The Cost of Being Right At Any Cost

I struggled with what to name this.

I started with something pithy like Just Say Gay Already, to reference the law that got us into this mess.  Or No More Words to reference the lack of books.

I then went to something angry and factual, like Life Under Fascism.   

I settled on a slight pun, but a sobering reality, for this image reflects the sad future coming to much of our country based on the trajectory of the laws that we are looking to pass.

“There must be something in books, things we can’t imagine, to make a woman stay in a burning house; there must be something there. You don’t stay for nothing.”

This photograph was taken on January 27 by Brian Covey, a substitute teacher at Mandarin Middle School in Duval County, Florida. He posted it as proof of a prior post that he had made where he told his followers that the district had removed every book from his children's classrooms.  This was a photo of all the fiction books removed from the library of the same school.

Covey has indicated the district was aware of the photograph when he posted it, and had never indicated it was a problem.  Covey, instead, had been recently praised in a staff meeting by the school principal for bringing order and stability to a previously unruly class of math students.

The was no issue with the photo until February 14, when reporters asked Governor DeSantis about it.  They specifically asked him about photos of "bookshelves empty" in schools.  DeSantis responded that this was a "false narrative" and not true.

The next day, Covey was fired in a 45-second phone call, for violation of the schools social media and cell phone policies and had been the subject of several complaints.

“A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” 

Representatives for the school have since described the video as manipulative and shown other "full" shelves in the library.  They have confirmed that the books were the school's fiction titles, but that they had been removed pending review by a media specialist, as required by the state's "curriculum transparency" law.  Each book is required to be reviewed to determine if it violates the states broad child pornography law and the new STOP Woke Act and Parental Rights in Education Act, i.e. the Don't Say Gay act.

This review has made more than 1.5 million books inaccessible to students in Duval County Public Schools.

Let that number sink in.  1.5 million books.  In one county's school system.  The entire media collection for the DCPS is around 1.6 million.  This put nearly 94% of the school system's books under review.

To make matters worse, though it is supposed to have many more media specialists, the school system currently only has 54.  54 people assigned to review 1.5 million books. That's 27,777 books a person to review.  

And if they get it wrong, they can lose their jobs, or, at worst and most crazily, face third-degree felony charges.  

No wonder it's moving so slow.  Up to February 17, the specialists had only reviewed 6,000 books and returned them to the schools.  Counting for 0.275% of the total in their review.  

A pittance.

And this is on top of their other responsibilities to the school like supporting teachers.  No, their time is now focused on reviewing all these books.

A wide variety of books.  While the image showed the fiction section, even non-fiction titles are still being held under review.  Books like:

• Roberto Clemente The Pride of The Pittsburgh Pirates
• Henry Aaron's Dream
• Unstoppable: How Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team Defeated Army
• Thank You, Jackie Robinson
• The Hero Two Doors Down: Based on the True Story of Friendship Between a Boy and a Baseball Legend
• Barbed Wire Baseball:  How One Man Brought Hope to the Japanese Interment Camps of WWII

Notice a pattern?

These were all books in the Essential Voices Library Collection, highlighting the stories of a variety of ethnic, religious, and gender minorities.

The thing is, it would be really, really surprising, if it wasn't so transparent.  DeSantis may claim the laws were designed to remove only the books that 99% of the public would oppose.  But anyone who actually read the bills could tell him this was what was going to happen.

It's a feature, not a bug.

Plus, this is only one county, one school system in Florida. 

It's happening all over the state.

“The books are to remind us what asses and fools we are.”

We often seem to forget the purpose of art, of literature.  While it exists for many functions, literature, like art, exists to hold a mirror to ourselves.  Literature is meant to push us.  To expose us to new opinions, new ideas, contrary opinions, contrary ideas.  It's meant to make us empathize with people we could never otherwise identify with.  It's meant to shock us.  And yes, it's even meant to offend us sometimes.

We are best served by a wide exposure to as much literature as possible.

Can we agree that there are somethings that should not be in an elementary school, a middle school, a high school library?  Of course.  There are such things as grade level appropriate. 

Remember, though, there are always those who read above grade level.  Who think above grade level.  Those who have life experiences that would not be deemed grade level appropriate.

Are we really so afraid of our students actually learning something and growing, that we will strip away all access to non-lowest common denominator information?  To only provide the most sanitized of sanitized material for our children?

I realize knowledge is a weapon.  

I just didn't realize we wanted our children un-armed.

“Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of ‘facts’ they feel stuffed, but absolutely ‘brilliant’ with information. Then they’ll feel they’re thinking, they’ll get a sense of motion without moving. And they’ll be happy, because facts of that sort don’t change. Don’t give them any slippery stuff like philosophy or sociology to tie things up with. That way lies melancholy."

Throughout this post, I've been including quotes from one of my favorite novels.  I read it in high school and it has continued to impact me since that first read.  I've read it multiple times since then and it continues to get more applicable, more prescient, and more frightening.

In Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury imagined a future in which books were burned.  There firefighters didn't stop fires; they started them, burning any books they found.  The masses were controlled by removing their access to information.  Or I should say, by removing access to information that the state didn't like.  The people had video walls full of information, enough to overwhelm the viewer.

Drowning in information for a lack of comprehension.

I wonder if my kids will have the experience of reading this book as part of their high school English curriculum.  Or will it be deemed to controversial?  

Too dangerous?

There are similar bills being discussed and enacted across the United States.  Here in Indiana.  In Texas.  And at least thirteen other states.

We're not to burning books, yet.

But it's hard to imagine a future with so many empty shelves.

With everything "pending review."

Maus

“I moved past total bafflement to trying to be tolerant of people who may possibly not be Nazis, maybe. Dammit I can’t believe the word ‘Damn’ would get the book jettisoned out of schools on its own, but that’s really where the genuine focus seemed to be.”

“I think they’re so myopic in their focus and they’re so afraid of what’s implied and having to defend the decision to teach Maus as part of the curriculum that it led to this daffily myopic response.”

“It has the breath of autocracy and fascism about it. I’m still trying to figure out how this could be… I think of it as a harbinger of things to come.”

Art Spiegelman on the banning of Maus

The seminal graphic novel Maus has been in the news a lot lately.  Usually, it's a cause for celebration when comics are being talked about to such a degree, but this time sadly, the attention comes from a moronically misguided decision by a Tennessee school board.  The McMinn County School board in Tennessee voted 10-0 in favor of banning the graphic novel from its schools.

Maus is not only widely regarded as one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, it is also considered one of the greatest books of the 20th century.   The novel, told in two parts, tells of author Art Spiegelman's father's experience as a Polish Jew during the Holocaust.  It tells the story through a bit of allegory, with mice representing the Jewish people, cats representing the Nazis, and ethnic Poles as pigs.  And the novel provides an unflinching portrayal of the horrors of the Holocaust.  A cartoonist by trade, Spiegelman preferred the comic form because it forced you to look.

Because it is an unsanitized account, the graphic novel does have eight mild curses and a small drawing of nude female mouse (a very small image of a mother in a bathtub having committed suicide by slitting her wrists).  The board cited the reasons, as well as mentions of murder, violence, and suicide as part of its decision. “The values of the county are understood. There is some rough, objectionable language in this book, and knowing that and hearing from many of you and discussing it, two or three of you came by my office to discuss that,” McMinn County Director of Schools Lee Parkison said during the board meeting.

"There's only one kind of people who would vote to ban Maus, whatever they are calling themselves these days."

Neil Gaiman, on Twitter in response

I shouldn't be surprised, but I always am.  This is just another part of the fear of education.  Make no mistake, there is a significant portion of us that is truly afraid of education.  Afraid of the power of education.  How it can affect people, how it can change them, how it can move us.  This is the same impetus behind the seditious parental voice in education laws, behind Iowa's proposal to add cameras to every school so parents can livestream their child's classroom.  It's behind the opposition to critical race theory, behind the Indiana laws requiring teachers not to comment on the morality of history or political positions, and to deny them the ability to ask a student's opinion on anything.

It denies that children have any independent value on their own.  They are merely an extension of their parents will.  And they are to be instructed in only what their parent wishes them to be instructed, so that they believe exactly as their parents believe.

A child cannot be allowed to have independent thought.  That would not do.  Because their mind might be changed.

To that end, teachers must be only babysitters.  They become extensions of the parent's in providing only the instruction on topics they agree to and with.  Children are clones to be programmed with that content.  And that content must be carefully screened.  Anything offensive, anything challenging, anything that doesn't fit the norm must be removed.

We know the truth, though.  History is never on the side of those who burn books.  They may have their time for a moment, but the truth will out.  And it would seem to be the definition of futility to ban books from a school library and curriculum when most of those kids have access to anything and everything in their pocket.  But then again, it's not about reality, it's about control.

It is a consolation that Maus has returned as the number one best seller on Amazon.  A nearby comic store in Knoxville offered to provide every student of the schools with a copy of the book.  More people are talking about Maus now, than they were just a few weeks ago.  And more people are talking about the Holocaust than they were a few weeks ago.

With that, maybe just maybe, we can learn from history.  And that can help keep us from repeating it.

“If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war. If the government is inefficient, top-heavy, and tax-mad, better it be all those than that people worry over it. Peace, Montag. Give the people contests they win by remembering the words to more popular songs or the names of state capitals or how much corn Iowa grew last year. Cram them full of noncombustible data, chock them so damned full of 'facts' they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information. Then they'll feel they're thinking, they'll get a sense of motion without moving. And they'll be happy, because facts of that sort don't change.”

Ray Bradury, Farenheit 451

Once Again, This Isn't How The First Amendment Works

Looks like 2021 is shaping up to be much like 2020.  Too much happening, delaying what I want to write about for what I need to write about.  And since it seems everyone has become a Constitutional scholar once again, I feel we need to have a discussion about how the First Amendment (and in fact, all of our Constitutional protections actually work).

For those who mercifully don't know, discussions of censorship and the First Amendment protection of free speech are popping up again because social media companies like Facebook, Reddit, and Twitter banned President Trump from their platforms as a result of Wednesday's insurrection at the Capital.  Tech companies like Apple and Google have gone further and removed or threatened to remove the social media site Parler from their app stores, unless the "unregulated" platforms put in some kind of content moderation.

This move has of course led to cries of censorship and a violation of the First Amendment Protection of Free Speech from those on the right.  There have been both calls to leave Twitter and to launch a Spartacus-like #WeAreTrump hashtag.  Hard to both leave and trend at the same time.

You can tell the Twitter ban particularly hurt Trump, especially when you view the timeline of his epic addict-like downward spiral yesterday.

It began when Twitter and Facebook immediately banned Trump on Thursday following his incitement of the protestors leading to the sacking of the Capital and the failed insurrection attempt.  Facebook's ban was almost immediately announced to be permanent.  Twitter's was initially a temporary suspension - a twelve-hour ban or cooling off period if you will.  

Once his twitter was reactivated, Trump sent out two since deleted tweets.  The first looked to the future, the second addressed the inauguration.

"The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future.  They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!" - January 8, 2021, 9:46 am

"To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th." - January 8, 2021, 10:44am

Emphasis mine.

Twitter decided in light of those two tweets and in light of Trump's half-hearted "concession" speech, to ban Trump indefinitely.

As part of Twitter's analysis, it feared Trump's most recent tweets were being interpreted as supporting the rioters and that plans for future armed protests had already been proliferating both on and off the platform, including a proposed attack on the U.S. Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17.  They also feared that Trump's announcement of his intent not to attend the Inauguration could be seen as free rein to attempt a second uprising at the Inaugural event.

Trump took the banning as well as any toddler who has been told no does.  Which is to say, it led to a desperate meltdown.

Trump first tried to tweet via the official President of The United States Twitter handle @POTUS.

Twitter quickly deleted those tweets as a violation

Trump was undeterred and moved to the TeamTrump twitter handle.

It too quickly joined the ban.

Trump then got Gary Coby, his Digital Director, to hand over his account and to rename it to Donald J. Trump, though the @GaryCoby still remained.  Through that account, Trump made it very clear who was tweeting, trying to reach out to Dan Scavino, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Communications and Director of Social Media.

Coby was then banned for a violation of their Enablement Policy.  Essentially a clause that prevents others from helping someone around a ban.

Trump's latest was to create a new handle @ThisIsPOTUS45, on which he tweeted "BIG CENSORSHIP FROM TWITTER! IT'S NOT OVER YET!" and including screen grabs of his previous attempts.

That didn't work either.

It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.  It reeks of an addict jonesing for his fix, desperate to send out another 140 character bon mot.  A cult leader who needs to be in constant touch with his followers to ensure that he maintains his grip on their reality.

And this is our president.  At least for a few days more.

This brings us to the cries of censorship and a violation of Free Speech and a necessary reminder as to why there is no actionable violation in all of this.  

First, yes, this is censorship, but that really doesn't matter.  Censorship isn't actionable unless it affects a protected class based on that class identification or is perpetuated by a governmental actor.  Neither are present in this case.  Political affiliation is only a protected class in only a few states.  It's not protected on a federal level.  So you can be dropped from a platform for being a conservative and it still wouldn't be actionable.  It would be highly problematic, it would be financial suicide for companies, but it wouldn't be legally actionable.

It's also not what happened here.  Trump wasn't dropped because he is a "conservative."  (I can't even write in good conscience that he is a conservative without the air quotes.  Trump is Trump and a party unto itself.)  He wasn't dropped for spouting conservative talking points.  He was dropped because he's proven himself to at least negligently and at most deliberately incite a riot because he lost.  And he's still refused to acknowledge his involvement in the event, to shame those involved, and to fully admit defeat.  His statements since the insurrection attempt continue to perpetuate an image of him continuing to fight for a victory "stolen" from him and to encourage his followers to keep up the faith.

He was dropped because he continues to peddle in lies and at some point, if we want to put an end to misinformation, to disinformation, and to "fake news," we have to recognize that those that peddle it cannot be given platforms to continue to speak it.  Facebook, Twitter, Apple, and Google are private companies that have no obligation to provide the president a platform to voice his every thought.  He already has a press department, can call a press conference at the drop of a hat, and could be aired on every network if he needed.  They've even activated that forced message to all cellular phones technology.  He hasn't been silenced; he's just been inconvenienced from using his favorite rant delivery mechanism.

Which brings us to Free Speech.  Again, Free Speech isn't implicated because these are all private actors.  Private companies and individuals can censor all they like, within very few restrictions.  They can refuse service to anyone, so long as it is not a person in a protected class.  Facebook could decide to only let on people with red hair, green eyes, and who love the band Bowling for Soup.  Twitter could block all vegetarians if they so decided.  They could, it wouldn't be smart and the market would bear that out, but they absolutely could legally do so.  

What we are seeing is a free market action deciding what is permissible in its space.  You know, the kind of thing conservatives used to champion.  It's the same argument conservatives were making when it was a Christian baker and a cake for a gay wedding.  It's just getting a different response when the shoe is on the other foot.

I have to admit enjoying a bit of schadenfreude last night.  Watching a president who has repeatedly and continually used Twitter as a weapon to appeal to the lowest demons of our nature be locked out from his favorite past time was a bit of beautiful serendipity in the midst of all this chaos.  This same person who unleashed a 44 tweet monstrosity in October last year following his hospitalization for COVID, revealing how deep his addiction goes.

It's another reminder of why what we do, what the Congress does over the next eleven days is so vitally important.  It matters, the precedent it sets matters, and his actions have to have consequences.

This one, at least, was somewhat funny to watch.