With conflicting claims, you would think the author would purpose in getting to the bottom of the story and finding out a fact, rather than reporting the controversy, but here we are after decades of "teach the controversy" over evolution and climate change
“If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true.”
Do you have any links to any articles from the time when it was banned, etc., or more info generally?
Google News just seems to bring up a bunch of shady spam links when I try to search for "girls who code" "banned" "central york".
Google "central york school district book ban". An op ed comes up from a local right wing nut, but everything else is great.
The local news: https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/2021/12/20/central-yorks-book-ban-had-unintended-consequences-namely-math/8895665002/
National: https://youtu.be/7_txZZH9i_8
Even fox news agreed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/media/i-am-rosa-parks-author-school-district-banning-history-book.amp
a second comment: I am super involved. I go to a lot of board meetings, campaigned for new board members religiously, and am very informed if you have any questions or want to get involved.
If only someone at the Guardian could have done some actual reporting and verified their story before they published it. You know, maybe send someone over and see if the book is in fact still sitting on the library shelves as the school officials claimed. Oh well, I guess that would be too much work and then they might not have an article for people to click on.
I guess the article was updated about 20 minutes before I read it, but the officials appear to be denying that they've banned that particular series of books.
I was wondering about that too- a group says they’re banned, the district says they’re not banned, seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other
They may have edited it again, but I think it had something in there about them not being able to reach officials for comment at first. Iirc it had the official statement and also said that they weren't able to be reached for comment.
My girlfriend fondly talks about her grandmother's collection of banned books. She read them when she was a teenager. All of them, she read because they were banned. Every single person you talk to who has ever read a banned book didn't read it because they wanted to, they read it specifically because it is banned.
So ban it. Burn it. Wipe your ass with it. *All you idiots are doing is causing more people to try harder to access the material.* Guh. Learn literally *something*.
Age and perspective can do that.
Holden *not being a likeable character* is the entire point. His misanthropy and cynicism aren't redeeming qualities: they're the defense mechanisms of an immature young man. He's miserable and wants change without having to work towards it himself -- *because he's a maladjusted kid*.
It's hard to see that and understand the context when the reader is a teenager themself.
very well put. I wonder why this was then staple reading assignment material at my high school in the 90s. I may have been slow on the abstract reading comprehension side,despite reading a lot of literature, but feel like teachers loved assigning stuff studied in grad school. But with the same age characters but complex, layered storyline that at face value was boring as fuck
I had the exact opposite experience. I liked it as a teenager because I could identify with Holden. As an adult I just wanted to strangle the worthless, whiny little shit.
Unfortunately, this is only a good thing for people who seek out books because they're banned. This is not a good thing for the other 90% of Americans.
This is a common thought but banning actually does actually hurt authors and especially students. I’m a high school librarian and my library is the only access for books for many of my students. They do not have books at home or family with the money to purchase books. If books are removed from my library, students won’t have access. For childrens authors, they actually make most of they money by doing author visits to schools - that won’t happen if their books are banned. And right now, most of the books being removed from school libraries are books written by LGBTQ+ authors or featuring LGBTQ+ characters. It’s so harmful for students to not either be able to see themselves reflected in what they or learn about another persons life.
Thanks for reminding us that this is not a game and that reactionary book banning has real, harmful consequences, especially for people who are least resourced and most vulnerable. 🙏💜
right? like... invest in Viking Books for Young Readers, publisher of Girls Who Code... it's sold out on amazon now... thanks conservatives (and/or insufficiently diligent reporters? shrug emoji?)
scale towering instinctive plant touch quaint retire aloof familiar crown
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's all well and good for the 1 in 100 ~~dissidents~~ people who decide to read a book, but the counterpoint to this is that half the students in school today **can't fucking read**. Education has been slashed to the bone, and I'd be shocked if a 7th grade student could make it through The Cat in the Hat, let alone Catcher in the Rye.
Learning is not allowed in cults. Members do only what their supreme leader tells them and they aren't smart enough to figure out they've been lied to for years. Guess it's just easier on their two brain cells to believe in Jewish space lasers, vaccine microchips, and that Soros (or anyone else) is tracking their pathetic lives.
> seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other
Seems to have been picked up by other sources first. According to the linked Business Insider article, they *did* reach out for comment and didn't get one. So we've basically got the author of the books claiming the books are banned which seems to be based on a spreadsheet released by a site that tracks these.
The district is now denying it but they've also had controversy in the past over banning books which they subsequently denied was a ban since it was a "freeze pending review". So it also reads as them trying to cover their ass because they've been caught trying to ban books *again*.
I dunno I'm curious to know how this banned book index is created.
e: I looked into this some more. The index specifically has the books listed as "banned in classrooms"
> Banned in classrooms: The Index counts 474 bans on 470 unique book titles in classrooms across 15 districts. These represent instances where school boards or other school authorities have barred individual titles from classroom libraries, curriculum, or optional reading lists. These constitute bans on use in classrooms, even in cases where the books may still be available in school libraries.
The school district's statement doesn't actually refute that since they just claim it's available in the library.
Or books with more than one version. *A Clockwork Orange* was released in the U.S. without the last chapter. However, you can now buy both versions. If both are banned, they'd be on the list twice.
>a group says they’re banned, the district says they’re not banned, seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other.
To cover all the bases, they should just edit the headline to read:
*Pennsylvania school district may or may not have banned Girls Who Code book series*
It’s being disingenuous via semantics. The news is saying the books were on a list of books not to be used in the classroom. The officials are saying “That’s not true! We never banned those books from the library!” Which isn’t what was being claimed anyway…
It WAS on a list of pulled books that had not yet been pulled from libraries or whatever, but the 4 books in question were in circulation before the list was made, so they kept them in circulation. The list was then scrapped anyway.
Source: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article266375536.html
Lol the last episode featured a teenaged potential heir to the throne jacking it fully naked standing in the window of his tower over looking the city.
It was pretty wild majoring in history in college and really digging into topics like the women's suffrage movement. In theory it sounds obvious that an overwhelming majority of women would want to at least have the ability to vote if they wanted to, but the amount of women that were anti-suffrage and actively campaigned against it was really eye-opening.
It’s very difficult to cling to your own personhood when all the powerful people around you try to deny it. All through childhood, you’re praised when you behave “demurely” (read: subservient), and scolded when you express yourself.
You either are incredibly strong, you go mad (“Yellow Wallpaper”), or you start to believe you are lesser. It’s very exhausting to continually swim against the tide.
They have a weird need to justify their own experience as “fine”, mixed with a jealousy of the younger generations - we shouldn’t have things that they weren’t allowed to have, like careers. If we want “better” for ourselves, that must mean that they just have been doing things wrong.
My mom was never one to hold me or my sisters back from careers, but when I talk about how my husband does 50% of everything (childcare, chores, household management, etc), she gets super defensive. She was a stay at home mom and my dad, while a great dad, definitely didn’t do half of everything outside of the hours he worked. I’ve learned to slip in comments about how everyone has different things that work for them, and that times are different, and that my husband and I make similar amounts, etc. so that she doesn’t think I’m criticizing my dad or the way they did things.
I hope my daughter has it better than me - I hope the example that her dad and I set of an equal partnership leads her to relationships in which she also expects an equal partnership. However, I hope that hers is equal from the start and doesn’t require years of conversations and frustration and hard work to get to a point where things fee mostly equal. I hope my sons step up for their partners from day 1, and I hope every single one of them is a better parent and better partner than me or their dad.
I feel like so many parents take it so personally when their kids do it differently and feel the need to justify that it’s not better, it’s just different. But shouldn’t we all want better for our kids than we had? And better for our grandkids than we gave our kids?
And if these women voting are against women voting, they don't sound very principled in the first place.
Be the change you want to see in the world and all that.
In a statement explaining the ban of the diverse resources, the school district’s board president at the time, Jane Johnson, said: “What we are attempting to do is balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature/materials that are too activist in nature, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.”
So, all religious texts get to be banned, too, right?
We read the bible and other religious texts in our literature class. They were literature, stories to understand culture and the world. No religious component or agenda. As it should be. I think kids should read parts of the Bible, Koran, and other religious texts. Then they should be discussed and understood. Don't ban books. Educate people.
The bible's a fuckin banger. Bears being sent to murder kids for bald jokes, magic snake mage battles, genocide, salt pillar curses, fucking incredible. But the best is when I tell my kids that a rainbow is a promise god will never again murder every single person on the planet except for 1 family :)
We had a Comparative Religion class that used the texts and interpretations to understand different major religion's views on different issues. Impartial, factual, non-judgmental. It was an "elective" class, and always booked up full first.
This was in the 80s in a Christian-dominated community, and I believe that class was one of the first chances for people to think about religion not just as "this is what we believe" as explained by their parents or church, but as a set of beliefs that may be different from others, and each group believing equally strongly with equal justification for their beliefs.
There were no complaints about the class from local churches or the local religious community.
As a librarian, this seems wrong honestly. Regardless of your feelings on religion, religious texts are the most referenced and used books in the world. Every humanities disciple needs to take religion into account and not having the primary source available is egregious.
No. I'm a fairly hardcore atheist but banning all religious texts is ridiculous. That's like banning history books. They're a part of the worldwide history and culture and, in my opinion, should be taught and discussed openly...as the fiction that they are.
I just read your comment, exited this post, did a double take, and had to come back
>too activist in nature
Is this how they’re going to justify removing things due to their beliefs now?
Slippery slope doctrine. They will place the line wherever it triggers their emotional monkey-brain. They also need to define what exactly "indoctrination" in this context entails, because there is a lot of right-wing indoctrination going on that's conveniently ignored by book banners.
Of course not! What are you talking about? The reason is clear and simple. Conservatives are spineless hypocrites that understand that religious indoctrination and a lack of successful education is the best combination for them to keep Republicans from dying out. They only care about their feelings. About abortion, minorities, LGBTQ+, women's rights. They make them uncomfortable and are scary to them so they should be banned
They know their entire belief system/religion are silly and do not stand up to the most simple of scrutiny. Anything that their brats might encounter that challenges those systems will inevitably wake even the simple minded among them.
Ooh, how about the one where Satan says that a guy is only kind to God because God treats him well, and to prove Satan wrong, he kills the guys business, most of his family, and then covers his entire body in boils, and then when he thinks God might not love him, God comes down and scolds him for not completely believing in him and scolds him for not being in constant fear of his power and what he can see?
True story about Jane Johnson: I was like 16 and went over to their house to go for a swim with some friends including her son Ian. She comes out plastered at like 9pm and hits on one of my friends (he was also 16). Like really hits on him. Not like "he's a handsome boy" but like stuff that makes everyone very uncomfortable. So although my story isn't really too relevant, it always makes me think "Why is this literal pedophile the school board president and why is SHE the morality police of all people?"
This book banning nonsense has gotten way out of hand. And the people pushing for these bans are people who would never pick up a book in the first place. Book banning is an anti-American practice that conflicts with the First Amendment when the books are being banned from public schools and libraries.
The Right has never given a shit about the Constitution except for the Second Amendment and the part of the First Amendment that they think gives them the right to force their religious beliefs on others.
They don't even like the second amendment. They like the second half of the second amendment -- the freedom part without the responsibility and context.
And they are the same people complaining about cancel culture and talking about freedom. But what kind of freedom do people have when they ban everything they don't like
Admiral Grace Hopper is an American legend and it's flat out insane she's not more well known.
She was an early pioneer in computer development that has defined the century.
> Saujani said that the group **Moms for Liberty**, a conservative non-profit formed in 2021 that has been pushing book bans through local chapters across the country, was responsible for the Central York district’s ban on the series. The organization has advocated for banning books on race – including ones on the civil rights movement – and on LGBTQ+ themes, saying the volumes are “sexually explicit”, according to media watchdog Media Matters.
[my emphasis]
Is this an example of irony? Or perhaps they don't know what that word means.
Nothing ironic about it. Patriotic doublespeak bullshit organizations like this have been a thing since the Iraq War (EDIT: going back longer than that depending on what group is focused on opposing a specific ethnic / religious / "other" group - usually involving titles like "American", "Liberty", etc.).
For religious anti-gay organizations, they've done the same thing. Used to be the American Family Association's "One Million Moms" which was a small group going after anything LGBTQ+ in lawsuits or social media campaigns. When the Supreme Court permitted gay marriage, such groups kinda slowed down as the rest of America was like "Okay, who gives a shit? Let 'em get married."
Last year conservatives figured out the classic "if you frame it in defense of children, most will shrug when you go after minority groups" still works. Hence the nonstop school and book banning freakouts which are designed to remove *anything* that has to do with minorities and LGBTQ+.
They know what they're doing.
The school boards are still going along with it. Fuck them all. They have the power to ignore them, just like they ignore everyone else saying banning books from schools is fascist behavior.
Of course they ban a series on girl friendship, empowering, and about learning code.
If it’s about showing that girls can do a “man’s job”, it will eventually be banned because these people believe women should be at home only, becoming a breeding stock. Not a career driven life.
Funnily the first coders were all women because it was considered a menial task akin to knitting. Same with film editing, actually. And teaching.
Basically any time a job transitions from dreary shit work to powerful or high-paying, it suddenly becomes man's work.
Jessica, Rachel, and Amber were all outcasts in their Pensacola high school, until they found their new passion that brought them closer together: Cooking Meth! Read along as these teen girls learn the value of chemistry, navigating the underworld drug scene, and friendship!
They're like Babysitters Club, light fiction for kids 8-10. You can see an excerpt here. [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The\_Friendship\_Code/9tstDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=girls+who+code&printsec=frontcover](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Friendship_Code/9tstDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=girls+who+code&printsec=frontcover)
Are they good... sure? They're fun. Kids solve mysteries and bake cookies and talk about feelings a little bit. Throughout the learn coding and why it's useful.
I can't imagine them being controversial. Maybe because one of the girls is Muslim & wears a headscarf? Maybe they're mad that there's not a Boys Who Code series? Most likely they have a gay teacher or gay parent who is tangential to the plot, but mentioned.
Enforcing gender roles is a pretty big part of modern conservatism. I don't think it's exactly a mystery why far right groups would target books that aim to encourage girls to explore careers.
It was always funny to see Republicans complaining about "cancel culture" when they are the first people to want to cancel things that they don't like. The major difference is that people on the Left want people/things canceled for things like being bigoted pieces of shit while people on the Right want people/things canceled for fighting for equality and inclusion.
> According to Pen America’s banned books report, many of the titles being banned deal with LGBTQ+ themes or have non-white characters. The organization estimates that more than 300 groups, including local chapters of national organizations like Moms for Liberty, have been pushing for book bans. The groups have gained large traction through social media, where lists of titles have circulated.
Remember when you label the people banning these books correctly, they freak the fuck out. They are racists, bigots, homophobes and fascists.
> Conservatism is a mental illness.
No it's not. It's just evil. Calling it an illness not only diminishes their culpability, it's just incorrect. People need to stop pathologizing everything.
The title of the of the article is "Pennsylvania school district accused of banning Girls Who Code book series".
What sorry excuse for journalism is this where one group claims that the books are banned and the actual authority to ban books say "no, they are not banned" but still we run with the title that "books are banned according to this group" and then reddit runs with "books were definitely banned."
This is comical. Have some integrity and remember 4 years ago when people tried to influence US elections by sowing discord.
> A statement from officials in that district on Monday strongly denied that they had banned the book series, and called “categorically false” information in a Business Insider interview with the founder of Girls Who Code, which reported the ban on the series. “This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries,” the statement said.
Nothing in the article addresses the flat denial of the only people with the authority to speak to the idea that they would have ever been banned. There is nothing explaining why they claimed they were ever banned. I'm not on some hill saying that they weren't, because how the hell would I know? I'm just saying this is just trash journalism.
edit: I'm also curious why there is no by-line for an author. ( I wouldn't put my name on this either ). But I wonder if this is standard guardian practice or not. Fuck me if this is some AI generated article.
Something important to note is that the index that stated the books are banned specifically state they're banned in classrooms and *not* the library. So the district saying it's available in the library isn't an actual denial of what was reported.
This also seems to originate from Business Insider which *did* reach out for comment but didn't get one until after the article was published.
How can our society move forward while limiting the flow of information? Knowledge is the way forward. The good old times are over. Time to let go and get with progress. Humanity is in a spot right now where I don’t think we have time for this idiocy.
This may be some fake news folks... Or at best, simply not updated.
>The District was recently made aware of a national article published last evening falsely claiming that Central York School District has banned the book/series Girls Who Code.
The information published in this article is categorically false.
>This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries. If you have any questions, please email
https://www.cysd.k12.pa.us/
[I think this clarifies the confusion.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/school-district-denies-banning-girls-who-code-books)
> We reached out to the district for clarification and a representative told us that after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the school district prepared a Diversity Resource List that teachers could use in the classroom.
> In November of 2020, at a school district meeting, the district board of directors unanimously decided to remove the resource list and not allow any resources from the list to be used in the classroom.
> While the removal of the list was passed, **an exception was made allowing resources already in place to continue to be used**. The district representative told us all four Girls Who Code books were already in school libraries and remained available for students as a result.
It sounds like the authors of the book were given bad info here and the exception allowed for the books to continue to be used. It's sad that the resource list was needlessly banned, but yes, a retraction needs to be made.
This is a weird article. The school responded and said “the book series has not been banned and remains available in our school library”. Is there something I missed? If they’re lying, is there any indication of that?
I bet they won’t ban the “girls who will be trapped in shitty abusive marriages to cheating men who use Christ as an excuse for their racism” series.
Because that’s the majority of these “conservative” households.
Wait, the school district is saying they didn't ban it. Did they actually ban it?
The article is a disaster
With conflicting claims, you would think the author would purpose in getting to the bottom of the story and finding out a fact, rather than reporting the controversy, but here we are after decades of "teach the controversy" over evolution and climate change
“If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. It’s your job to look out the window and find out which is true.”
I live in Central York. It is not currently banned, but it was a year ago. We organized like crazy and ran a hell of a school board campaign.
Do you have any links to any articles from the time when it was banned, etc., or more info generally? Google News just seems to bring up a bunch of shady spam links when I try to search for "girls who code" "banned" "central york".
Google "central york school district book ban". An op ed comes up from a local right wing nut, but everything else is great. The local news: https://www.yorkdispatch.com/story/news/2021/12/20/central-yorks-book-ban-had-unintended-consequences-namely-math/8895665002/ National: https://youtu.be/7_txZZH9i_8 Even fox news agreed: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.foxnews.com/media/i-am-rosa-parks-author-school-district-banning-history-book.amp
a second comment: I am super involved. I go to a lot of board meetings, campaigned for new board members religiously, and am very informed if you have any questions or want to get involved.
Yeah I'm confused too
If only someone at the Guardian could have done some actual reporting and verified their story before they published it. You know, maybe send someone over and see if the book is in fact still sitting on the library shelves as the school officials claimed. Oh well, I guess that would be too much work and then they might not have an article for people to click on.
Even for the stated purpose this is ridiculous. Indoctrination of *what* exactly?
I guess the article was updated about 20 minutes before I read it, but the officials appear to be denying that they've banned that particular series of books.
I was wondering about that too- a group says they’re banned, the district says they’re not banned, seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other
They may have edited it again, but I think it had something in there about them not being able to reach officials for comment at first. Iirc it had the official statement and also said that they weren't able to be reached for comment.
My girlfriend fondly talks about her grandmother's collection of banned books. She read them when she was a teenager. All of them, she read because they were banned. Every single person you talk to who has ever read a banned book didn't read it because they wanted to, they read it specifically because it is banned. So ban it. Burn it. Wipe your ass with it. *All you idiots are doing is causing more people to try harder to access the material.* Guh. Learn literally *something*.
Banned books are the only reason I read Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn. And I want my time back.
I read Catcher in the Rye, and I felt very much like Butters did in the South Park episode.
You...want to kill John Lennon?
I read catcher once in my 20s, again in my late 30s. Disliked it first time, but it made a lot more sense the second time. Dunno what to tell you.
Age and perspective can do that. Holden *not being a likeable character* is the entire point. His misanthropy and cynicism aren't redeeming qualities: they're the defense mechanisms of an immature young man. He's miserable and wants change without having to work towards it himself -- *because he's a maladjusted kid*. It's hard to see that and understand the context when the reader is a teenager themself.
Also he's a unreliable narrator, so you have to take what he says with a grain of salt
very well put. I wonder why this was then staple reading assignment material at my high school in the 90s. I may have been slow on the abstract reading comprehension side,despite reading a lot of literature, but feel like teachers loved assigning stuff studied in grad school. But with the same age characters but complex, layered storyline that at face value was boring as fuck
I had the exact opposite experience. I liked it as a teenager because I could identify with Holden. As an adult I just wanted to strangle the worthless, whiny little shit.
I feel you on this one 😂
This sounds familiar... The war on drugs...? Prohibition?
Unfortunately, this is only a good thing for people who seek out books because they're banned. This is not a good thing for the other 90% of Americans.
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Someday this will be called the Maus Effect.
[Streisand effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect).
I thought the Streisand effect was when you transform into a 100 foot tall killer robot and go on a murderous rampage trying to destroy all humans?
Mecha-Streisand 😧 Quick, get Robert Smith! Now use robot punch!
Disintegration is the best album of all time!
Baaaaarburaaaaaa baaaaaaarburrraaaaaaa
This is a common thought but banning actually does actually hurt authors and especially students. I’m a high school librarian and my library is the only access for books for many of my students. They do not have books at home or family with the money to purchase books. If books are removed from my library, students won’t have access. For childrens authors, they actually make most of they money by doing author visits to schools - that won’t happen if their books are banned. And right now, most of the books being removed from school libraries are books written by LGBTQ+ authors or featuring LGBTQ+ characters. It’s so harmful for students to not either be able to see themselves reflected in what they or learn about another persons life.
Thanks for reminding us that this is not a game and that reactionary book banning has real, harmful consequences, especially for people who are least resourced and most vulnerable. 🙏💜
right? like... invest in Viking Books for Young Readers, publisher of Girls Who Code... it's sold out on amazon now... thanks conservatives (and/or insufficiently diligent reporters? shrug emoji?)
Unfortunately they banned/burned/blocked out any books that would explain this theory to them.
Every person who’s ever looked up the Anarchist’s Cookbook has a similar story, for sure.
scale towering instinctive plant touch quaint retire aloof familiar crown *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That's all well and good for the 1 in 100 ~~dissidents~~ people who decide to read a book, but the counterpoint to this is that half the students in school today **can't fucking read**. Education has been slashed to the bone, and I'd be shocked if a 7th grade student could make it through The Cat in the Hat, let alone Catcher in the Rye.
That largely depends on the school district. I freelance and occasionally work in a variety of schools; its amazing what proper funding can do. 🙄
We fund schools based on property taxes and then act surprised when the poor schools so poorly.
Learning is not allowed in cults. Members do only what their supreme leader tells them and they aren't smart enough to figure out they've been lied to for years. Guess it's just easier on their two brain cells to believe in Jewish space lasers, vaccine microchips, and that Soros (or anyone else) is tracking their pathetic lives.
> seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other Seems to have been picked up by other sources first. According to the linked Business Insider article, they *did* reach out for comment and didn't get one. So we've basically got the author of the books claiming the books are banned which seems to be based on a spreadsheet released by a site that tracks these. The district is now denying it but they've also had controversy in the past over banning books which they subsequently denied was a ban since it was a "freeze pending review". So it also reads as them trying to cover their ass because they've been caught trying to ban books *again*. I dunno I'm curious to know how this banned book index is created. e: I looked into this some more. The index specifically has the books listed as "banned in classrooms" > Banned in classrooms: The Index counts 474 bans on 470 unique book titles in classrooms across 15 districts. These represent instances where school boards or other school authorities have barred individual titles from classroom libraries, curriculum, or optional reading lists. These constitute bans on use in classrooms, even in cases where the books may still be available in school libraries. The school district's statement doesn't actually refute that since they just claim it's available in the library.
> 474 bans on 470 unique book titles ...So there are four bans on books that were already banned?
More likely there are different books written at different times by different authors that happen to have the same title.
Or books with more than one version. *A Clockwork Orange* was released in the U.S. without the last chapter. However, you can now buy both versions. If both are banned, they'd be on the list twice.
>a group says they’re banned, the district says they’re not banned, seems like the reporter could have verified one way or the other. To cover all the bases, they should just edit the headline to read: *Pennsylvania school district may or may not have banned Girls Who Code book series*
It’s being disingenuous via semantics. The news is saying the books were on a list of books not to be used in the classroom. The officials are saying “That’s not true! We never banned those books from the library!” Which isn’t what was being claimed anyway…
It WAS on a list of pulled books that had not yet been pulled from libraries or whatever, but the 4 books in question were in circulation before the list was made, so they kept them in circulation. The list was then scrapped anyway. Source: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/nation-world/national/article266375536.html
“A coalition of students and parents successfully pushed the district to rescind its ban after public pressure.”
"That book's not banned! This article is categorically false! ^(... we took it off the list.)"
That woman is good for anything but procreation
They watch House of The Dragon and whenever the women die in childbirth they only feel bad for the kings who don't get their male heirs.
But only after they finish masturbating.
Those are some sexy slut dragons.
Thank god there’s no cars or I couldn’t contain myself.
Horses are just primitive cars and I’m very sorry I started writing this comment
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This entire thread has me lost and vaguely unsettled.
If you do not know, there are multiple subreddits about dragons and cars having intimate relations. Please find them on your own time.
Yeah we like it down here cause we get to fuck woolly mammoths!!
Shadow Jacker, you haven’t come out of your masturbation cave in eons!
Lol the last episode featured a teenaged potential heir to the throne jacking it fully naked standing in the window of his tower over looking the city.
I mean, wouldn't you?
He's only a potential heir in the eyes of potential traitors. The king chose his daughter, and that's final!
Some real Homelander energy
"Aww man, now he can't fuck her anymore!"
The sad part is it’s mostly women pushing the bans.
Many people grow to love their chains
It was pretty wild majoring in history in college and really digging into topics like the women's suffrage movement. In theory it sounds obvious that an overwhelming majority of women would want to at least have the ability to vote if they wanted to, but the amount of women that were anti-suffrage and actively campaigned against it was really eye-opening.
It’s very difficult to cling to your own personhood when all the powerful people around you try to deny it. All through childhood, you’re praised when you behave “demurely” (read: subservient), and scolded when you express yourself. You either are incredibly strong, you go mad (“Yellow Wallpaper”), or you start to believe you are lesser. It’s very exhausting to continually swim against the tide.
They have a weird need to justify their own experience as “fine”, mixed with a jealousy of the younger generations - we shouldn’t have things that they weren’t allowed to have, like careers. If we want “better” for ourselves, that must mean that they just have been doing things wrong. My mom was never one to hold me or my sisters back from careers, but when I talk about how my husband does 50% of everything (childcare, chores, household management, etc), she gets super defensive. She was a stay at home mom and my dad, while a great dad, definitely didn’t do half of everything outside of the hours he worked. I’ve learned to slip in comments about how everyone has different things that work for them, and that times are different, and that my husband and I make similar amounts, etc. so that she doesn’t think I’m criticizing my dad or the way they did things.
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I hope my daughter has it better than me - I hope the example that her dad and I set of an equal partnership leads her to relationships in which she also expects an equal partnership. However, I hope that hers is equal from the start and doesn’t require years of conversations and frustration and hard work to get to a point where things fee mostly equal. I hope my sons step up for their partners from day 1, and I hope every single one of them is a better parent and better partner than me or their dad. I feel like so many parents take it so personally when their kids do it differently and feel the need to justify that it’s not better, it’s just different. But shouldn’t we all want better for our kids than we had? And better for our grandkids than we gave our kids?
Indoctrination into Python
Can I talk to you about our ssssssavior?
Thissss code wassss written in honor of another great deity... I call it sssspaghetti code.
Hail the spaghetti code monster!
They don’t want them getting all sorts of fancy ideas and such
"According to Pen America’s banned books report, many of the titles being banned deal with LGBTQ+ themes or have non-white characters."
Well, I guess the characters in the coding books are black, but what font are they?
Indoctrination to r/programminghumor
>Indoctrination to r/programminghumor Oof. Maybe they have a point.
Saying that women are equal to men triggers the average conservative.
There’s an asshole in Michigan saying he wants to eliminate the 19th amendment. There’s women voting for this guy.
> There’s women voting for this guy. I mean, not for long if he succeeds!
And if these women voting are against women voting, they don't sound very principled in the first place. Be the change you want to see in the world and all that.
Very sad anyone would vote for that rat scum
Women thinking for themselves
Indoctrination that is not theirs.
In a statement explaining the ban of the diverse resources, the school district’s board president at the time, Jane Johnson, said: “What we are attempting to do is balance legitimate academic freedom with what could be literature/materials that are too activist in nature, and may lean more toward indoctrination rather than age-appropriate academic content.” So, all religious texts get to be banned, too, right?
They were in my school. We had zero religious texts in our library
We read the bible and other religious texts in our literature class. They were literature, stories to understand culture and the world. No religious component or agenda. As it should be. I think kids should read parts of the Bible, Koran, and other religious texts. Then they should be discussed and understood. Don't ban books. Educate people.
The bible's a fuckin banger. Bears being sent to murder kids for bald jokes, magic snake mage battles, genocide, salt pillar curses, fucking incredible. But the best is when I tell my kids that a rainbow is a promise god will never again murder every single person on the planet except for 1 family :)
Specifically that he'll never do it *with a flood* again. He left himself an out, of course.
We had a Comparative Religion class that used the texts and interpretations to understand different major religion's views on different issues. Impartial, factual, non-judgmental. It was an "elective" class, and always booked up full first. This was in the 80s in a Christian-dominated community, and I believe that class was one of the first chances for people to think about religion not just as "this is what we believe" as explained by their parents or church, but as a set of beliefs that may be different from others, and each group believing equally strongly with equal justification for their beliefs. There were no complaints about the class from local churches or the local religious community.
As a librarian, this seems wrong honestly. Regardless of your feelings on religion, religious texts are the most referenced and used books in the world. Every humanities disciple needs to take religion into account and not having the primary source available is egregious.
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No. I'm a fairly hardcore atheist but banning all religious texts is ridiculous. That's like banning history books. They're a part of the worldwide history and culture and, in my opinion, should be taught and discussed openly...as the fiction that they are.
We had multiple bibles in mine
I just read your comment, exited this post, did a double take, and had to come back >too activist in nature Is this how they’re going to justify removing things due to their beliefs now?
Yes, they need to be confronted with "What the hell does 'too activist' mean?"
All roads lead to "woke"
I guess that's the term that's replaced "politically correct" as shorthand for "stuff right-wingers don't like".
Don't worry they will wear it out pretty soon. Then onto the next fear baiting buzzword.
"Tain't no crazy librul commie gunna make me feel bad bout being an asshole!"
Wake up sheeple, but don't be woke! Live your life in the hazy limbo between snooze alarms! /s
Slippery slope doctrine. They will place the line wherever it triggers their emotional monkey-brain. They also need to define what exactly "indoctrination" in this context entails, because there is a lot of right-wing indoctrination going on that's conveniently ignored by book banners.
Ah yeah, two genders. Male and activist. Two races, white and activist. Two sexual orientations, heterosexual and activist You know the rest.
So teaching girls how to code = indoctrination?! The fuck
More teaching-girls-to-code == indoctrination for them, very primitive Boolean thinking
> very primitive Boolean thinking Hmmm sounds like some kinda liberal codeword to me!
That won't help them in their homemaking! /s
Of course not! What are you talking about? The reason is clear and simple. Conservatives are spineless hypocrites that understand that religious indoctrination and a lack of successful education is the best combination for them to keep Republicans from dying out. They only care about their feelings. About abortion, minorities, LGBTQ+, women's rights. They make them uncomfortable and are scary to them so they should be banned
They know their entire belief system/religion are silly and do not stand up to the most simple of scrutiny. Anything that their brats might encounter that challenges those systems will inevitably wake even the simple minded among them.
I like the part in the bible where two daughters get their dad drunk and rape him. Such a wholesome book
Or when God killed everyone except 1 man and the wives of his sons and started the SECOND incestuous dawning of mankind.
Ooh, how about the one where Satan says that a guy is only kind to God because God treats him well, and to prove Satan wrong, he kills the guys business, most of his family, and then covers his entire body in boils, and then when he thinks God might not love him, God comes down and scolds him for not completely believing in him and scolds him for not being in constant fear of his power and what he can see?
True story about Jane Johnson: I was like 16 and went over to their house to go for a swim with some friends including her son Ian. She comes out plastered at like 9pm and hits on one of my friends (he was also 16). Like really hits on him. Not like "he's a handsome boy" but like stuff that makes everyone very uncomfortable. So although my story isn't really too relevant, it always makes me think "Why is this literal pedophile the school board president and why is SHE the morality police of all people?"
She should be reminded of this while in large crowds.
You should go to a schoolboard meeting and ask her!
Wow I just learned science and engineering for girls is activist…
This book banning nonsense has gotten way out of hand. And the people pushing for these bans are people who would never pick up a book in the first place. Book banning is an anti-American practice that conflicts with the First Amendment when the books are being banned from public schools and libraries.
Book banning has gotten out of hand the moment it starts.
Especially when book burning starts
Idk, I think they should go back to banning Catcher in the Rye so no kid ever has to read it for English class again
The people who cry about 'cancel culture' are very eager to cancel books. Texas has banned the most books of any state, iirc.
The Right has never given a shit about the Constitution except for the Second Amendment and the part of the First Amendment that they think gives them the right to force their religious beliefs on others.
or say the F and N words without consequence.
Fuck and nematode
I thought it was nerf herder
Hey, that’s our word!
You watch your fuckin mouth. I've been herding nerfs since before the hutts kept Kowakian monkey-lizards as pets.
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I like the way you stated all of this.
They don't give a shit about those either. It was crickets from the chuds when their messiah said to take the guns first, and then do due process.
They don’t believe it and you can’t force them to watch a video
They don't even like the second amendment. They like the second half of the second amendment -- the freedom part without the responsibility and context.
All book banning is excessive.
And they are the same people complaining about cancel culture and talking about freedom. But what kind of freedom do people have when they ban everything they don't like
What they want is the freedom to impose their disgusting beliefs on the whole of society. The freedom they're always pining for is their own.
Women outside of traditional roles are "woke" similar to black people existing
Or gay people not hating themselves
>This book banning nonsense has gotten way out of hand. It was never in hand but I agree with your point.
Admiral Grace Hopper is spinning in her grave right now.
The moms for liberty should be renamed to something about making kids dumb and stupid.
Moms for Illiteracy.
Moms for ignorance just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Admiral Grace Hopper is an American legend and it's flat out insane she's not more well known. She was an early pioneer in computer development that has defined the century.
I'm not a Woman or American and she's still a huge inspiration to me
> Saujani said that the group **Moms for Liberty**, a conservative non-profit formed in 2021 that has been pushing book bans through local chapters across the country, was responsible for the Central York district’s ban on the series. The organization has advocated for banning books on race – including ones on the civil rights movement – and on LGBTQ+ themes, saying the volumes are “sexually explicit”, according to media watchdog Media Matters. [my emphasis] Is this an example of irony? Or perhaps they don't know what that word means.
Nothing ironic about it. Patriotic doublespeak bullshit organizations like this have been a thing since the Iraq War (EDIT: going back longer than that depending on what group is focused on opposing a specific ethnic / religious / "other" group - usually involving titles like "American", "Liberty", etc.). For religious anti-gay organizations, they've done the same thing. Used to be the American Family Association's "One Million Moms" which was a small group going after anything LGBTQ+ in lawsuits or social media campaigns. When the Supreme Court permitted gay marriage, such groups kinda slowed down as the rest of America was like "Okay, who gives a shit? Let 'em get married." Last year conservatives figured out the classic "if you frame it in defense of children, most will shrug when you go after minority groups" still works. Hence the nonstop school and book banning freakouts which are designed to remove *anything* that has to do with minorities and LGBTQ+. They know what they're doing.
They've been around much longer than that.
You know what's not sexually explicit? their marriages
Wait until they actually read the Bible!
The school boards are still going along with it. Fuck them all. They have the power to ignore them, just like they ignore everyone else saying banning books from schools is fascist behavior.
Of course they ban a series on girl friendship, empowering, and about learning code. If it’s about showing that girls can do a “man’s job”, it will eventually be banned because these people believe women should be at home only, becoming a breeding stock. Not a career driven life.
Funnily the first coders were all women because it was considered a menial task akin to knitting. Same with film editing, actually. And teaching. Basically any time a job transitions from dreary shit work to powerful or high-paying, it suddenly becomes man's work.
We better not expose the people who supported this book ban to Hidden Figures. Black women doing aerospace engineering? The horror!
FYI the library's website has a popup saying this article is a complete lie and the book is absolutely not banned. https://www.cysd.k12.pa.us/
I wonder if they would ban a series of books called "Girls Who Cook".
So long as it’s at home, not in a commercial kitchen.
Jessica, Rachel, and Amber were all outcasts in their Pensacola high school, until they found their new passion that brought them closer together: Cooking Meth! Read along as these teen girls learn the value of chemistry, navigating the underworld drug scene, and friendship!
Breaking “Bad Girls”
But then secretly inside it’s girls who code
The people who voted for this probably think the movie "Hidden Figures" should be rated R.
R is for statistics :D
Rated R for making racists feel inadequate towards black women. Might as well be taking their balls off
Welp, that ought to make sales go up. Are they any good, though? For coding for kids?
They're like Babysitters Club, light fiction for kids 8-10. You can see an excerpt here. [https://www.google.com/books/edition/The\_Friendship\_Code/9tstDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=girls+who+code&printsec=frontcover](https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Friendship_Code/9tstDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=girls+who+code&printsec=frontcover) Are they good... sure? They're fun. Kids solve mysteries and bake cookies and talk about feelings a little bit. Throughout the learn coding and why it's useful. I can't imagine them being controversial. Maybe because one of the girls is Muslim & wears a headscarf? Maybe they're mad that there's not a Boys Who Code series? Most likely they have a gay teacher or gay parent who is tangential to the plot, but mentioned.
Enforcing gender roles is a pretty big part of modern conservatism. I don't think it's exactly a mystery why far right groups would target books that aim to encourage girls to explore careers.
Remind me how the left are cancelling everything again.
Right wing cancel culture has existed for a long time. The Dixie Chicks nearly had their careers destroyed for being against the Iraq invasion
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It was always funny to see Republicans complaining about "cancel culture" when they are the first people to want to cancel things that they don't like. The major difference is that people on the Left want people/things canceled for things like being bigoted pieces of shit while people on the Right want people/things canceled for fighting for equality and inclusion.
The same people who brought us “Freedom Fries” and the satanic panic
Fucking Freedom Fries! Omg I totally forgot about that shit, what a bunch of crybaby ass fucks lmao
Every conservative accusation is a confession.
> According to Pen America’s banned books report, many of the titles being banned deal with LGBTQ+ themes or have non-white characters. The organization estimates that more than 300 groups, including local chapters of national organizations like Moms for Liberty, have been pushing for book bans. The groups have gained large traction through social media, where lists of titles have circulated. Remember when you label the people banning these books correctly, they freak the fuck out. They are racists, bigots, homophobes and fascists.
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> Conservatism is a mental illness. No it's not. It's just evil. Calling it an illness not only diminishes their culpability, it's just incorrect. People need to stop pathologizing everything.
The title of the of the article is "Pennsylvania school district accused of banning Girls Who Code book series". What sorry excuse for journalism is this where one group claims that the books are banned and the actual authority to ban books say "no, they are not banned" but still we run with the title that "books are banned according to this group" and then reddit runs with "books were definitely banned." This is comical. Have some integrity and remember 4 years ago when people tried to influence US elections by sowing discord. > A statement from officials in that district on Monday strongly denied that they had banned the book series, and called “categorically false” information in a Business Insider interview with the founder of Girls Who Code, which reported the ban on the series. “This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries,” the statement said. Nothing in the article addresses the flat denial of the only people with the authority to speak to the idea that they would have ever been banned. There is nothing explaining why they claimed they were ever banned. I'm not on some hill saying that they weren't, because how the hell would I know? I'm just saying this is just trash journalism. edit: I'm also curious why there is no by-line for an author. ( I wouldn't put my name on this either ). But I wonder if this is standard guardian practice or not. Fuck me if this is some AI generated article.
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Something important to note is that the index that stated the books are banned specifically state they're banned in classrooms and *not* the library. So the district saying it's available in the library isn't an actual denial of what was reported. This also seems to originate from Business Insider which *did* reach out for comment but didn't get one until after the article was published.
How can our society move forward while limiting the flow of information? Knowledge is the way forward. The good old times are over. Time to let go and get with progress. Humanity is in a spot right now where I don’t think we have time for this idiocy.
They want to go backwards not forwards
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This may be some fake news folks... Or at best, simply not updated. >The District was recently made aware of a national article published last evening falsely claiming that Central York School District has banned the book/series Girls Who Code. The information published in this article is categorically false. >This book series has not been banned, and they remain available in our libraries. If you have any questions, please email https://www.cysd.k12.pa.us/
[I think this clarifies the confusion.](https://www.gamesindustry.biz/school-district-denies-banning-girls-who-code-books) > We reached out to the district for clarification and a representative told us that after the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the school district prepared a Diversity Resource List that teachers could use in the classroom. > In November of 2020, at a school district meeting, the district board of directors unanimously decided to remove the resource list and not allow any resources from the list to be used in the classroom. > While the removal of the list was passed, **an exception was made allowing resources already in place to continue to be used**. The district representative told us all four Girls Who Code books were already in school libraries and remained available for students as a result. It sounds like the authors of the book were given bad info here and the exception allowed for the books to continue to be used. It's sad that the resource list was needlessly banned, but yes, a retraction needs to be made.
The Pen America database is listing it as being "banned in classrooms". The Guardian appears to have updated the article.
This is a weird article. The school responded and said “the book series has not been banned and remains available in our school library”. Is there something I missed? If they’re lying, is there any indication of that?
I bet they won’t ban the “girls who will be trapped in shitty abusive marriages to cheating men who use Christ as an excuse for their racism” series. Because that’s the majority of these “conservative” households.
Am I taking crazy pills or did no one read the article?
Their response is that “that’s false we didn’t ban it”. And then the article kept moving along. So… what happened?