Cool coincidence:
On Sunday, book lovers were lining up for the 70th annual Friends of the Library sale. Because this is nothing if not a bookish community.
Meanwhile just blocks away, on the steps of City Hall, another crowd of book lovers were holding a “Read Out.” Their purpose being not to celebrate, but rather to deplore, our Free State of Florida’s No. 1 ranking.
We’re No. ! Florida leads the nation in school book banning.
(We’re so proud.)
Zoharah Simmons, retired educator and Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Gainesville member wanted to do something to register our Free City Of GNV’s discontent over The Great DeSanitizer’s campaign to sanitize (censor) our schools of any conceivably objectionable reading material.
The definition of objectionable reading material being anything that virtually anybody doesn’t like and doesn’t want somebody else’s kids to read.
Simmons got a bunch of her friends together to read excerpts from frequently banned books.
And dozens of Free City Of GNV residents showed up to listen
Liz Steward read the children’s book “Sing A Song.” Which had to be banned in some quarters because it’s about a young black girl who sings what is widely regarded as the Black National Anthem.
Dan Hermeling read from “The 1619 Project,” widely banned…oh, I dunno…because the true history of slavery might make white children feel bad about themselves.
Lewis Kirvan read from “East of Eden,” a novel by Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Banned in some Florida schools because…well, it has some nasty language in it.
And GNV novelist and book store owner Lauren Gross read from “The Bluest Eye,” banned because, um, Toni Morrison was apprehended in the act of writing while Black.
Paul Ortiz was clear about his choice to read from “Slaughterhouse Five.” We are a militaristic country and Kurt Vonnegut made war seem somehow dirty and ignoble.
Plus it contains suggestive sentences like: “The gun made a ripping sound like the opening of the zipper on the fly of God Almighty.”
Renaud said he couldn’t understand why anyone would ban “The Hill We Climb.” The poem was read by its young Black author, Amanda Gorman, at Joe Biden’s inauguration.
Banned because somebody in Miami Lakes thought it would, you know, indoctrinate children.
It’s probably a sheer coincidence that the most frequently banned books in Florida were written by women, people of color, suspected liberals, assumed commies and such.
Hey, this is the Free State Of Florida pal. And we cannot call ourselves truly free until our children are sheltered from unauthorized ideas by The Great DeSanitizer’s Nanny State.
FreeGNV 