On the fight against wokeness – Ari Paul in Haaretz:
‘A schools leader in Texas told educators that teaching a book about the Holocaust should be balanced with an "opposing" point of view. A Republican lawmaker in Indiana had to apologize for insisting that teachers do not "take a position" on Nazism and instead be "impartial."
These ‘blunders’ sound comical until you realize what the Republican right wants to codify. Florida is considering a bill that would prohibit making white students feel "discomfort" when teaching about past racial discrimination. There are numerous bills that would ban "divisive concepts" in schools.
Georgia’s board of education resolved to ban "divisive ideologies" in schools. Florida, which has a Republican governor, moved to bar its public university professors from testifying against the state’s policy interests and the state mandates its colleges and universities survey students and faculty about their political opinions. Wisconsin Republican lawmakers sought to ban wordslike "white supremacy" and "structural racism" from schools and Texas lawmakers have been critical of books that touch on racism and sexism being available on the shelves of school libraries.’
(…)
‘The right’s focus on schools as a point in the culture war isn’t new. There was a time cultural conservatives focused on claiming that only teaching evolution was an affront to Christian "creationism." A substitute teacher in New Jersey was terminated for telling students that Santa Claus didn’t exist – perhaps not the jolliest thing to do during the holidays, but is nonetheless a true fact. Fear of enforced secularism in schools once animated the American cultural right. Now it is fear of enforced anti-racism.
Maybe the Tennessee school board will change its mind under the pressure of such widespread criticism and let 'Maus' back into the schools. In any case, the fact that sales of the book soared after the news broke leaves open hope that humanity can find a way around censors.
That’s a good start, but anyone who cares about free speech and the ability to teach about racial and religious injustice should organize broadly against these types of laws, whether that means defeating them at the state level, or planning for mass civil disobedience and litigation if and when they are implemented. Because the 'Maus' case is just a test of what’s to come.’
Read the article here.
White supremacy might be used frivolously now and then, but this article shows where the fight against it is heading.
I remember that not too long ago ‘The Tin Drum’ was banned in Texas. In other words, this is not a new development.
The idea of a safe space, whether it comes from the right or the left, is always an underestimation of human resilience and an attempt at silencing voices that one side considers undesirable, voices that for many reasons should not be silenced.
If the highest goal you have in life is to not offend others one day you cannot teach about the Holocaust anymore out of fear to offend the Nazi’s.
Viet Thanh Nguyen just wrote an interesting piece in the NYT about why we should not ban books, and what we can expect from books and what not. For example, that a reader just remembers the scene in which the main character had sex with a squid, that's what you can expect and it might be enough.
It cannot be repeated enough, where literature becomes a straightforward moral lesson literature dies.
‘“Honestly,” she said, “all I remember is when the sympathizer has sex with a squid.” Mission accomplished.’
Read the article here.