What You Will Hear

School board members in Virginia are literally recommending that we burn bookshttps://t.co/SteQf4ZANQ pic.twitter.com/Xn9rLbDQaW

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 10, 2021

Two boobs in small-town Virginia want to burn books because that's the way they roll. Is this the sentiment of the entire school board, or a large swathe of the country? Who cares? Books! Fire! Cue Ray Bradbury comparisons!

What you won't hear:

Texas GOP's anti-critical race theory war backfires as banned Black author sees a surge in saleshttps://t.co/9JbGzWL6OO

— Raw Story (@RawStory) November 10, 2021

"I don't think that the people that banned it actually read the book," Craft said. "What has happened is so many places have sold so many copies because now people want to see what all the hubbub is. They get it and they write to me and they're almost disappointed because there's no big thing that they were looking for."

Houston parent Marty Troyer said that his children were so confused why their favorite author couldn't be found on the shelves of their school libraries, so he responded by encouraging his kids to read the list of banned books.

"I hope my kids have a better understanding of the subtle and systemic ways that race works in America," Troyer explained. "Racism isn't something just about bad people doing bad racist things, it's something that impacts every area of life and people knowingly and unknowingly do things that are racist. We're all swept up in it, and need to make intentional choices to interrupt racism. That's why it's important to learn critical thinking and read authors of color."

What even the Raw Story article leaves out of the story is that Craft's books were returned to the bookshelves of the Katy school district libraries after a review (Katy is not, as the RS story implies, in Houston.  It's on the outskirts of Houston, but is a separate city.).  So, not exactly banned.  

But I suspect all this noise from a few cranks is going to make more reasonable parents (both "more reasonable" than the cranks, and the majority of the parents) push back against this nonsense, either publicly or just personally.  Either way is a good thing.  Of course, you won't see stories about that, because it doesn't gin up outrage the way a story about two boobs in Spotsylvania (I'm not making that up) on a school board want to burn books.  Where, one wonders?  Their own front lawns?  Doubtful?  The football field?  Yeah, the groundskeeper would love that.  Main Street?

These people are idiots, and should be regarded as such.