I feel like there needs to be a kickstarter-like page for these kinds of things. Where people who aren’t bigots can kick in 5 bucks towards things like libraries and reading programs that get gutted in this way.
Christ, what an asshole.
Sign me up.
Maybe just send a few books to the school, or donate directly from their webpage. You can specify what you want to support.
Uh… shabby totalitarian minded bible thumping rednecks?
My daughter’s college (Lawrence University in Wisc.) had Fun Home in their Freshman Studies curriculum, everyone on campus read it. It’s a great introduction to graphic novels and graphic autobiography. I think Persepolis and Blankets would be two other fantastic choices.
That’s… that’s… I don’t even know what to say. The way America funds their schools has always confused me, but this is just bizarre.
Things couldn’t be more different here in Finland. When I was 14, we watched a Swedish movie called Fucking Åmål (it even has a swear word in the title - gasp!) at school. It’s about two teen girls who fall in love. It was especially important for me because I was just coming to terms with my bisexuality.
I think books and movies about sexuality and gender should be essential at school. It helps people understand and accept diversity and helps LBGT teens accept themselves.
This speaks volumes about Representative Garry Smith’s own “education” and his desire to propagate that same mis-education to everyone else.
Other than being a tiny minded bigot with an agenda, I am confused as to what exactly this morons credentials are to allow him to assess if the work was worth scholarly attention. Or did he get a word of the day calendar and is trying to make it appear that there is a real issue beyond lesbians being icky if it isn’t an anecdote in a letter to penthouse?
Money has been put where my mouth is. For reference, the name of the program in question is “The College Reads!”, and the college’s donation page is at https://giving.cofc.edu/donate
A fear-based bias he wants everyone else to have.
Sadly, I think THAT is exactly why they don’t want this book to be read by college students… not only will it help LBGT come to terms with themselves, but it will help non-LBGT kids accept them, too.
It’s a stupidly frustrating mindset, but that’s how they are thinking, honestly. It’s very sad, because it’s hard enough growing up, and doubly hard when you are told the way that you feel and who you are is just bad and wrong. I do think reactionaries like this are clearly starting to be on the losing end of this battle, and this is probably why they are doing such things, because they KNOW they are losing.
This is tangentially related, and really could probably accommodate something like you suggested, but at the moment they only do K-12:
It is a kickstarter-like funding system for classrooms and teachers who can’t get funding for cool educational things, usually because they are in high poverty districts, but not always.
I ran into them when a biology teacher couldn’t get funding for a few teaching/demonstration microscopes for her classroom.
I don’t get it. How is he related to this story at all?
If there’s any positive to this, it’s that this publicity will drive Bechtel’s book sales and more will be exposed to this book than would have otherwise, if the program had quietly continued, undisturbed by the not atypical South Carolinian display of derangement.
Donating will feel good, but the knuckle-dragger’s position is that LGBT issue should not be publicly funded. A private donation could be viewed as support for that position. Uncomfortable fact, but there it is.
Volunteer funding for libraries is a nice idea, but it’s treating the symptoms instead of curing the illness.
What we really need to be doing is stopping people from gutting libraries. It boggles my mind that people who actively work to damage and destroy public education systems in deference to greed, religion, warfare, and the like aren’t tried for crimes against humanity.
Some bored schmoe passes the time by smoking a joint (because fuck it, what else are they going to do - read a book from the shuttered library?), gets stopped by a cop and locked away in a cell for a decade or two. Meanwhile, the politicians pushing their insane personal agendas not only walk free, but live high on the hog, sleeping like a baby every night. Disgusting, ain’t it?
I’m here to second the choice of Persepolis. Great stuff.
