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Why Is DeSantis Protecting Our Kids from ‘Literature’?

February 18, 2023 | FlaglerLive | 9 Comments

By Diane Roberts

What would you think if your child came home with a book about a boy running away to float down the Mississippi River on a raft with an adult Black man who calls him “Honey?”

If that’s not grooming, I don’t know what is.

And did you hear about the play they’re reading in English class? This 13 year-old Italian girl takes up with a teenage boy from a family her parents do not like. But does she listen to them? No. She runs off and marries him just so they can have sex.

Both of them end up dead. Let that be a lesson to them.

Then there’s this so-called “Great American Novel” where these two guys–one of them totally covered in tattoos–get into bed together and call themselves “bride” and “groom.” Then they get on a ship with a bunch of other men and go look for a whale so they can squeeze his sperm.

Books are filthy. Yet liberals want your children to read them. Why? So your children will become drag queens, tree huggers, NPR listeners, Lizzo fans, soccer watchers, trans activists, vaccine takers, election denier deniers, AP class takers, and America haters.

Thanks be to Little Baby Jesus that here in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis won’t let our precious young ‘uns be exposed to that so-called “literature” they push in government schools.

They have the right idea in Manatee County where classroom libraries are draped (for decency’s sake) with signs saying “Books Are NOT for Student Use!!”

Duval County, too, where the local authorities are getting rid of books that might promote Marxist ideas such as racial equality and social justice. Duvallians, be proud! You’ve banned 176 volumes by authors who are not what we’d call “real Americans.”

You know what I mean.

How about The Life of Rosa Parks, about that lady who refused to give up her seat on the bus. Do we really want to teach children to disobey the law?

florida phoenixOr Memphis, Martin, and the Mountain Top: The Sanitation Strike of 1968.

Socialist propaganda, clearly. Also, when are those people going to quit whining about so-called “racism”? Everybody knows that’s over with.

Then there are all these books about foreign people and foreign languages and foreign animals.

Like My Name is María Isabel/Me Llamo María Isabel by Alma Flor Ada in which a teacher changes a little girl’s name to Mary for her own good. In America, we speak English. As God intended.

And how about Lost and Found Cat: The True Story of Kunkush’s Incredible Journey? It’s about Iraqi so-called refugees who lose their cat and then find their cat.

Children do not need to read about Muslim cats when there are plenty of American cats they can read about.

Take Thunder Boy, Jr. by Sherman Alexie, a picture book supposedly about Indians, but there’s not a single feather in the whole thing.

I’m glad to report that schools in other counties are also doing awesome work.  In St. Johns they’ve removed smut like Judy Blume’s Forever (teenagers doing it), The Handmaid’s Tale (girls in red dresses and men they’re not married to doing it), Call Me By Your Name (boys doing it) and A Court of Mist and Fury (fairies doing it).

We all owe a mega-mega thank you to Moms for Liberty, who fight for our freedom from having to hear about slaves, Hispanics, sex, poor people, climate change, feminists, Black Lives Matter, Muslims, vegetarians, atheists, revolutionaries, Greta Thunberg, Thomas Jefferson’s slave children, bodily functions of any kind, or gay penguins.

You mostly know the Moms as the ladies who harass gay people, accuse school board members of being “pedophiles,” and encourage anyone who believes a teacher is promoting critical race theory to call their educator-busting tip line.

But in addition to promoting Christian hatred toward anyone they think may be weird, they’ve helpfully provided us with a whole booklet of all the porn that Democrats, Satanists and teacher unions are trying to sneak into your precious baby’s classroom.  It offers a rating system which will empower you, the decent right-thinking citizen, to figure out which books to torch at your next bonfire. (The books sampled were from libraries in Iowa schools.)

As you’ll see, “0″ means appropriate “For Everyone,” even the Preacher! “1″ means there might be a “damn” or “hell” plus a little romance, but no sick stuff. “2″ means there might be nakedness, and booze, and “gender ideology.”

At “3″ things get serious: loads of profanity and nudity, but no “penetration, cunnilingus, fellatio or ejaculation,” according to the rating system.  At “4,” well, I hesitate to even quote these words, but these books contain depictions of “sexual organs in a state of arousal” and “obscene references to sexual activities involving anal, oral or vaginal intercourse…”

As for “5,” well: that means sex with animals, whips, chains, violence, and disgusting and gross scenes so graphic the Moms probably had to read these books twice to make sure they didn’t imagine the whole thing.

That’s the kind of filth we’re talking about. I bet they had to drink a lot of milk and eat a case of Nilla Wafers just to calm down!

I know I did.

But the point is, these “teachers” might lure your child into reading one of these books.

There’s this novel called The Bluest Eye which appears on an AP English course list as possible reading for a “social construct” (i.e. communist) project, along with other unhealthy books by supposedly “eminent” authors including William Faulkner (a drunk) and E.M. Forster (a gay). In addition to all the sex in that book–and I mean it’s everywhere–the Moms’ rating system has flagged many objectionable quotations designed to stir up race hatred.

For example, on page 111, it says “No better than whites for meanness” and on page 113, “Nasty white folks is about the nastiest thing they is.”

The “author” of this garbage is somebody called Toni Morrison. Probably trans, don’t you think?

Now the libs keep hollering and moaning about how most of the books we’ve liberated our precious children from ever seeing are by Blacks, Latinos, and gays. But hey, it’s not our fault that those people are perverts.

All I can say is, “Thanks, Moms!” and thanks, too, to the Manatee Patriots, a fine group of citizen-censors. They are the “eyes and ears and boots on the ground in the schools,” our own “woke-busting” guerillas ready to drive librarians out of this state!

Our great Republican leaders will protect our precious children from ever knowing that Barack Obama was president (the Patriots flagged a book about him in the local public library), that gay people exist, that sex is something fun, and that white Americans ever took anyone’s land, enslaved anyone, or invaded countries for no reason.

We don’t want to upset anyone with facts, now do we?

diane roberts columnist Diane Roberts is an 8th-generation Floridian, born and bred in Tallahassee. Educated at Florida State University and Oxford University in England, she has been writing for newspapers since 1983, when she began producing columns on the legislature for the Florida Flambeau. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, the Times of London, the Guardian, the Washington Post, the Oxford American, and Flamingo. She has been a member of the Editorial Board of the St. Petersburg Times–back when that was the Tampa Bay Times’s name–and a long-time columnist for the paper in both its iterations. She was a commentator on NPR for 22 years and continues to contribute radio essays and opinion pieces to the BBC. Roberts is also the author of four books.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Laurel says

    February 19, 2023 at 4:26 pm

    Wow: It’s not just Florida, it’s across the country.

  2. Laurel says

    February 19, 2023 at 4:30 pm

    Gerry: The Huckleberry Finn reference made me laugh out loud! The Mommies for Illiteracy are probably perplexed.

  3. Deborah Coffey says

    February 19, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    Please keep writing, Ms. Roberts. Your satire has given me the most enjoyable smile in a month.

  4. Laurel says

    February 19, 2023 at 4:39 pm

    Donna: It appears you are uncomfortable with free speech. DeSantis is your man.

  5. Mothersworry says

    February 19, 2023 at 9:55 pm

    First they came from the books, then they came for the teachers…………..This republican mantra can be found in history books.

  6. Simon says

    February 20, 2023 at 7:35 am

    https://medium.com/memory-action/fires-of-hate-how-the-nazis-targeted-books-and-free-thinking-9137c8171c59

  7. James says

    February 20, 2023 at 9:52 am

    DeSantis thinks he can do whatever he wants since he has a authoritarianism personality. Give someone a little power and they think they control the world.
    He is a want to be Donald but worse if you can imagine that.

  8. Denali says

    February 20, 2023 at 9:59 am

    No, you have it backwards. This article while full of sarcasm and in my opinion humorous at times states nothing but facts. You on the other hand have spewed nothing but trumpian generalities and not a single fact. Was your own education so lacking that you are in fear of the next generations knowing more about the real world than you could ever imagine.

    If you want to influence others, use facts, tells us why Huck Finn and Moby Dick should be banned. What is next? Anything written by Pearl Buck? How about that diary written by the German girl during WWII? Oh wait, Texas already banned that one. I have one for you – The Bible; have you ever really read that thing? it is full of sex, drinking, violence, slavery and every cruelty imaginable. That one should definitely be on the banned list.

  9. Joe D says

    February 20, 2023 at 11:23 am

    1984 banned??

    I read it in high school (age 15) in a CATHOLIC HIGH school as part of an Advanced Academic English course , in 1970!!!!!!

    There ARE some “out there” books, I MIGHT want to review and decide if MY child ( or grandchild, at this point) might need some explanation during reading. But I would appreciate it if I were given the OPTION to decide.

    I don’t need some outside (Christian??? Not really ACTING very CHRISTIAN-LIKE!!) group
    deciding what isn’t even available go ME to decide. I am fully capable of signing my own student’s permission slip to read ( or NOT read) particular titles

    With rising Homeowners insurance rates, increasing rent and housing costs, VERY slow recovery from the worse storm in 500 years, and THIS is what the powers that be concentrate on!?!?

    I guess THOSE topics aren’t as HEADLINE grabbing as 1950’s style government censorship! OMG!!!

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