight what was found.

Everything you listed is fine, and it would be fine if donky and dragon were both men and they adopted babies. It wouldn't be fine if donky put on a strap on and dragon blew him. One version is kid friendly, the other one isnt.

Pornography - ie images designed to arouse sexual desire - is not the same as the discussion or even depiction of sex in every regard.

You can read something like "It takes some couples up to two years of trying to conceive to get pregnant" without becoming aroused.

Same as you can look at a picture of how the testes connects to the urethra without getting a boner.

However, you can look at a fully clothed person in a sexy outfit (eg pin up girl) and know it is pornography - even if extremely softcore and mild.

It is for the most part a deliberate red herring to discus pornography being displayed in schools because, even if the material is describing accurately the process of sex, even within a narrative, it is likely, if aimed at young adults, more designed to answer common questions and show representation than it is to stoke their lust.

Any attempt to classify pornography is instantly met with Diogenes' plucked chicken: Behold — a porno!

Children aren’t property, parents don’t get to dictate their interests. If you don’t like a book, you don’t have to read it. If a parent doesn’t like a book in a library, they don’t have to read it. They do not however have the right to restrict what content is available for everyone else.