CWFA: Let's Ban Some Books!

Look, folks, I tried this time. I really did. I searched high and low at Concerned Women for America for an article that wasn't written by J. Matt Barber. Unfortunately, while there were a few, none made very good fodder for poking fun at. So, once again, our Concerned Woman for America is J. Matt Barber.

The article, straight out of 1984 or Fahrenheit 451 is about the trashy smut being forced upon our delicate, impressionable, doe-eyed little children in school.

Illinois School Pushes Smut on Children (Warning: Adult Content not Suitable for Children)

Yeah, but you know what Barbie REALLY means with that bright red type. He just wants to grab as much attention as possible from adults looking to be titillated. Heh, worked on me!

Illinois School District 126, covering Alsip, Hazelgreen and Oak Lawn, has defended its choice to assign summer reading to 12- and 13-year-olds that is replete with harsh profanity and references to teen sex (even teen sex with adults).

NNNOOO!!!! Not 12 and 13-year-olds! Everyone knows they can't discern reality from fiction! And if they read it in a book, of course they'll want to run right out and do it! Just ask the kids who read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe!

Prairie Junior High School’s required reading list for rising 8th graders gave children six books to choose from over the summer. Parents have complained that three of the six books contain adult content which is highly age-inappropriate.

Okay, there are six books "to choose from." You said so yourself, Barbie. How many of them have to be read? So can't the kids discern for themselves whether they would be offended by what's in them and stop reading? Or do you just want parents to make that decision for them?

Those complaints, however, have fallen on deaf ears. At a recent school board meeting, school board members said they intend to continue assigning the books.

Good. If I were a school board member, I would too.

The following are excerpts from just a handful of the many salacious passages found in one of the books, Fat Kid Rules the World, by K. L. Going:

(Warning: Adult Content not Suitable for Children):

Yes, we know. You've said so before, also in red type.

• God, I want to touch her. Her legs are full. … If I could just reach under that skirt. … (p. 6)

That's highly inappropriate! We all know teens never have those thoughts! And if we keep them from reading such filth, they never will!

• No one beats me or f—s me without my permission. (p. 11)

Other than the f-word, I really don't see what's inappropriate about this statement at all. Of course fundies would have a problem with the f-word, though. After all, it's another one of those things kids would never hear if it weren't for this book!

• F—k off, morons. (p. 47)

More of the same.

• I swear I’ll tear your g—d*mn, f—ing b*lls off…(p. 57)

What's that, Barbie? Is that "I swear I'll tear your goddamn, fucking balls off?" Huh, I guess the warnings on this piece were unnecessary, weren't they?

• “She’d f—k you if you stay in the band,” he says (p. 141)

Well, I totally understand the sentiment here! Nobody should ever be withheld sex just for leaving a band!

• …and now he has promised me that a forty-something woman will sleep with me if I’m the drummer (p. 142)

Wait...so this horrific act doesn't even happen? Someone just talks about it, and that upsets you? Christ, Matt, what kind of blinders and earplugs do you put on your kid before he's allowed to set foot outdoors?

(Classy stuff, Prairie Junior High. Is that how you talk in front of your kids, Principal Gwaltney?)

Probably not. That's why these books are for discussion purposes: to educate students about good, healthy, social behavior, and show what the other side is like.

To add insult to injury, the school didn’t even have the courtesy to warn these kids — or their parents — about the adult content within the assigned reading.

Zomg! You mean they assume teenagers have the maturity to handle content that's less than 100% innocent, in a safe, controlled environment under a teacher's watch, and to make some of their own decisions about whether to read it or not???

I suppose if you absolutely HAVE to be a fundie about it, and slap the ol' blindfold on, it's not that hard to go look at Amazon.com. I just did, and I got this page, for The Fat Kid Rules the World on audio.

Sexual references, negative portrayals of adults for most of the novel, and excessive use of expletives, especially the "f word," make this novel most appropriate for individual listening.

Come on, parents. If you really wanted to, you could look that up as well. Cuz it would be a whole lot easier than raising a colossal stink and getting the books banned! That is, unless it's your goal to make sure nobody reads it.

And parents are understandably furious. If one of my daughters came to me at twelve having been assigned this smut, I’d be ticked-off too.

Smut?? I didn't see any smut in the quoted sections. The only reason to be "ticked-off" would be if you read it, expecting smut. That PG-13 crap simply wouldn't do!

Whatever happened to classics like Ivanhoe or Up From Slavery?

Up From Slavery? But that has slavery in it! Won't it make kids want to own slaves? And Ivanhoe has witchcraft and Jews!

I'm not really sure why, but this sentence, and the attitude behind it, probably gall me more than anything else about this piece. Maybe it's this "I'm not a teacher, but I know better than schools what kids should read!" You want your kid to read something different? Homeschool him. The rest of us were doing just fine without J. Matt Barber's uneducated interference.

Sure, some of them may even contain limited profanity and adult content, but there’s a big difference. The profane content in Fat Kid isn’t sporadic. It’s pervasive and gratuitous. The book has 110 pages containing the F-word and other profanities, and there are multiple crude sexual references.

Yes, and another difference: It's modern and relevant, and will hold kids' interest.

Now, I'm sure there are some kids who would love to read books that are over a hundred years old. Let me know when you meet one.

With all the objectionable material children are subjected to on the internet, on television and in theatres, it’s outrageous that educators, who are charged with helping to mold the minds of these 12- and 13-year-olds, would willingly — if not eagerly — contribute to their moral degradation by pushing this kind of vulgarity on them.

Yes, those kids are probably whimpering in the corner, begging for teachers to spare their delicate sensibilities. And there's some big, mean, lesbian, Kerry-voting, tree hugging, pot-smoking, liberal teacher shouting "READ THE F WORD! READ IT!!"

It amounts to educational malpractice, and School District 126 should have its mouth washed out with soap.

My, my, Mr. Barber. Violence never solved anything! Would you like your kids to read depictions of someone having soap forced into his mouth? (Maybe if it happened without anyone saying "fuck...")

I telephoned Robert Berger, superintendent of schools for District 126, fully expecting him to assure me that this foolishness would be remedied. But instead, his response was defiant, defensive and arrogant.

Probably because you're Concerned Women for America, and you're trying to force your morality on him. How would any sane person react?

And Matt...tell the truth. Weren't YOU just a little rude too? I mean, your whole agenda involves telling school districts what they should be allowed to do, how do you think you sound?

Berger refused to answer me when I asked him several times if District 126 believed that such mature content was appropriate for children. (I wonder; if it’s so appropriate, then why wouldn’t he defend it?)

Probably because you're an annoying pest and he didn't want to deal with you. I wouldn't either. Frankly, there isn't anything he could say that you WON'T rail against, so why bother trying?

I asked Berger if one could infer that the district found the material appropriate since it was assigned to children. He quipped, “Infer whatever you want to.”

And then did you hang up and stop wasting everyone's time?

No one’s calling for a book burning here, but c’mon, these are just kids. Does District 126 have any standards of decency at all?

Yes. Which is why they selected age-appropriate reading to teach about difficult, controversial subjects. Just because a few fundies would prefer that they didn't teach it doesn't mean that they have no "standards of decency at all."

Unfortunately the actions of District 126 are symptomatic of a metastasizing moral malady within our larger system of public education. Kids in public schools across the country are constantly inundated with material which promotes profanity, homosexuality, promiscuity and abortion.

Yeah, cite please, Matt. Point me to a school district that "promotes" abortion, promiscuity, or profanity. Homosexuality, I'm not seeing either, considering that no amount of schooling can make you gay, or even decide to be gay. Not that there's a problem with it if you could decide.

The Agenda is pushed and the curriculum set by leftist groups like the National Education Association (NEA), the ACLU and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). Even the American Library Association (ALA) gave Fat Kids its “Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature.” The book also received a rave review from America’s largest homosexual activist literary organization, Lambda Literary Foundation.

Probably because it's an excellent book, and one that promotes tolerance and unity. I know how much fundies hate those things, and would rather accuse other people of having an "agenda." Do you have an "agenda" Matt?

By constantly lowering the bar on decency, educators are intentionally playing a game of ideological limbo with our children’s moral well-being as they seek to create little moral relativists in their own iconoclastic self-image.

Okay, Barbie doll, you have no idea what they're teaching, so shut up until you do. You're just making shit up to further your agenda, and you sound like a moron.

And they’re robbing kids of great reading like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and many others in the process.

Um, yeah. Oliver Twist involves kids being beaten and mistreated, intimate-partner violence, and a thieving street gang that consists only of young boys. Treasure Island--written in boring, impenetrable eighteenth-century prose--is about a boy who hangs out with a pirate. If kids really do emulate everything they read, I'd rather have my kid read swear words.

How low will they go?

By the looks of things in Alsip, Illinois, they’re not going to bottom out anytime soon.

Well, looks like Matt and I finally agree on something. They're not anywhere near the bottom!