A Geek History of Time - Episode 221 - Books, Bans, and Education on Office Hours

Episode Date: July 22, 2023

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, This is a geek history of time and this is a special edition. Some time ago Ed and I both guessed it on another podcast called Office Hours, which we strongly encourage you to go check out, subscribe, rate, and review because they do an incredible job. Anyway, we wanted to be able to share what we did over there, over here. So, this next episode is one of the three that we recorded with them, and we hope that you enjoy it this week as a bonus episode. As always, as Ed would say, keep rolling 20s. Hey folks, welcome to the office hours. I am Dr. C and we are joined in the office today

with Mr. Damien Arminy and Mr. Ed Laylock who if you have not been some sort of even, you know, derelict then you've surely listened to the last two episodes. If you haven't I'll give them an opportunity to introduce themselves. I didn't hear you said first, because I didn't this time. I just thought I had a few state moments. Yes, this is the job. So I'm Ed Laylock. I am one half of a geek history of time

where we connect nervery to the real world. I am also in my day job when I take off the cape. I'm a middle school world history and English teacher here in Northern California. I'm Damien Harmony, the second half. You know, the best way to compare it would be if Ed was Batman. I would be, I don't know, like Michael Collins up in the Apollo capsule. And so I'm the...

Okay. Gotcha. Yeah. So if Ed was mustard, I would be Luke Skywalker. So it's pretty clear who played the rules. But I am the other half, the lesser half of a geek history of time. I am a Latin and social science and drama teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level because I don't have the courage that Ed has to teach at the middle school level.

You know, it's funny. You said Michael Collins and I thought of the Irish revolutionary now, the astronaut. That would have been so much cooler. You can. I would like to do it. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, uh, they mean what you're saying about the, but not having the bravery to teach at the middle school, uh, love when I, wholeheartedly agree. Um, but I remember a sonic talk where a middle school teachers talk about, you know,

the hardest thing about teaching. If in order to ask, isn't the lesson planning. It isn't the dealing with the administration. It's that you have a classroom full of middle schoolers who just make moaning noises periodically out of the blue. And they don't even know why they're doing it. They don't know they're quoting letter Kenny. And they are. Yeah. know they're quoting letter Kenny like and they are. Yeah, no, yeah, pretend like you don't understand it. Yeah, no, you know, what I've what I've what I've found is that's actually the most effective way to deal with it is just to look at right now and go, I'm sorry, what?

What does that mean? Why are you doing that? Explain the joke, kid. Yeah, yeah, precisely. It's just like dealing with your racist uncle. Why is that funny? Like, I don't, huh? And, and, and, like, and, and they can't. And so, like, and we move on. We're walking. So actually related to that in this idea of what isn't as not okay in the classroom, we're going to be talking about band books. and this was actually a subject matter that was sent in or recommended by one of our listeners, Mr. Christian styles who you know suggested maybe we should talk about the the banning, I was going to say burning, but the banning of mouse by a Tennessee school board and the reasons for why because I think that gets into this larger interesting conversation about one, the concerns, sometimes about like content bands, but also

how they can be used to make larger political points in ways that are maybe dogwistly or a little more underhanded, right? And we'll get into that more as we go along. But for those who are not familiar, in January of this year, 2022, the Tennessee School Board decided to ban mouse for, I believe it was the presence of eight words of profoundly, and which undoubtedly Ed will exceed

that limit of swearing in this episode. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah. And they've banned books for puns, by the way. I would just like to point that out. What do they should? But they should. And in addition to the defending, they will also, they also banned it because of depictions of a naked woman. It's worth noting that for anyone who's not familiar, Maus is a story of the Holocaust, wherein the artist and writer Art Spiegelman is interviewing his father. His father was a Jewish survivor from Poland, who went through the Holocaust and survived, and it is a graphic novel wherein all the Jews are depicted as mice, the Poles are depicted as pigs and

the Nazis are cats, right? And it's the telling of that story. And it has some, obviously, some very heavy subject matter. It is dealing with the Holocaust. But the naked woman in question is a mouse, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so on that grounds, the school board decided, well, we're just not going to,

we're going to remove this from the curriculum because it was being taught and they decided not to anymore. And I have a list of books from 2020 that was about, compiled by the American Library Association about, you know, books that were banned for a variety of reasons before we get into that. I want to actually just get y'all's perspectives, y'all's takes on that as public school educators. You want to go up the level ed or do you want to? Yeah, I'll start at the middle school level. So the thing is, mouse is really heavy. And I might, like I might argue, just because it's talking about a really unflinching account of mass murder.

I might not want to be teaching that in the sixth or seventh grade. Like that might be a little bit, a little bit much. Now I say that as an English teacher who has had to teach a book like Tangerine, which for anybody who's unfamiliar, is a novel about a boy who over the course of the novel recovers the repressed, suppressed, whatever you want to call it, traumatic memory of his own brother, sort of you want to call it, traumatic memory of his own brother spraying spray paint into his eyes when he was four and leaving him permanently, mostly blinded. And he essentially finds out that his parents have been enabling his literal psycho older brother, like all his life because of his brother's athletic talent. Like, I mean, so like, I mean, I can say what I say about mouse being kind of heavy, but fundamentally

anybody who tries to argue against the banning of anything at the middle school level, if you're going to say this is too heavy for middle schoolers to handle, there are treasured parts of the curriculum. Like younger colleagues of mine cannot stop gushing about Tangerine, like as a novel because they're young enough to have read it when they were in middle school. And to me, it's just it's hideous, right? But if you want to eliminate mouse, then tell you what, you're going to have to eliminate a lot of stuff. If mouse is too heavy, then I'd say that's too heavy, because that's some pretty significant personal trauma going on there.

then I'd say that's too heavy, because that's some pretty significant personal trauma going on there. So, like, I'm kind of of two minds on it. What I will say though is the reasons they're given, specifically in the case of mouse, are absolute bullshit. I mean, it's just, it's stupid. And it's predicated on this. Anytime anybody's trying to ban anything

for these kind of reasons, it's not because, well, you never worried about the kids, they're using the kids as a cover because it makes them uncomfortable because they don't want to have to see their kid doing homework about something that talks about the actual facts of the Holocaust. They would rather have their kids read a book like The Boy in the Stripe Pajamas, which is also about the Holocaust, but it doesn't center the victims.

It doesn't go into the details of what exactly happened in the camps. It doesn't tell that story. It's a story of the good Germans, which, I mean, there's a time and a place for that story, but let's not eliminate the story of what actually happened to the people who were murdered from the curriculum. Like I wish I could get away with keeping a copy of mouse in my classroom as reading material for my students. Like I honestly wish I don't have permanent status in my current district yet. So I'm not, you know, finance, I just bought a house.

So I'm kind of in this position where like, you know, the revolutionary in me wants to be like, you know, standard of barricricades and then the husband and father and you just like, not right now, not, you know, that's wait one day more. Let's be a sleeper cell about it. Yeah, it's pretty much. Yeah, I got to, I got to, I got to be more subtle than that.

Like I got to, I got to find other ways to do it. You know, but it's just, it's it's just, it's bolted. Again, talking about me violating the, exceeding the swear limit in mouse. It is, it is fallacious. It is utterly, it's a comfortable lie that we're doing this, we're doing this, we're doing this because, you know,

we're concerned about our kids seeing the swear words. And, you know, they show tits. Like, that's what you find objectionable. Yeah, not the whole sales slaughter. Yeah. Yeah, not the mass ethnic murder. That's not the problem. No, no, no, it's titties.

Well, you know, and I think on that note of speechlessness for myself, I'll hand it off to Damian, you know. So I teach at the high school level. So it's gonna be a very different sense of sensibilities. First of all, when I senior in high school, I saw that the freshman curriculum included mouse. So that was cool. I myself have taught perceptualists to freshmen.

We teach things like Brave New World, lot of sex, lot of sex in Brave New World, which he's saying is like Romeo and Juliet, lot of sex, lot of murder, a lot of teenagers killing themselves in hilarious ways. So you've got, you know, it's a class backup. Hold on, hold on. There's lots of things I've heard about Romeo and Juliet, uh-huh. Them killing themselves, they're, they're methods of suicide being hilarious.

It is hilarious. Yeah. Cause like as soon as he dies, she wakes up and he killed him. It's like this whole French first kind of thing. It's hilarious. I mean, clearly you put a couple slamming doors in there and Inspector Clousseau comes in. I should hilarious. You know what?

Okay, see this is how I can tell that you started teaching drama because you bring up the idea of the concept of French farce and I'm like, oh, yeah. Whole thing. But, you know, so. Oh, yeah. The whole thing. But, you know, so, okay, probably my favorite take on that story though.

Yeah. I was just going to say, like, my, my sister-in-law absolutely loves Romeo and Juliet and did not appreciate it all when I described it as a terrible story. It's not even romantic about two teenagers get to get like five people killed inside of three days. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's actually.

80th suspension. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Oh, no, are you kidding? That's like bonus points. That's extra credit. Like so you figured it out.

We've taught a lot of things at the high school level that are sex and drugs and all the things that you should be teaching kids to interrogate within literature. We've absolutely taught those things at all the levels in the high school level. The banning of mouse is, there's not much that I could add to what Ed said in terms of my excoration of it.

I will, however, add these two details. I don't think you have the banning of mouse where you have a school district that is run either so toxically that they can't even get around to banning books like mine or you have like it has largely missed us because of all the shakhanari. You know, it's it's it's funny. I don't think you mentioned Union thug on your resume. It's the beginning of the episode. There it comes out. There you are. But or or you have a school district where people who are on the school board have have read books. And I don't mean that as looking down on these people in Tennessee. But like when you actually read literature,

and it's ironic that I'm the one promoting this because of the two of us, Ed has actually read literature. But when you have people who've actually read literature, there's a lot more empathy and there's a lot more understanding as to the benefits that a society can have by educating kids with literature. And so I would say that it makes sense to me in a lot of ways that it happened in Tennessee. None of these are me looking down my nose at those silly Tennesseans. It's much more that, you know, it kind of goes back ultimately to the lost cause. They don't care about the content

of what happened. They care about how it's presented. There's mouse tits, not okay. You said a swear word, not okay. You covered a Holocaust, and we'll look the other way. And I think that there's also another agenda played though, quite honestly. I do think that the banning specifically of a book that had to do with the Holocaust when people are running around with T-shirts that say 6 million

wasn't enough. And this did happen just a few days before the International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Yeah. So I, they're absolutely, I wouldn't even, we call it fog horning on our podcasts. They are fog horning to the races saying, look, I want to be reelected by you. And there is a huge movement right now amongst white nationalist hate groups to get elected to local offices. And it's working and we're seeing it manifest. And even if they're not necessarily winning the first time around, they are winning the second and third time around. But also, they are shifting the people who are the reasonable ones

and and they're going into some very very white supremacist territory. Now the other thing I wanted to bring up though is you don't see books getting bands like that in schools where the librarians are older than than ed you don't um You do see it when they are older than than Ed. You don't. You do see it when they are younger than then all the rest of us here. And the reason is I knew there was going to be a dig there. Like there was right in the beginning. Yeah, but like you confirmed it. But the librarians who were hired who are again older than Ed. So we're talking like in their 50s and 60s,

and they're the ones retiring. They grew up at a time. They came up at a time where librarian was a goal of a position, and it was not just a textbook tech. It was somebody who curated and kept a library stocked with books that had a wide variety and had a liberal arts focus. And now the librarians that are coming up, first off, they're far fewer and further

between. We are having trouble stalking librarians, which is okay because we stopped stalking books about 20 years ago. But you have these young people who are librarians and they're like, oh yeah, no, I'll take care of the textbook stuff, too. And they just become textbook texts. And they get no time to actually curate their libraries. And so libraries are just getting wildly out of date. The best you can do is just get rid of water damage books. Yeah. When you don't have a librarian

core like that, you start having it being okay to ban books because now there's no expert on sites about the books. Yeah. Librarian core is actually an extension of the CVs, but no one ever hears about them. Right. Well, also librarian core, it's my second favorite synth metal is librarian core. So, oh my god. Yeah, it is pretty awesome. What I want to kind of punctuate on that when Damien's talking about, you know, the number of librarians that were seen in public schools, because I don't know. This isn't something that this is inside baseball. This isn't something that anybody who is an in public education

is probably going to be attention to. But it is increasingly rare for a school to have a librarian who is their librarian. When Damien said what he said about, you know, oh, I'll handle the textbook stuff too. And that turns into their whole job that does turn into their whole job because they're doing the textbook shit for three schools. Yeah. Because the budget isn't there for every school to have a full time librarian. And that's a choice. That is 100% a choice. That is a budgetary choice. That is a budgetary choice.

That's a budgetary choice. Absolutely driven by those politics. Which is, and now you've got three schools with three libraries that aren't being curated. And in addition to sharing things like nurses and school counselors and things like that. Yeah, you beat me to it. Because yeah, that's exactly where I was going to go too. because yeah, that's exactly where I was going to go to is, you know, all of these issues, the biggest problem with public education is that public education relies on public funds, and the moment anything relies on public funds, it becomes a political football. And so- You could run it at a loss because it was considered an investment, but we don't do that. Well, there's the commodification,

there's the overtesting, there's so much stuff that happens since that report that came out in 1983 and then with no child left behind and then with the co-cothers pouring tons of money into killing off education. Like there's a lot of steps along the way, but we are literally looking at one in five librarians that was in the job in 2012 is no longer in the job. And we haven't replaced them. And by 2030, the shortage is going to be even higher. Oh, yeah. So, yeah, banning Art speakleman's book, this is not the first time by the way that his

stuff has been affected by censorship. He wrote a forward in a Marvel book. It was Marvel the Golden Age from 39 to 49. And his intro got edited to get rid of anti-Trump rhetoric. And so he said, no, you don't get to have any of my introductions. Yeah, yeah, I remember that. Yeah, so this is not the first time he's run into this. Well, he wrote in the shadow of no towers,

which was published in a German newspaper, which was about the twin towers immediately after 9.11 talking about all kinds of stuff that was would have been very politically problematic and Difficult at the time, but you know was a very genuine reflection of someone who grew up and lived in New York and was dealing with that trauma So the other thing one thing I was going to point out was that in your point about curation is a really interesting point because there is a judgment call that has to be made about how to address things like the Holocaust at the high school level, let's say. So like when I was in high school, we didn't read now, but we did read Knight by Eli

Viselle, which is a deeply traumatizing book. It's good, it's well writtenwritten, it tells a compelling narrative, and it gives you an insight from the victim's perspectives, all that kinds of stuff. But good day, I am 34 years old, it has been almost 20 years since I read that book, and there are still scenes that I can't get out of my head, right? I would much prefer to see that with mouse than with like some of that stuff. Not to say that people mouse than with like some of that stuff. Not to say that people shouldn't read night, they absolutely should. But it is what it is, right? It's a lot heavier.

But I do want to pivot a little bit to this larger discussion of banning books, because this is a perennial thing, right? It comes out from time to time. You hear at least every year about some new book that was banned. And there's an outrage over over for a variety of reasons. But so I have a list here from the American Library Association looking at the top 10 banned books and the reasons for why in 2020. Right? Okay. So they surveyed, you know, almost several more than a hundred, maybe 200 school systems to see

what books that kind of thing. No, I'm sorry, it was a list of 195 that they pulled from. And of all the school systems they observed or they they surveyed, 195 books came up. These are the top 10 of those. And I'm not familiar with these. So if you know anything about them, please feel free to chime in. There's the first one is George by Alex Gino challenged and banned and restricted for LGBTQIA plus content, conflicting with the religious viewpoint, and that reflecting quote, the values of our community. Stamped racism, enter racism and you by Eubrim Kindi and Jason Nunnalds banned and challenged because of author's public statements, which is interesting. And that book has actually been something that teachers,

older teachers, not all older teachers, but older teachers have complained about having to read and reading groups, which is disappointing. So because of public statements from the author and because the book contains quote selective storytelling incidents and does not encompass racism against all people. I want to know where that was within this. What would we call that fog horning again? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not even a dog whistle. It's it's a mob view. Yeah. Yeah. That's just revenue engine and hitting the horn. Number three, all American boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kelly, because of profoundly drug use, alcoholism and because it is what's thought to promote anti-police views,

including, quote, too much of a sensitive matter right now related to police. Maybe we'll unband it later, but let's let's put it in this book and we'll come back to it later. Right. Once once like, you know, CSI Miami gets renewed for its umpteenth season, then, you know, right. Right. Right. Speak by Lori Anderson, band and challenge and restricted, contains a political viewpoint and it was claimed to be biased against male students and for the novels inclusion of rape and profanity. I have to jump in here. Yeah. So it includes rape and it's biased against male students. I kind of feel like they're they're you know complaining about it being about rape twice there

Yeah, like yeah Like seen from Blazing Saddles rape or arson and rape Yeah, like that. Yeah, you know, just like yeah All right So let's see the absolutely true diary of a part time Indian by Sherman Alexi. They did. Alexi. It was banned because of the family sexual references and allegations of sexual misconduct by the author because he's he got some hot water a few a couple of years ago. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Something happened in our town, a child story about racial injustice by Mary Ann Salano, Mary Anna Collins and Hazard and Jennifer Zivion. Because of quote, divisive language, and because it was thought to promote anti-police views. Number seven. You have divisive, I'm sorry, divisive language.

Yes, really? Really? Bill, they had the temerity to talk about, you know, anything uncomfortable. Again, the title is something happened in our town. Yeah, I wonder what happened. A child story about racial injustice. Yeah, I'm like, hmm, all right, sorry.

Carry on. This one's interesting. Number seven, to kill a mockingbird by Harper Lee. Reasons banned and challenged for racial slurs and their negative effect on students featuring a quote white savior character and its perception of the black experience. See, this one I think should be banned because an outgoing record saying to kill a mockingbird

should be banned because in no way did it teach me how to kill a mockingbird. All it did was teach me about a fish that was somewhere up in the upper part of the house and that I could swear at it. That was it. All I learned about was to add a cuss swear at it. That was it. All I learned about was to attic cuss a finch. That was it. You really had to reach for that one. Only up to the attic. See this is the problem. He's a chess player with these goddamn things. He's like, because he, uh, anything, he's several moves ahead. Most of us are running like, you know, chess master on an old like Windows 95 and old Damien's over here, you know, playing with Watson.

Pretty much. Yeah. So wait, the band of it though does sound like it was, it was banned because it's essentially centering white people in a black struggle. Is that is that what I heard right? Yeah, the white savor trope. Yes. Yeah, okay Which is interesting because that is a critique I've heard before particularly because and This might indicate that I was raised in South. I did not read to kill a mockingbird Yeah, oh, I did to kill a mockingbird. Oh, I did. Yeah. I did. I did. I did. I did. I did. It is, it is my understanding that Atticus Finch is not necessarily doing it because he believes in the inherent

dignity of other people, but because the system has to be preserved. Yeah. Well, and that's why she came out with her second book and everybody got really upset. They're like, you made the dad like a kick, kick, a guy and it was like, no, scout grew up and realized all these things about her dad was kind of the point. And now she's looking at him as an adult and going, oh, he did it to keep the feds out, not for any other reason. I could be mixing up two stories. But, um, no, not very much right.

Uh, the, the sequel to Kill Kill and Arkingbird was kind of the Timberter F. Lomingo. I remember. Well, the, I thought it was the drama. The last Jedi, kind of, kind of treatment of, you know, like there are, there are multiple viewpoints on this story and you know, growing up and suddenly realizing that, you know, I didn't see the whole picture before. Kind of situation. The fact that it was banned though, for its problematic elements, tells me there's kind of it's probably not a good faith like reason for banning it. It's probably not a good faith, like reason for banning it. It's just another one that deals with that icky topic. And so let's take the quote unquote, woke reason why it's banned so that we can avoid controversy, but also get what we want, right?

I say you could even get the left to fight against itself in their mind. Right. Because now you got, oh, you're too woke for this book. I love this book. you've got this this internacine fighting that you can kind of get between the left and liberals or or between people who are actually affected by white savior stuff and white people who are like that's a good story. Right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I would I would tend to agree with you. But when you're doing your list list There's something I want to point out to all these reasons, but I will keep my powder dry This does get to a larger point though with like

To kill a mockingbird you don't have to teach a book as though it is the ideal right you can critique it And so that could be a reasonable text to use in that regard So number eight was of my S, my John Steinbeck, reasons, racial slurs, racist stereotypes, and other, and their negative effects on students, which is a, that is carte blanche for a lot of material. Yeah. Yeah. That's just getting anti-stein back is is like, yeah, I'm sorry. Like, I think it's the same bad faith that Barry mentioned earlier. Like this is your, you're using, you're appropriating the language. Uh, without, you know, and, and, and painting it as a thin veneer over your real reasons of this guy's advocating for labor unions.

Well, he's advocating for labor unions and he's coming at it from a socialist perspective. Like, you know, having, having used the film as a resource when I taught the one year that I taught, you know, high school American history, like, dude, no, it. Oh, again, I called the fuck, but anyway, moving. Number nine, the bluest eye about Tony Morrison, reasons it was considered sexually explicit in the Pix child sexual abuse. It's worth noting though that that story also deals a lot with internalized racism. So that's a tough thing that for anyone to deal with, but is also

a worthy conversation with young people who are trying to figure out their identities. It's still in Morrison. It feels like the real reason for banning that one and the of my cement is because it's that author. Yeah. Same with the Zendee book, right? You know, like it's, you don't want Tony Morrison's book. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like, well, and, and these seem very well crafted arguments for banning

them. It's more strategic. If we're going to use the chest now, bring that back. Like, it's like, okay, people will not want this book banned. And so if I give my reason for it being banned, that it depicts child violence. Oh, so you like child violence, really? You want a book with child violence in our schools. Ah, okay, so you're a terrible person. That's a lot easier target to hit than someone. Oh, you still want anti-bullying, but you still want the real bullying is making kids read. Yeah.

This boy, sorry, I had to take a breath. Yeah. And so, yeah, go ahead. I was just gonna say no, I think that would actually be the cadence with what's the other argument and probably represented, because I can't imagine anybody going that route being particularly glib anyway. And the last one, number 10, the hate you give by Anjit Thomas,

a challenge for profanity and was thought to promote an anti police message, right, which is of course dealing with issues of like profiling my cops and things like that. So on that list, how many of them are promoting an ant that's at least three, like three or four that are that are anti police. I just want to say can't three or four. That are anti-police. I just want to say, like, the moment you start saying, well, you know, province anti-police narrative, my immediate turn, like, if I were involved in the debate, it would be, oh, so you're a brown shirt.

Like, you know, but, but, you know, the over 10 window in this country being where it is, unfortunately, you know, I'd then immediately be labeled as the domestic terrorist, you know. Those that don't know, brown shirts were British Nazis. And original, like the original Nazi. Like the OG Nazi. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sorry, I got them confused with the different movement in Britain that was also

professional. What was the name Was Walder Oswald? Yeah, not Oswald Cobblepott because that's who comes to mind. It's not the panel, but there was a there was a British fascist organization that had a colored shirt. Because I do. I want to say they were black shirts like the Italians, but that's just off the top of my head. The blouse. Then you had the silver shirts in the United States? And there was a, anyway, Mimus.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So all 10 of these, I heard the same reason over and over. And it was that there's a reason. As soon as we start, and I understand that, you know, there are budgets and there are certainly like, I want to promote, like, we don't need to have mine comp in the libraries. I don't think that needs to happen.

You don't need Turner Diaries in the libraries. Now just checked out the Turner Diaries. I'm very sure I'm on a list. And now I am too. But, but, you know, I don't think you need those in our school libraries. I know because we have kids who bring their own copies, but yeah, that'll be an off-air discussion,

but I'm not saying that you have no standards whatsoever, but I am saying that the second you start to give reasons and they're qualified in any ways like this that you are absolutely upending what a liberal arts education is supposed to be for. If any of the reasons have to do with making kids uncomfortable, then you've already sold the farm. If your reason is this promotes hate, this promotes, you know, violence. Yeah, this promotes violence against targeted groups or things like that. That would be one thing. But this depicts, that just means it's upsetting to you to have to actually

confront the reality of it. This gives us an anti-cop message or something like that. I'm sorry, but the police are the ones who are in charge and they have the sticks and the guns. They can handle a little bit of naughty words. If you're punching up, I have zero problem with that book being in the schools, including ones that say don't listen to your teacher and step on their toes. But as soon as you have books that it makes a kid uncomfortable because of this topic or that topic, you know, there are gradations within a library where literally, no, you're in fourth grade, you don't get to go to that bookcase until you're in fifth grade. And that's a very valid choice for a librarian to make.

valid choice for a librarian to make. Right. Right. Having a school board do it based on I guarantee you they did not sit down and read these books. I guarantee you. Having it do that based on those sentiments of any kind of a capability. Even if they did read the books, right? Like it's still not a valid thing. It's the epitome of I like this content because it's not political.

Really what you're saying is, I mean, it is political. It's just reflecting your politics and that's why you don't recognize it. You don't see it, right? And so when we're worried about kids reading something that makes them uncomfortable, what we're worried about is that they might come across

politics that don't reflect their own. Or reflect ours as parents, or affect our own. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You know, what Damien said about, you know, kids reading books that encourage kids not to listen to their teachers and to step on their toes. You know, again, three of those three of those entries were, you know, well, this promotes the anti-police message. Like, have any of you guys read Boy by Old Doll?

Because I'm teaching it in my English class to my sixth graders. It is his memoir growing up, talking about his experiences as a private school student in the UK in the early part of the 20th century. And I bring this up because number one, he portrays all of the adults in this book are assholes.

Like literally with the exception of his mother who is a saint and will go straight to heaven when she dies, every other adult in this book is a power hungry bully and a know, and a hypocrite. The hypocrite is so far. Sounds like a nonfiction about it. Pretty much life. Yeah, you know, and the Roger Waters was right. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, you know, there were some issues with that system. Still are. But, you know, and so, you know, it is this, I'm gonna say delightfully subversive kind of book

because it reflects the lived experience of kids when everything that they do is under the control of somebody else. But like if you're gonna say, well, this is, you know, this, you know, projects an anti-cop or anti-police sentiment, that projects a pretty anti-teacher sentiment. So like if you really wanted to be a dick about it, you could say, well, you know, I don't want to see this in the classroom because it's going to make a difficult for me to maintain a classroom management.

You know, because, you know, they're making me look like an asshole. Well, okay, you're making, you're making you look like an asshole, but that's beside the point. And if you want to try to say, well, you know, this author has said some problematic things. And so we don't want this author's work, which was also the case with a number of other things, rolled doll was a raging anti-Semite. Like all those lovely- We're picking and choosing. Yeah, we're picking and choosing. Who it is like, well, you know.

Well, we're picking the black and brown ones, it seems. Like, we're not choosing, like you didn't see them saying, like, well, Steinbeck had said some problematic things. No, you saw Sherman Alexi, Zendi, and I think they mentioned Tony Morrison. I could have guessed it was. It was. I would also like to bring up, too, though, that these people who are banning books, these are school boards that are banning books, typically.

That's how it works, because it goes up to them. They're elected officials, elected locally. Local elections historically have very low turnouts. They're typically people who have multiple jobs, or their main job is not to be a school board member. That is a secondary thing that they do. So they have a normal job that allows them to have the free time to do that,

which means typically they're of a certain class, typically. And if not, those folks are typically run out after a few election cycles, whereas the ones who get to stay and make the election $100,000 election, they get to stay. And so they're, of course, benefiting their own class. Are they being proactive and they're just emboldened to push a white supremacist agenda? Or are they, and I'm painting with a broad brush to save time there, or are they afraid of what might happen when the proud boys roll through with their election campaign promises? Or are they actually bending to pressure that's already starting to creep in?

Because it seems to me that if you're going to ban a book You might have like better reasons or or whatnot and these folks who are doing it It seems like ironically the people banning books don't have spines Not a set up but it was it was still there I was not a set up, but it was still there. I was found to gold is what that was. I think at the very least, these are folks who are aware of the political climate in which they operate. And so they are doing what preserves their jobs.

And also, it's not that big a deal because, why do this kind of stuff? There's other things to teach about and what have you. So I think it could be that it could be the matter of, you know, there are folks from up top who are putting pressure on them to do certain things, that's certainly the case in, you know, some situations. It could be a matter of they are being radicalized because a lot of these white nationalist and fascist organizations, like the Proud Boys, use talking points like think of the children because it's an easy, very defensible position to take, right?

I mean, because what's the opposite? No, don't think of the children. I mean, right? Yeah. It's the Michael Jordan. Man, f**k them kids. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. The other thing that comes to mind though, is that this gets into the issue of like, and we can only touch on it because we got to conclude, but like, the problem with content bands specifically. So I'm thinking of a book called Free Speech on Campus by Erwin Schmerinsky and Howard Gilman. Schmerinsky and Gilman point out that like, historically, whenever you try to ban something because of

content, it becomes a very easily used precedent for banning other stuff that we would consider prosocial. So for example, and this is not the exact one that they use, but like to carry on that argument, like if you banned swastikas because it's considered offensive and racially insensitive, well, that can also be used for things like the Black Power Fest, right? Yeah. That sort of argument can be used because it's not about the actual content itself. It's about how can that argument be used and weaponized and historically has been weaponized against what we would consider more liberal or inclusive or in many ways forward thinking and pro-social points to take.

So yeah, it's tough. And but this goes back to the idea of what Damien Broper earlier of the need for curators, people who have an exercise some good judgment about this kind of stuff, whether that's what they do. But you know, trust and expertise in other words, which is, you know, another issue in our political climate. And you know, I want to go back to talking about who the people are who are making these decisions. Speaking as somebody who is working in a district with a particular kind of political climate,

just as a side note, I started out the year with a Black Lives Matter poster up on the wall in my classroom. And my district, to their credit, the district office has come out in support of Black Lives Matter, in support of their African-American and other students of color. But a disgruntled student shared a photo of the Black Lives Matter poster at the front of my classroom

with some member of their family who then went on a Facebook group and You know how many of you think this is appropriate in the sixth grade classroom and came very close to doxing me and came very close to doxing me. I mentioned my name and the specific school at which I am working. And, and my wife was terrified because this, this group took off like so many people just being, I mean, so blatantly. just being, I mean, so blatantly. Often, and you were the next, you were the next in a long line, like, not gonna, I don't wanna upstage you.

You kinda started with me the year before, and then a friend of mine for having an antifa flag up. Yeah. And so in our region, we have had a number of these instances and it felt like Ed was the next rising tide for a bit there. And it was and then it got real nasty real quick. And and the thing is, even if the members of the school board are well meaning, even if the members of the school board meaning, even if the members of the school board have the best of intentions, the people who make the most noise are the biggest assholes. Now, if you're a reasonable person going about your life who isn't motivated by some kind of animus or some kind of bizarre you know, bizarre conspiracy theory that you've

turned into the central tenet of your personality over the last five years. You know, just to randomly pick something out of a hat, you know, if you're not one of those folks, then, you know, you're not going to be spending all of your time frothing at the mouth and looking for something to be pissed off about. Right. So the moment somebody stands up and says, oh my God, look at what they're teaching our children, the people that are immediately going to show up at the school board meeting and who are immediately going

to resort to ugly rhetoric and threats and all of that nastiness are the people who are going to get heard. And they bring in their friends from organizations too, which from organizations in the district, they make a lot of noise for several weeks. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. No, my administrators, God bless them. I'm so happy to be working where I am for the people that I am working for. They got deluge by phone calls over the course of a couple of days from people who I won't go into details, but it was really clear from the messages they were leaving that these people did not know anything about our district.

They didn't know anything about our school. They didn't understand our schedule. They clearly were not parents of anybody at the school, but they they wanted to see me disciplined. Right. You know, this is a pretty shouldn't you've got to know fire the sky. And the irony is of all of this is if any of them had been teachers, they would have known that like any book that you're teaching only 10% of the kids are reading it anyway. And of those 10% only maybe 50% actually reading all of it. And of them, only one is actually writing in a paper on it.

So I really, yeah, you know, I tried to reverse mustard seed at my old, at my prior district. I actually one year was teaching eighth grade English, and I had a choice between Tangerine. I didn't like, no, I'm not teaching that book or or I could teach Fahrenheit 451. You want to talk about, you know, banning books. It was so fun to watch you. How, how on the nose can you get? I was like, oh my god, I get to teach Bradbury. I love Bradbury so goddamn much. His prose is amazing. The man's a goddamn poet. It's a bill. Lord. And, and the, the painful agonizing slug- Still under watch. Of getting the kids to even fucking pay attention

to the book like at all. So yeah, like what they mean to say is entirely correct. Anybody who knows that you think about public education knows you can assign anything the hell you want. Yeah. The number of them who are actually gonna read it is. If I was indoctrinating kids, they would have read my syllabus. Right.

They would know not to email. Yeah. It would not shoot gum in my classroom. Yeah. Like, you know, the kids are gonna be just fine. I teach a class on comic studies where once a week I assign comic books to read half of them. No, no, so yeah, it's can't can't even do that. Yeah, they're at the collegiate level. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I assign my students to watch films and that doesn't happen. I mean, they can't even watch a movie. I can't even watch a movie. I can't get there. Our shit's compulsory. You're right. Yeah, no, like, they even for a class about comic books, not even controlling for intelligence.

I'm just or effort. It's you signed up to be here and you were selected to be here. Yeah. And you're not going to read the first ep, the first issue of Dark Hawk, really? You know, it's funny. I feel on the one hand really validated because it's not just us and on the other hand That's really depressing. I really want to leave the country now. It is and that's a good note to end on how depressing it is On this theme of you know feeling uncomfortable and that being okay, let's

Let's sit in our discomfort here. All right, so let's pull this thing to a close. Fellas working folks fine to support you. You can find me in these streets. No, I've been I've been waiting for three episodes for you to say that. Everyone's in a while. Damien's out here on the corner with the baseball bat with nails through it. It's right. Looking for a boss.

Damn right. Just playing the Pete Seeger in the background. Are you a union man or are you, oh, okay. No, you can find me at Harmony on Twitter and Instagram. You can also find me at Harmony one on the TikTok where I sling puns as often as I feel the need. Yeah, feel the need. Yeah, feel the need, not the compulsion. You can also find us.

So it's a compulsion. I want to tell you. I'll control that actually. But you can also find us collectively at geekhistorytime.com. You could also download our podcast, a geek history of time, either from the Apple, the iTunes app for

podcast, the purple one, or on Stitcher. And if you don't like that, then you can just go to our website, Geek History Time. That's where you can find me, Ed, where can they find you? I am on Twitter as eHBlaylock and I'm on TikTok as Mr. underscore Laylock. And yeah, a geek history. We have over 150 episodes on our podcast. And as Damien has said previously, it's a buffet. We cover all kinds of topics. So come for the prime rib and stay for the shrimp cocktail.

Yeah. So thanks. Thank you, folks, for having us here. Yeah, give them a range. We go from what? Giant robots and the yellow peril? Yeah, giant robots and yellow peril is one of mine. Uh, and then, uh, we both spend way too much time talking about Batman. Um, and then, uh, you have a really wonderful thesis on the Fantastic Four and, uh, the,

the concept of the nuclear family in the 60s. Yeah, there you go. So, I really liked your episode on, he rose there actually villains, in particular with Indiana Jones and why he is terrible for a variety of reasons. He is very important to ask, because he punches Nazis and he does it very well.

But, you know, for whether it's tenure or the rights of the indigenous old boys, got some things. Yeah, there's issues to talk about there. Yeah, we've done some on like cartoons that should have had a longer run too. Like we get silly with some stuff as well. So it's it's all kind of good. Yeah.

It's a good time. And the course, you know, folks can find me on tiktok. Dr. dot underscore C on Twitter and Instagram at gacruz underscore PhD and you can email your comments, concerns, your questions, recommendations for episodes and what have you or generalize by some things in lightmare right now. So you know any help is welcomed at gacruz PhD at gmail.com. Thanks for dropping by the office folks. We'll catch you next week. [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ OUTRO MUSIC PLAYING [♪ you