Edmond Public Schools has petitioned the state’s Supreme Court to intervene in a dispute over efforts to ban two national bestselling books

Oklahoma’s State Superintendent Ryan Walters has already made headlines for sending context-free porn to his fellow lawmakers. He’s now accusing one of the school districts under his jurisdiction of supporting the exposure of children to what he describes as “pornography” in schools. What horrendous, degenerate, pornographic display of hedonism is Walters’ administration accusing teachers of hiding in libraries? Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, and Jeannette Walls’s memoir The Glass Castle.

Yesterday, Edmond Public Schools petitioned the state Supreme Court to rule on a threat from the Oklahoma Department of Education, headed by Walters, to remove the two books — or face consequences. The dispute between Walters and the school district is just the latest in a long list of culture war battles staked out by the “anti-woke,” porn-obsessed superintendent.

  • Gnome Kat@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    7 months ago

    Maybe Oklahoma schools should focus less on porn and focus more on preventing 16 yo trans kids from being brutally attacked and getting their head smashed into the ground repeatedly until they physically could not walk. Maybe they should have called an ambulance instead of waiting for the kid’s grandmother to take them to the hospital. Maybe instead of worrying about porn Oklahoma schools should be held responsible for the death of Nex Benedict who died the next day from brain trauma.

    Fascists need to be locked up for life

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      You say that as if Oklahoma schools wouldn’t go out of their way to encourage that sort of behavior.

    • captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Well they only consider one of those things to be harmful to children and for some reason it isn’t the child being murdered

  • NOT_RICK@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    You have to be a complete dipshit to find the Kite Runner offensive. Can’t speak to the Glass Castle as I haven’t read it but I’m going to go ahead and assume that book is fine too other than the threat of helping kids become independent thinkers.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      I haven’t read The Kite Runner, but I do know that it’s about a child and was on the NYT bestseller list for two years.

      I’m guessing this idiot is some QAnon crazy who thinks that the evil Marxist NYT is grooming children by making a book telling children to have consenting sex with adults a bestseller for two years.

      • Regna@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I have read The Kite Runner, and it contains situations involving manipulation and sexual abuse including rape. However hard it is to read in some parts (and especially if you’re grown and can read a lot into the obvious mental and physical abuse of children that perhaps isn’t always obvious to actual children), it is a damn good book showing life, love and hope from a non-western perspective.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          That doesn’t sound like something that would belong in an elementary school library, but I also doubt that it is in elementary school libraries. If it’s in schools at all, it’s probably in high school libraries, and high schoolers can handle that.

          I read The Handmaid’s Tale in high school. As you’re probably aware even if you haven’t read the book, seen the film or watched the TV series, the main character is raped over and over and it is legal and done with the government’s blessing. It didn’t traumatize me or turn me into a rapist or anything like that. Did it scare me? Sure. Because it was so plausible. But it should have scared me. That was the point.

          I had a friend in high school who loved Steven King. I’ve never read It or seen the movies, but I know the book has a child orgy scene. She wasn’t scarred by it. She’s a good and loving parent now. Steven King didn’t destroy her.

          And then, of course, there’s the fact that books with queer themes that don’t have anything sexual in them at all are also getting banned. Not to mention books about race. None of this is actually about protecting children.