Kansas School District Bans Pulitzer Prize-winning Books
Credit: Getty Images
November 11, 2021

The assault on education by the right wing lunatics is in full swing since the GOP believes this is a good election strategy.

First, wingnut activists attacked school board meetings with bogus critical race theory nonsense and now they're banning award-winning books by well-known authors.

If Republicans are going to start banning books because of content too intense for the youth of this nation, you'd think it would be Henry Miller's "Tropic Of Cancer," maybe "Delta of Venus," or "50 Shades of Gray," maybe even "Lolita."

The rub is you never see any of these books in schools at all.

Instead, these wackos are banning Pulitzer Prize award-winning Fences by the incomparable August Wilson.

This is like a scene right out of Hulu's Handmaid's Tale. And guess what? Margaret Atwood's book is now on the chopping block, along with the sequel, Testament. and there is more: “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky.

You can see a pattern here because the books are mainly those of people of color with diverse background, or women.

Republicans don't even hide their racism, misogny and homophobia any longer.

Get ready for book burning ceremonies to start at Evangelical colleges first.

Here is the full list of the 29 books ordered to be removed from circulation in Goddard school libraries.

It's not just Kansas. In Virginia, one school district is hard at work removing "sexual content" from their libraries.

Two board members, Courtland representative Rabih Abuismail and Livingston representative Kirk Twigg, said they would like to see the removed books burned.

“I think we should throw those books in a fire,” Abuismail said, and Twigg said he wants to “see the books before we burn them so we can identify within our community that we are eradicating this bad stuff.”

What is it they want burned? And why?

The mother said during public comments that she was initially alarmed by “LGBTQIA” fiction that she said was immediately made available upon accessing the library app. After doing more research, she discovered a book in the collection that she found more upsetting.

The book, “33 Snowfish” by Adam Rapp, concerns three homeless teenagers attempting to escape from pasts that include sexual abuse, prostitution and drug addiction.

Publisher’s Weekly described “33 Snowfish,” which the American Library Association named a Best Book for Young Adults in 2004, as a “dark tale about three runaways who understand hatred and violence better than love” and noted “readers may have trouble stomaching the language” and the subject matter.

In Texas, Greg Abbott is on the warpath:

The day before, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) issued an executive order calling on state education officials to review the books available to students for “pornography and other obscene content.” Abbott indicated before the order that such content needed to be examined and removed if it was found. He reportedly did not specify what the “obscene content” standard for books should be.

Abbott added Wednesday that the Texas Education Agency should report any instances of pornography being made available to minors “for prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.”

Is Abbott going to ban the internet too? Because those minors looking for pornography aren't looking in school libraries.

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