Tampa Bay Times columnist Stephanie Hayes wrote a terrific column about Florida’s thought police banning Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.” Here’s a link, but it’s probably behind a paywall. Excerpt below:
“The Bluest Eye,” published in 1970, is the latest casualty in a wave of American anti-intellectualism hitting particularly hard in Florida. Supporters of such measures would call it a win against wokeness, increasingly Batman villain code for anything that attempts to recognize the experience of people who aren’t straight and white.
On Tuesday — in the middle of Florida’s Literacy Week, no less — district officials announced they were “erring on the side of caution” due to the novel’s sexual content and dark themes. This is because one parent at Palm Harbor University High complained. For the record, it’s not like any minors were Clockwork Oranged into reading it. Parents of students in that advanced literature class were informed about the content and offered an alternate book.
But this “removal” isn’t about one novel, is it? This is about sowing mistrust in educators, destabilizing the public school system and pushing parents toward privatization. In perhaps the greatest irony, it’s about erasing uncomfortable truths in favor of a sanguine and simplified view of reality.
Yep. As I’ve shared here perhaps too often, I feel sick and disgusted and beaten-down by what’s happening around me in a state that I love despite its many flaws, and there’s a danger in that. Hayes recognizes the hazard, noting that the “challenge now is to avoid shutting down, numbing out and looking away.”
Her solution? She’s buying copies of “The Bluest Eye” and leaving them in “Little Free Library” book boxes in Pinellas County, where the school district just banned the book. Hayes, who feels a personal connection to Morrison because they grew up in the same Ohio town, looks to the Nobel Prize winner for inspiration and gives Morrison the last word in this quote from “The Bluest Eye:”
“Anger is better. There is a sense of being in anger. A reality and presence. An awareness of worth. It is a lovely surging.”
Better anger than despair. Better action than resignation. I’m not sure my little town has anything as civilized as free book boxes, but maybe it’s time to start one? Advice welcome!*
Open thread.
*I live so far in the boonies that a free library on my property would be pointless — many days the US mail truck is the only vehicle that passes our gate. But maybe I can liaise with some local Democrats who live in town and who might be willing to host the book box in their yard? Even though it might attract unwelcome attention? I don’t know how this works, but I do recall reading about others here with little libraries, so please share strategies and tactics if you’re so inclined!
Is more choice better on the ACA marketplaces?
Parfigliano
Get out of FL if you can. I will just continuing to avoid it in all aspects.
Josie
The private institution that we take my autistic granddaughter to for therapy has one of these. It’s a box raised above the ground with a lift up front and books inside for the children. There may be such privately owned businesses that would permit you to put one on their property. I don’t see how the state could object to something on private property. Famous last words, right?
PaulWartenberg
Palm Harbor University High?!?!
That’s the IB school, the one meant for teens to get credit to apply for the elite universities of the world.
AND THEY ARE BANNING A NOBEL PRIZE NOVELIST.
What the absolute HELL, Palm Harbor?! That’s the town where I grew up. I didn’t go to high school there – it was before PHU was built, I went to Tarpon Springs instead – but I know the community. It’s a bunch of upper-income suburbs built up during the 1980s, and apparently now home to all the north Pinellas Karens looking to complain to managers about shit.
I hope to GOD the local public libraries are ordering multiple copies of every book getting taken out of the schools. Fight the fuck back, readers.
Bill Arnold
Is it legal to distribute lists of banned books? That’s pretty low cost; e.g. a list of the 30 most popular banned books, in a large font, on a single piece of paper.
Also, is The Bible legal in schools?
Bill Arnold
LOL. Change in NYTimes headline, via https://twitter.com/nyt_diff (worth an occasional look)
to
Entirely removed Durham from the headline. Presuming that somebody didn’t like Durham’s abject partisan work being described as such in a headline.
Betty Cracker
@Parfigliano: I get that advice every time I write about the shitty things happening in Florida. It’s not an option for us for lots of reasons, including that we’ve got elders to look after.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
Here is a link with a lot of information, We have several of these in my town including on on the grounds of one of the small art galleries Little Free Library
From their What we do page: (obviously number 5 not applicable in the case of Florida…)
eclare
Looking back on what we read in AP English in 1986, probably half the books and plays would be banned. I don’t remember my parents ever taking an interest in what exactly I was taught. They looked at report cards and went to school events, but poring over every book to check for a wokeness quotient? Nope. They had their own books to read.
Scout211
I have been searching for a clear description of “wokeness” and this seems the best one I have seen.
The “woke” library book scam is beyond depressing. I feel bad for the students, bad for the teachers and bad for the parents.
I hope the tide turns soon because the same yahoos that cried “hands off my healthcare” are coming in hot to put their hands on children’s education and intellectual development.
Alison Rose
Similar to how they act as though they have to ban CRT for TEH CHILDRENZ, when it’s graduate-level work. Yes, The Bluest Eye has some tough themes and elements, but it’s not a book that’s gonna show up on a 2nd grade syllabus, FFS. It’s typically given to high schoolers (fucking wish it had been in any of my classes, we read almost exclusively dead white men) and they are absolutely capable of handling the subject matter. More so than some adults, it appears.
lowtechcyclist
Vying with National Brotherhood Week for most ironic title, I assume.
Dorothy A. Winsor
You can donate books to shelters too. My publisher does that with their LGBTQ books. Kids in shelters sometimes need those
Mike in NC
We need to touch base with our friends in Tampa and see if their house has sold yet. They’re chomping at the bit to go back to western North Carolina where they grew up. That way they can visit us at the beach while we visit them in the mountains.
SpaceUnit
Florida folks pay a steep price in order to pretend they’re living in a Jimmy Buffett song.
lowtechcyclist
@Bill Arnold:
Good question, there are certainly a fair number of stories in the Bible that aren’t safe for work, let alone schools.
Lot’s daughters taking turns getting the old man drunk and having sex with him, for instance. Genesis 19.
Lapassionara
I just saw where Trump has promised that, if he is elected president again, every school parent will get to participate in an election for their school’s principal, every year. The mind boggles.
topclimber
@Betty Cracker: Maybe you could share your 10 favorite things about living in Florida. That’s 10 times more than this insider can come up with as potential ones, (the one being, I am glad I don’t).
Five is OK too…or three…or one.
ETA Outsider
Delk
Ronna re-elected.
Flanders Other Neighbor
Little Libraries are super-cool. Here in the Berkeley area, they’re everywhere. We left a few minutes early for school today, and not wanting to try to figure out what to do with an extra five minutes (the horror) we stopped at one so my daughter could take a look. She was hoping to find a copy of Fight Club since she seems to have lost hers last week at school. Great way to get rid of books, too.
cckids
Lol, so true. My parents were not readers; but they raised readers, I truly almost never was asked what I was reading. I read Wuthering Heights when I was in 3rd grade; wildly inappropriate & weird, but it had no lasting affect.
How do people stay so irritated and afraid all the time? Do they have no actual problems in their lives? Lucky bastards.
JCJ
“Anger is a gift” – Zach de la Rocha, Freedom, Rage Against the Machine
Betty Cracker
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Thank you for that link! There are several within reasonable driving distance.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker: I don’t have the excuse of elders here in dead red Tennessee but I ain’t leaving. There’s much to love and flight is giving up. We were once a proudly progressive (in a middle of the road kind of way) state. We may not be again in my lifetime but it can happen.
Martin
So, this does get pushed against in unexpected ways. My city’s school district builds their reading lists around banned books for grades 7-12. They’re very proud of it, in fact, and it’s more common than you might think, though not always as broadly done. So for every headline you see of a school banning this book, there’s dozens that will add it to their reading lists in return. There are never fewer people reading a banned book. It always boosts readership.
I can also confirm there have been movements within the college admissions communities to respond to these measures. You can’t teach critical thinking if nobody is allowed to read critical topics or have discussion around them and critical thinking is one of the things admissions is trying to draw out in the personal statement. These moves are probably already seeing some cost to students in Florida getting into certain schools. Florida risks that growing, though.
One of the big things that got Kansas to back down on their creationism curriculum they passed in 2005 was that University of California wrote to the governor and legislature and informed that that UC was not obligated to recognize their science classes as meeting the CA state requirements for admission and was considering deeming all Kansas students as being unqualified for admissions without a college level biology class. That standard was repealed in 2007.
There is zero chance UC admissions isn’t at least discussing doing this with Florida. Almost certain that inside the College Board there are discussions with regard to how to handle this with AP English Lit. The whole point of AP courses is that they are supposed to be college level, which is incompatible with content restrictions on what can be read.
trollhattan
“Mistakes were made.” Loves me some passive voice.
Why Mother did not simply make him clean up his room, remains unknown.
Matt McIrvin
@Bill Arnold: There’s a popular wingnut belief that the Bible is banned from schools. Of course, the ban on teacher-led school prayer doesn’t prevent anyone from teaching the Bible as literature, but these people may not like the results. It’d be hilarious if their own bans end up actually making it forbidden, though.
Cameron
@PaulWartenberg: If they can take books they don’t like out of public schools, they can take them out of public libraries.
Amir Khalid
@Delk:
Oh, poop. I was hoping (for admittedly malicious reasons) that Mike Lindell would win.
Betty Cracker
@Lapassionara: He has no idea how schools work, does he? Good gravy, what a moron. Sounds desperate to me, like he wants to outflank DeSantis on the public school demagoguery.
Ken
I just moved back to FL after 25 years in Montana. Love FL. Look at what is happening in MT. You cannot just up and move, especially if you want some non-winter weather. Bloom where you are planted my mom said. I do what I can, give money where I can. I have no influence. Gainesville is a blue spot, but it contains its own challenges. I want a Dem party in the whole state. Not sure who to look to for that, but there is a whole lot of people out here that do not agree with the direction of FL, to say it nicely. Hoping DeSatan shows his ass to enough of the country. This last election sure wasn’t what they expected. Oh, and be positive. We are aspirational Democrats. My glass is half full! I don’t live in fear!
trollhattan
@PaulWartenberg: Palm Harbor has to be the name of a yacht rock cover band.
Betty Cracker
@HinTN: I understand. The truth is, I’ll stay regardless. I briefly achieved escape velocity once in my 20s but came back. For a whole bunch of reasons, it’s home in a way no other place possibly could be, and I refuse to be driven out by tinhorn fascist pricks.
Scout211
Remember this?
Cameron
@Martin: That might explain the assault on FL public universities (I assume the buggering of New College is only the opening round). They’ll be the only ones that will accept FL high school grads. Get a stupid diploma, go to a stupid university. All have lost and none will get prizes.
Matt Smith
Thanks for sharing this. I’m originally from that town in Ohio too. I went to Masson Elementary, the school that was later renamed to honor Toni Morrison. Excited to see another Lorainite representing!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@topclimber: In the next thread, Cole says he just got the best massage of his life in West Palm (I think)
eclare
@HinTN: Same here in TN CD-9.
Bill Arnold
@lowtechcyclist:
There may be a need for one or more Redacted Bibles, with the forbidden-by-State-law sections redacted.
In the spirit of the Slave Bibles:
Why Bibles Given to Slaves Omitted Most of the Old Testament – The so-called “Slave Bible” told of Joseph’s enslavement but left out the parts where Moses led the Israelites to freedom.
UncleEbeneezer
@Martin: I hope they craft a strategy like this regarding history curricula in these Deep Red states too.
WaterGirl
@Delk: I haven’t been paying any attention to that. Does that mean the Trump wing of the RNC won, or the even crazier wing?
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: You might want too be prepared to replace the copies constantly, because surely the crazies will be removing any banned books constantly.
You just have to be more stubborn than they are. Of course, you have right on your side, so my money is on you.
Bill Arnold
@WaterGirl:
A webcam set to record/email motion might be helpful to discourage thieves. Or even a dummy camera. (e.g. search Amazon for dummy camera for sample images of what is available.)
Old School
@WaterGirl:
Ronna McDaniel won with 111 votes. California attorney Harmeet Dhillon came in second with 51 votes and MyPillow’s Mike Lindell received four votes.
I’m not going to try to rank the craziness.
WaterGirl
@Bill Arnold: Excellent idea!
cope
@topclimber: Though I was born and raised in many places that were not Florida, my wife and I lived in Central Florida for 33 years. I hated it at first but finally realized we would be there for a while and I better make the most of it. My top ten for the state is limited to only the things I actually did or experienced. Not in order, the top ten things I will miss about Florida:
The wide variety of birds that live or pass through there.
Snorkeling in a gin clear spring.
Reeling in a yellow-fin tuna while being tossed around in a 19′ boat, 22 miles offshore.
Watching and photographing launches of space shuttles and later SpaceX and other rockets from my backyard, 50 miles away.
Kayaking amongst gators and birds, otters and snakes and fish and turtles.
Endless hours of walking the beaches of Sanibel Island, collecting shells.
The large manta that swam under me while I was snorkeling off the shores of Seacamp on Big Pine Key with a fellow science teacher.
Exhilarating airboat rides that we would take out-of-state visitors on.
Tracking the path of a hurricane with my students, always wondering if it might be “the one”.
Staying in the primitive cabins in the state park that is Cayo Costa and only accessible by boat.
Yes, it is easy to find unpleasant things about in the state we just left. I spent 33 years doing that but like Betty, family kept us there. Now, that’s not the case so my wife and I have moved back to where my family is. Still, if one can look past the mushrooming growth, tourists, clueless drivers and theme parks, Florida has its share of worthwhile attractions.
J R in WV
I once saw a manta ray jump out of the ocean in front of our 19′ outboard off Key West. It was bigger than the boat. Snorkeled and scuba dived in the reefs south of Key West, down between cliffs of multicolored coral with fans and sponges and all manner of fixed sea life. Was wonderful, hard to believe really.
This was 1970-71 — no telling what those reefs are like today, but they were like another world back then. I was used to murky rivers and farm ponds, clear ocean water was so cool. Key West was not a cruise ship stop back then, the port was the Navy base. I got my scuba gear from a shipmate for $75. Got my air next door at the Coast Guard station. Read the US Navy Diver’s Manual cover to cover, went for it. Never had any trouble.
Would love to boat on that river Betty lives by some day, in the early spring, before it gets steaming hot.
Ohio Mom
The Brooklyn Public Library has a program where they make e-copies of banned books available to students all over the country. If I lived in Florida, I would be tempted to print up stickers with the details and surreptitiously place them where high school students would see them — for example, on utility poles at school bus stops.
No parent or teacher will know what they are reading on their phones or other screens; carrying around a real book might be asking for trouble.
On the topic of living in Florida, I can see why it is home to Betty. In addition to the family members she has obligations to, her house is located in an absolutely gorgeous spot, it’s the kind of location people pay money to vacation in.
Now I could not live in Florida, or a host of other places, not enough (or none) services and supports for Ohio Son. Some days I am very tired of southwest Ohio but this is a good place for him, so here I will stay.
Old School
JPL
@Old School: Good!
HumboldtBlue
WaterGirl
@Old School: I have no idea whether a 7-year sentence is long or a short, or standard, for causing someone’s death.
But at least it’s not a slap on the wrist.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: They couldn’t charge him for causing Officer Sicnick’s death because the autopsy was ruled that he died by natural causes. Link
. . .
. . .
Another Scott
@Old School: I heard a bit of the nomination speech for Lindell on C-Span radio on the way home. It was, er, something else. All the buzzwords you might imagine, including “lives, fortunes, and sacred honor”. She was laying it on thick and heavy.
I’m surprised that he got so few votes. If the GQP insiders can resist all that nonsense, there’s hope for the rest of them. But only if their stupid party stands up to the monsters. If there are no consequences inside their party for the insanity and the insurrection and all the rest, then the monsters will keep doing what they’ve been doing.
We’ll see!
Cheers,
Scott.
kalakal
@PaulWartenberg: The local library system PPLC (Pinellas Public Library Collective) shares books across the county library systems – there are 27 copies not counting ebooks – there are 3 available currently – the rest are checked out or on hold – that’s very high for a 50 year old book. If I was at work I could tell you if it’s a sudden jump
H-Bob
Suggest to the school librarians who are forced to remove books from classrooms and libraries to make those books available to anyone with one of those free book libraries.
Stevie
There are several little free libraries in my area. My neighbors across the street have put one in. I have put books in there and I think I’m going to buy some banned books to put in.
There are also little free pantries around my area and a different neighbor fills two of them once a week. I really love living in a blue state.
topclimber
@cope: A great list. But I can’t help it is heavy on wildlife and short on humans (small/s).
kalakal
@topclimber:
My favourite things about living in Florida.
Florida can be stunningly beautiful and has some amazing fauna & flora.
In my lunch breaks I walk down to the marina where everyday I see Pelicans, Cormorants, Egrets, Herons, Ospreys, Gulls, Terns, and my favourites, Anhingas.
Often see Dolphins, Manatees, and Mantas, Bonnetheads, as well as smaller stuff like Sheepsheads & Pinfish. The view across the intercoastal waterway is lovely.
The butterflies are stunning, Zebras, Monarchs, Frittilaries, and Swallowtails.
It’s great to see a lot of plants that I used to struggle to grow indoors in colder climes growing properly*. Palms, Dracaena, Bromeliads, Orchids, Strelitzia, Tibuchinas etc etc
There are some terrific public parks., city/county & state
Kayaking, sailing, diving etc.
I like warm climates, I do not miss drizzle and November skies. West Central Florida isn’t that hot, tops out in the nineties, but gets very humid in summer, late fall to spring it’s perfect.
The Everglades
Kennedy Space Center
The Spring driven rivers, eg Rainbow & Crystal
I love Seafood
Some pretty good galleries & museums locally, the Dali, Chihuly etc and you get to chat to Clyde Butcher if you want**
I live in Pinellas County which is a bit weird, it’s a giant suburb, endless ranch houses so the architecture is dull and with a couple of exceptions*** no real central social points like a town centre – this is not optimal
* of course now I miss all the things I used to grow in colder climes
** I do, he’s a very nice guy as well as very talented
***Dunedin, St. Pete, Safety Harbor
Gvg
@EmbraceYourInnerCrone: honestly it’s the rich white suburbs that need these books. I suspect the poor areas children and adults already know this books truths. Slightly different strategy needed. Though I do like little free libraries or just funding public libraries better in general in normal and poor areas.
VOR
@PaulWartenberg: Both of my children went through the IB program. Each time, there were maybe 12-15 people in their cohorts out of a graduating class of 400+. I can guarantee there are a lot of parents whose children are not in the IB program and think it is a waste of taxpayer money.
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: Is there a UCC or Presbyterian or Methodist or Episcopalian church in your area that might be receptive to establishing a free lending library? In my area, it’s the churches that have such things as well as “take what you need” food pantries.
Starfish
If you know anyone who lives near a school or a park that gets a lot of foot traffic, that will be a good spot. Also, when people stuff your box full of Jebus literature, be sure to throw that stuff out to make room for real books. Someone had put a HUGE book about Billy Graham in the Little Free Library in our park. We were going to add more books, and there was not enough space for all the books. We took the very large Billy Graham book home to throw it away.
Betty Cracker
@kalakal: I grew up alongside the Crystal River. Back then, it was so astonishingly clear! Heart-stoppingly cold in the summer and warm in the winter. Once I saw a yellow #2 pencil on the bottom of the river that someone had dropped off a boat (presumably) next to the main spring. It was 65 feet down, and you could see the label on it. In the winter, manatees would come to gnaw the seaweed off your anchor line. Completely magical. You have to experience it to understand it. It’s impossible to explain.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Ah, I had forgotten that twist.