Texas school district agrees to remove ‘Anne Frank’s Diary,’ ‘Maus’ and 670 other books after right-wing group’s complaint ( forward.com )

Conservative activists, led by a local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate, pushed the district, Mission CISD, to excise books mostly about gender, sexuality and race. Their demands represented an extreme version of a nationwide culture war over books that has played out in recent years — and ensnared a number of books with Jewish themes.

In Mission, the long list of books on the chopping block includes a recent illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary; both volumes of Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir “Maus”; “The Fixer,” Bernard Malamud’s novel about a historical instance of antisemitic blood libel; and “Kasher in the Rye,” a ribald memoir by Jewish comedian Moshe Kasher.

partial_accumen ,

Are conservatives activists so concerned with information related to living under Nazism because they don't want young people to be able to recognize the steps if those steps occur to young people today?

homesweethomeMrL ,

No no, that would require “reason”.

No this is all somehow related to Jeezus.

candyman337 ,
@candyman337@sh.itjust.works avatar

Not it's 100% tied to the resurgence of white supremacy. These conservatives groups are backed by humongous PACs that fund groups that push their agenda. Just like with turningpointusa and groups like that. Don't mistake careful planning masked by racist zealots as idiocy.

homesweethomeMrL ,

Fair enough. All the actual humans I know that vote for these numbnuts are some flava of misplaced Jeebus worshipper. They don’t agree with racists (do they vote for them? Every time - while explaining how the candidate isn’t really racist) but they try not to do and say racist things. They don’t really know what fascism is in this context. Still they willingly hand over political power to those that do.

The actual racist / fascist shitheel who supports this garbage will do the Wavy-Jesus-Hands when they pray ostentatiously, but don’t really believe that crap, it’s just an important part of the grift for “the weak-minded”.

Cosmonauticus ,

The conservative groups are led by Pastor Luis Cabrera, who is active in Latino conservative circles in the state and whose Instagram profile picture is currently an upraised fist outlined with the Israeli flag. Originally from Guatemala, Cabrera is a member of several right-wing Christian activist organizations and has also posted numerous pieces of pro-Israel social media content.

The thing about Uncle Tom's are they come in all shapes, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Ironically the things they all hate and fight against

IHeartBadCode ,

Another thing is that Uncle Tom was eventually flogged to death by the people whose admiration he so desperately sought to win.

Fundamentalist only see things in measures of what helps them obtain what they want. Once the utility of someone is over, they have zero compunction with turning on the person that helped them and riving them to nothingness as demonstration.

Volkditty ,

Man, that's horrible...better make sure "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is on the list to get removed.

originalucifer ,
@originalucifer@moist.catsweat.com avatar

i did nazi that coming

afraid_of_zombies ,

All you non-prots better pay attention. You will be betrayed.

mista_wick ,

I'm still proud of the copy of "Maus" that I donated to the library of my shitty little Texas town before I moved out of that hell-hole a few years back. I still check the online catalog from time to time to make sure it's still in circulation.

reddig33 ,

As someone else who got out of a shitty little Texas town, I salute you.

NotAnonymousAtAll ,

An "outspoken Israel advocate" wants to get rid of books about the Holocaust and antisemitism in general? I am very confused. Usually right wing extremist demands make some kind of sense from within their twisted world view, but how does that fit together at all, in any world view?

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

Because Israel is committing genocide?

Israel doesn’t mean Jewish.

buttfarts ,

Hard right folks don't like teaching the history of the consequences of hard right political movements. Those histories never end with a country full of happy economically secure people just living their lives because the only thing fascists can do is destroy everything.

ShareMySims , (edited )

You should give "Praying for Armageddon" a watch.

The TL;DW is that evangelical Christians are outspoken supporters of war in Israel, because they believe it will bring forth the second coming of Jesus.

AncientFutureNow ,

Sounds straight up delusional and seems like people who believe that sort of stuff and then act on it should be institutionalized for the safety of our fellow citizens.

Aren't most people who believe in invisible people and talk to thin air considered crazy?

ShareMySims , (edited )

I think that's a little ableist and a lot reductionist, ignoring the people creating these ideas and institutions and enforcing them (including by historically and still in different forms today actually institutionalising people that speak against them), because they didn't come out of thin air, and the money and power those people have definitely isn't imaginary.

Don't blame people grasping at straws for comfort in this shitty shitty world, blame those manipulating and exploiting them for profit and power.

FlyingSquid ,
@FlyingSquid@lemmy.world avatar

"Outspoken Israel advocates" who are evangelical Christians don't love Jews. Quite the opposite. They need Israel to exist so all Jews in the world can be forcibly deported to it, and then made to rebuild the Great Temple, so Jesus can come back and throw them all into Hell.

And a red cow comes into the picture as well.

None of that is sarcasm. That is really what they think.

intelisense ,

I'm interested in what their reasoning was for banning Maus - I certainly don't recall any sex or amti-christian material.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Oh, I think you know

samus12345 ,
@samus12345@lemmy.world avatar

It hurts their feelings that Nazis are the bad guys.

Catoblepas ,

IIRC there is a brief depiction of a (possibly human rather than mouse? It’s been a while since I read it) woman whose body is in a tub after committing suicide, which is what I’ve read other groups trying to get it banned object to. Because titty.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

local pastor and outspoken Israel advocate

Anne Frank’s diary

Art Spiegelman’s Holocaust graphic memoir

Israel advocate

Anne Frank’s diary

Israel advocate

Anne Frank’s diary

You fucking disgrace

Get out of my country

For some reason this made me way more irrationally angry than just killing Palestinians. It’s killing Palestinians and running cover for the people who killed Anne Frank and Spiegelman’s brother, and doing it all at the exact same time with no sense of shame or embarrassment but, I’m sure, a smug sense of superiority like everyone else is the monster in this

This guy better really hope that there isn’t a hell

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

But an Israel advocate would try to hide the holocaust least someone relate it to what Israel is doing to Palestine.

Maybe you’re thinking of a Jewish advocate and not an Israel advocate?

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

In-Israel Israel advocacy, and American Judaism, are absolutely chock full of people who are disgusted with Netanyahu’s government and his “war,” in part because of how much he is doing to destroy Israel on the world stage and get Israelis killed for more or less no purpose, as well as the unfolding horror of the apartheid state and genocide he’s enacting in their name.

Zionist advocates and Israel advocates and Jewish advocates and human rights advocates are four sometimes overlapping but distinct categories.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

A Zionist advocate and an Israel advocate are the same thing.

Human rights advocates never overlap with those.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

I sense the morass of an ever widening pointless argument opening up beneath me.

I'll say my feeling on it and be done, and you're free to disagree: No one should be hated for where they were born, or for wanting a home or a safe place to be. Not a Palestinian, or a Russian, or an Israeli citizen, or someone who was born and grew up in Nazi Germany. If you got born in Israel and managed to penetrate through a significant haze of propaganda and groupthink to realize that what your country is doing on the world stage is a monstrous crime, what should you do?

Advocate for the destruction of your home?

Move away, never to return, renounce your citizenship and want nothing to do with your evil of a country? Yeah, maybe.

But I can also see someone who sees it as their duty to resist Netanyahu's government, tries to set their country back on the right course, advocates for the ICC, and turns out for protests against the government and gets brutalized and arrested for it. That stuff happens too. "Pro Israel" isn't really the right word for those people, no. I actually don't fully disagree with what you're saying, that in the modern world if you are "pro Israel" you're probably a piece of shit (or just totally propagandized / misinformed about what's actually going on, which there's a lot of also). So maybe I shouldn't have phrased it in those terms. But definitely, I think there is a type of Israeli person who is trying to support their home, the only place they've ever known to live, by resisting the Netanyahu government, and is ashamed of Israel but not like "against" them in the sense of, I hate my home and all the people here. You can love the town you grew up in, you can have friends and allies (hopefully, ones who are also horrified by the death and destruction in Gaza) there. You can be "pro" that part of it while still hoping that Netanyahu somehow gets what's coming for him, soon, and all of the killing that's being done in your name stops.

Like I say, I don't think anyone should be hated for where they were born.

(Oh, and also the far ends of the scale have 0 overlap, yes. You cannot be a Zionist and a human rights advocate, if my way of saying it made it sound like I thought you could.)

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

No one in Israel is out there protesting the genocide.

All the protests have been because not enough was done to rescue hostages or some other dislike of Netanyahu.

Overall polling shows Israel supports what is happening to Palestine or thinks not enough has been done.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

Yes they are. It's the same groups that have been campaigning to end the occupation since before October 7th. It's not a majority or even close to - two-thirds of Israelis support the continuation of the war. But saying "no one" is an absolute falsehood. And, I think propaganda and misunderstanding of the situation on the ground is also a large part (in addition to, yes, some large amount of pure racism and violent vindictiveness that says it's okay if Palestinians are dying because they are bad.)

The wheel you're currently cranking on, is the same wheel that was turning right at the beginning of Israel, and managed to turn its way from "all the Nazis are wrong and evil" around to "the Jews are always the victims about everything" and has now arrived itself at "Israel can do anything it decides to and will still be the victim" and now, on the other side, "all the Israelis are always wrong and evil" is emerging into view coming in the other direction. I am telling you that no matter how hard you crank that wheel, on whichever side, your activity will never crank you around to arrive at a world that is peaceful or just.

(I know I said I'd stop after saying my bit; I just wanted to say a little more on it and shoot down the absolutely false idea that no one in Israel opposes the war on humanitarian grounds.)

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

That whole article talks more about protestors pushing for returning hostages and other dislikes of Netanyahu far more than it does generic 'anti-war' protestors.

So thanks for that really, just further solidifies my point.

Likewise life is not a fucking wheel, it doesn't travel in some predetermined path you've created. Let me tell you something, no matter how hard you centrist "don't do anything at all" approach it, you will never arrive at a world that is peaceful or just.

porous_grey_matter ,

Netanyahu is an evil fuck, but this isn't his war, Israel has been doing slow and steady ethnic cleansing of the region for 50+ years.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

True that. Netanyahu's a little more extreme than the norm, but as I understand it, yes, Israeli politics is:

  • A majority that wants full-on ethnic cleansing
  • A minority party that wants oppression and murder but not in a way that's explicitly genocidal or threatens their own security
  • And maybe a tiny dissident faction that wants actual human rights for the Palestinians

I'm speaking well of the dissident faction and highlighting its existence in the first place; I'm not saying it's anywhere near the mainstream.

ImADifferentBird ,
@ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Rabin was closer than anyone to ending it, and Netanyahu's stochastic terrorism led directly to his death. And he's been propping up Hamas ever since, to give Israel an enemy to hate and prevent peace from ever coming to the region.

Fuck him, he owns it now.

mozz Admin ,
mozz avatar

“No does more for Israel than I do”

“What about that time you killed a democratically elected Israeli leader who was doing good things for Israel”

“That’s what I said. He was doing more than me for Israel, and we can’t have that. No one does more for Israel than I do.”

cyborganism ,

Hey man. If it looks like a Nazi, walks like a Nazi and quacks like a Nazi, it's probably a Nazi

DacoTaco ,
@DacoTaco@lemmy.world avatar

Idk, if it quacks it might be an undercover nazi-duck

cyborganism ,

The worst possible kind.

samothtiger ,

Nazi ducks
Nazi ducks
Nazi ducks

DUCK OFF!!

gedaliyah OP Mod ,
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

Is... that a DK reference??

nilloc ,

Fuck Knight? Yes, it is. ;)

ZILtoid1991 , (edited )

If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, swims like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it's...

A swan! It claims to be a swan, therefore it is a swan! Swans are beautiful, therefore if you're against swans you're a bad person! You see ducks everywhere and accuse everyone being a duck! The word "duck" lost its meaning. In fact, we defeated the ducks in 1945, therefore any "ducks" we might have today are just edgy teens cosplaying as such.

EDIT: If you ask me, I think conservatives are just "good cops" to the fascists "bad cops" (this gave me an idea for a potential video essay).

ImADifferentBird ,
@ImADifferentBird@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

From what I understand, a lot of Israelis are rather unkind towards Holocaust survivors. Which is fucking wild to me.

Aceticon ,

It's only wild if you believe their fable that their nation represents all Jews.

If however you see them as just another bunch of ethno-Fascists, it actually makes sense that many of the victims of the other large ethno-Fascist group in the last century wouldn't get along with them simply because they recognize many of the same signs.

rottingleaf ,

I didn't think that would happen in Armenia, but since it does - the way some Armenians act towards refugees from Artsakh is similar, I think.

It's easier for Israelis (especially when being fascists) to think that they themselves are strong, and those survivors are not like them, they are weak. It's as they wanted to identify with Nazis more.

With such Armenians too - it's the worse part of them thinking they can be just like Turks if they suck up to Turks, and also because Artsakhtsis lost their homeland for being weak, and they are not weak.

A bit like ignorant and cowardly people abandon relatives with chronic diseases, when there's no evidence of those diseases being transferable.

It's just cowardice. Humans do it under pressure or when presented with dark events for their interpretation and self-identification. While good upbringing may reduce the risk of someone growing up a coward, it's very human.

gedaliyah OP Mod ,
@gedaliyah@lemmy.world avatar

No, quite the contrary.

You've probably read that in the early days of the State there was a lot of resentment towards Holocaust survivors. They were counter to the national narrative of the "New Jew" who was strong, hard-working, and living off the land. Shoah survivors represented Jews as victims, who did not fight back against the Nazis, instead going like "lambs to the slaughter."

This all changed after the Eichmann trial (1961), which is when most of the world first came to understand the true nature of how the Nazis operated. Many people did fight back, and many couldn't.

Holocaust survivors are revered and honored in Israel, although the country suffers from poor social services with a lot of gaps. Shoah survivors often fall through those gaps, along with other elders.

Commiunism ,

It's not really surprising - historically, the creation Israel state was helped massively by antisemitists, who wanted to get rid of jews in their own country and having them a place to immigrate to would be the easiest option (the phenomena is often referred to as Zionist antisemitism).

So yeah, it does make sense - they can hate the jews, but also support Israel at the same time.

ZILtoid1991 ,

In fact, Zionism is built upon the antisemitic myth of "Jews and non-Jews cannot live together".

Buffalox ,

Land of the free and freedom of speech are such hollow terms when Americans say them.
Fascism has a very strong foothold in half of USA.

blindbunny ,

What fucking year is it?

octopus_ink ,
lets_get_off_lemmy ,

I'm definitely not for banning books, but couldn't you say the same thing about news media? Or Facebook memes? Those "get you to think".

ZeroTemp ,

We should only be banning things that promote intolerance because there will never be an end to the bannings, there will always be some witch to hunt somewhere.

To answer your question, yes it is the saying the same thing, that is why banning books is so stupid. A book, movie, TV show, meme, or news report isn't necessarily going to change my mind but it might make me think about something from a perspective I didn't consider before.

octopus_ink ,

I don't support banning memes or the news either, but they aren't under attack currently.

Spitzspot ,
@Spitzspot@lemmings.world avatar

What was the name of that group last century that pulled the same crap? It's Reich on the tip of my tongue...

elvith ,

They want to make sure that we will Nazi it coming

culprit ,
@culprit@lemmy.ml avatar

Zionists worked with the Nazi's before WW2 to 'encourage' Jews to move to Palestine. They both agreed that Jews didn't belong in Europe.

badbytes ,

Texas is dumber than I thought.

Delusional ,

I don't think it can get any dumber than I thought cuz I already think it's super super fucking dumb.

Krackalot ,

They're trying to be. Looks like it might work at this rate.

Chewget ,

The dumber they are the better chance they'll turn out conservative and republican.

xc2215x ,

Utterly moronic to see.

InternetUser2012 ,

Republikkklowns

SuiXi3D ,
@SuiXi3D@fedia.io avatar

Repuglicunts.

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