Skip to main content

 

There is pornography in our school libraries here in Florida. That is at least what one school board member is saying. She stated that she personally has found 75 books that she thinks should be banned. They have formed an emergency committee because of the urgency of the situation because school starts right around the corner. Do I think that there is pornography in schools libraries? Nope I don’t. Are there books that may make one think about many of the wrongs of this world? I hope so. Are there books that might help a child to know the dangers of the world around them? There better be or we are not trying to educate our children.

Just because you find a topic offensive does not make it pornography. “Debbie Does Dallas” is pornography, not that I ever read the book. The “Scarlet Letter” is not. There are many things in life that happen that may be offensive to you but that does not mean they should be banned from the library. If anything a library seems to be the perfect place to research things that we are not able to talk with our parents about. That is the purpose of a library. In today’s digital age trying to control what a child is reading on the web is almost impossible.  Just go and google.com and type in xxx and see if safe search has been turned off on your child’s computer. I also would be willing to bet that a lot of children will know how to turn safe search off and can view just about anything they want but let’s go ahead and attack our libraries. That the easy way to not have to deal with the real problems that our children are going to experience.  

One of the books that the article I read was about a book called “Lucky” by Alice Sebold. It is a book about an eighteen old college freshman that was brutally raped and her journey of recovery and assisting in her attackers arrest and conviction. At first thought you may say that this is a terrible book and high school children should not be able to read material like this. Well, I am going to tell you that I think that you are completely wrong. The second book is about a migrant child living is Washington and the struggles that he experiences along the way. Yes there is abuse again in this book also but then maybe we need to be communicating the real world to these children in our schools. There are statistics that show that 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are a victim of child sexual abuse. 20 percent of adult females and 5 – 10 percent of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident. During a one-year period in the US 16 percent of youths ages 14 to 17 had been sexually victimized. Children it is said are the most vulnerable between the ages of 7 to 13.

Our educational system should be more than just learning our ABCs or reading how Dick sees Jane run. We should not be hiding what the real world is going to bring to many of these children. Banning books is not protecting our children. Children need the resources to know that it is not their fault and that they are not alone. Libraries can help in that discovery. Bad things have always been out there and we need to be doing a better job preparing our children for those bad things and not ignoring them. Ignoring them just makes many children just an easy target. Is it the school’s job to do that? Many will tell you no. I agree that it is not their job to prepare your children but it is also not their job to hide that it is out there and our children need to be aware and protective of each other.

Sex is all around us. Every time I turn around sex is being used to sell something. Just watching all those commercials on TV and I wonder what they are really selling product or sex? Children even see commercials for drugs that can assist in sex. Sex has been part of our music probably since music has been sung and children hear it. So why do we attack our libraries? One reason we have trouble defining morality and the role that books should play it that. Another reason is the fact that we have not discovered yet that sexual assault, assault and other forms of violence are not only related they are “brothers and sisters from the same family”. We are very willing to hide sexual assault from our children when they should be made aware of it but we promote and justify violence every day. Look how many of our politicians have talked about putting a target on their opponent. The garbage that we hear almost daily from Greene and Boebert as we see them posing with their guns is not something that children should be seeing. I didn’t see it growing up and it shouldn’t be seen now.

Attacking our libraries is the wrong place to start when it comes to our children safety.  Maybe we should be working harder to give them the resources that they need to really understand what is out there and how they can prepare for it. I really think that is what the purpose of education is.

Florida school board member disgusted by pornographic books in libraries, demands disciplinary action- (bizpacreview.com)

Lucky by Alice Sebold | Goodreads

Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison | Goodreads

Child Sexual Abuse Statistics – The National Center for Victims of Crime

Comments

  1. GaryJuly 30, 2022 at 4:05 AM

    With MSM and Social Media, young kids are exposed to things we would have found unimaginable or astoundingly shocking not all that long ago. They should be able to enjoy their lives with some measure of insulation and protection from the harsh realities they will encounter soon enough. Who erased all the limits and boundaries that protect children?

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

  Dove or hawk? Donald Trump ran for President promising to end “endless wars”, avoid new ones, and put American families first. He cast himself as an outsider who would bring peace – the only candidate who wouldn’t drag America into another conflict. The message worked because let's face it, after so many years in Iraq and Afghanistan, America was tired of war. As a country, we were all tired of War. The country wanted stability, not another generation of men and women sent into danger. But once in office, he governed very differently. He governed like a Hawk, quick to threaten, quick to escalate, and willing to use both bombs and tariffs as weapons. What was missing wasn’t just consistency. It was an honor: the sense of responsibility and restraint that should come with the power to risk other people's sons and daughters. This isn’t about ideology. It's about whether someone who promised peace, but repeatedly chooses confrontation, can still claim to be a “dove”. A core...
2 comments
Read more
  The hidden tax. Tariffs cause a hidden tax that never really goes away. I hope that Americans are tired of being told fairy tales about why everything costs more. Our elected officials point fingers. Corporations blame supply chains. Commentators blame inflation. The truth is much simpler and infuriating: tariffs are a tax on ordinary people, and the pain does not stop when the policy ends. It sticks. It lingers. It rarely delivers what we were promised. This is the mess we are in now because of the tariffs imposed by the current administration. Tariffs are sold as strength, as toughness – a way to punish governments and to bring back manufacturing jobs. That pitch works on conservatives who want control, moderates who want fairness, progressives who want domestic industry, and politicians trying to get elected. It is a message built to unite. The policy itself does the opposite. It drains the wallets of the very people that it claims to protect. Here is how it actually works. ...
1 comment
Read more
  When I was young, I was told that “Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll” was going to ruin the country. What I am seeing today is that “Sex, Politicians, and Espionage” is actually what is ruining the country and our democracy. Just think about it. When sex, secrecy, and political power get mixed together, every intelligence service in the world pays attention. The Epstein files aren’t just about a criminal and the rich people that he surrounded himself with. They show how sexual exploitation creates the kind of vulnerabilities foreign governments like Russia dream of. The most uncomfortable part of that truth is that other countries, such as Great Britain, are taking that threat more seriously than we are. Jeffrey Epstein didn’t just commit crimes. He built a system. He targeted vulnerable girls, groomed them, controlled them, and used them to gain access to powerful men. That abuse wasn’t just immoral; it gave him power and leverage. Victims were scared, ashamed, and often silenced. P...
4 comments
Read more