Yeah, once again I had to check if it was The Onion. Because that is way too believable in Abbott’s TX. Satire is truly dead…
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Same guys who want Maus banned. They need a reason to ban it, so they find one. Because they can’t give the actual reason, which is “they make Nazi’s look bad.”
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Actually I disagree with the idea that parents should be entitled to control what their children are taught. Children are people, they have their own life they need to prepare for. It seems to me a basic right to be able to learn how your body works, for example. There should be a good quality curriculum that every school uses as a minimum. The current state of culture war in the US prevents this, of course.
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A carry-over from the days of children being chattel. Also the glorification of rugged individualism. Plenty of people in America are very anti-society, when society means considering the needs and viewpoints of others. The whole thing is very fucked up.
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These are all codes. “Parental rights” = “I, and not educational experts, should determine my and everyone else’s children’s curriculum”. “School choice” = “The state should pay for whatever religious and/or uncertified private or home school to which I wish to send my children.”. As discussed elsewhere, their use of the terms “freedom” and “liberty” and “life” also have very different meanings for them than those we’re used to.
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It’s not even a question of parents being able to control what their kids are taught. This whole movement is about being able to control what other parents kids are taught. Gotta keep those “less-thans” in their place, donchaknow?
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China has been very successful at implementing the surveillance state and management of the cultural mindset. The US seems to have a faction of citizenry that’s trying to implement the same sort of thing.
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The UK is the U.S.'s test market for the technology and what the authorities can get away with in that regard.
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I cite this not as a “well, actually” but as an emphasis of your point. I’ve been to this site and seen the reaction of other people there. Cartoonish jaw dropping is the standard response:
https://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5374039.pdf
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7th grade where I grew up, and it was a mandatory book within the curriculum.
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If she was old enough LIVE it, they’re old enough to read it.
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unfortunately, that’s a bad metric as many bad things can happen to young children, and learning about those things at a young age can be unnecessarily traumatic.
however by eighth grade… kids are old enough to be learning about the holocaust, and well past the age when they need to be learning about their own body.
the “culture war” phrasing to me lends a “both sides” weight that doesn’t exist, and makes it seem like it’s all low stakes theoretical conflicts.
really on the one hand: we have people seeking to eliminate other groups from public life and even to physically harm them; and, on the other hand we have people trying to live their lives free from harm.
i don’t know what’s a better catchy phrase – but it’s not a war about culture, it’s actual attacks on people.
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How about “a war on culture?” (I believe I saw that suggested here on the BBS)
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If they’re so concerned about graphic genital descriptions, maybe someone should tell them about Ezekiel 23:20.
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it is better – but maybe it still hides that the target of the “war” is not just culture but real live people: often women, poc, trans and other lgbtq+ folks. the same way antisemitism isn’t just about jewish culture, it’s about jewish people existing at all.
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This reminds me that the movie Skokie came out when I was 14, and the school I attended saw fit to allow our English and History teachers to show it in class.
Come to think of it, they also showed The Day After in Science class.
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The term has been around since the 19th century, but in its current form it was popularised by that old fascist hatemonger Pat Buchanan during his run for President in the early '90s. That alone is enough to retire it, although the corporate media adores it.
It’s the current state of American conservatism – dominated as it is by Libertarianism, Xtianism, fascism, and bigotry – that keeps us as a society from having nice things.
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So I found a PDF copy somewhere to have an informed opinion. The whole excerpt about anatomy is completely text. There is a male/female symbol at the bottom with Anne and Peter portrayed on them, but other than that, there isn’t any sort of graphical representation of the passage.
The next page has a full page panel with no text and it looks like Anne lecturing Peter in a school setting, with her pointing at a projected image of a spiral, but again nothing even suggestive.
I have heard other people claiming there is a scene of molestation - there is not. There is a scene where Anne saying she saying she wanted to kiss one of her platonic girlfriends (which was in the book, though originally that part was left out in earlier editions) combined with text/image of her suggesting the two show each other their breasts (which I don’t think was in the book explicitly). And the next page saying she was in ecstasy every time she saw a female nude (like art nude), and " If only I had a girlfriend!" The extra details were added and not from the book, but again, there is no graphic representation. Nothing salacious or risque. Nothing pornographic like some people are accusing.
People really need to grow up. I am pretty sure the kids could handle this (if not 8th grade, certainly 9th grade, even if the adults can’t. Anne is at the same/similar age and they are both going through turbulent time of puberty - she just had the added tragedy of doing so in the middle of a war and genocide 
I hope to get to read the whole thing later. It looks well done.
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