Because don't expect consistency or a lack of hypocrisy from the asshole party of fragile white people afraid of all these people of color who are better, kinder, smarter, and wiser than they.
"Republicans" have gone FULL MONTY on dog whistle fears born of racism, homophobia, and in this case ISLAMOPHOBIA.
Bitch, please.
Here's some vulgarity from
Persepolis, the story of a young girl's life growing up in
Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979:
Here's an example of the "violence" in Persepolis:
Here we are in 2022 and we're still banning books like its 1955 or 1915 or 1885.
It's some bullshit.
Questioning professional educators, who are, you know, EDUCATED, about the content that they teach in their class rooms to foster learning, open the eyes and minds of students, and even present role models for behavior or like-minded, like-living figures of what the students themselves are going through. Or just teachers trying to teach the TRUTH of the holocaust, the TRUTH about gender, the TRUTH about Iran and the oppressive theocratic government that wrested control of "Persia" from the Shah in the late 1970s and the Muslim students, enflamed by the radical and ultra-conservative ideology of the Khomeini regime, seized the American embassy taking 52 American citizens hostage.
But, no, let's not let school children learn the truth of historical events.
No, no, must not do that.
I have written about this issue a lot lately. I did a censorship week.
Sunday, February 13, 2022A Sense of Doubt blog post #2552 - REPRINT WEEK 03 - re: 365 T-Shirts Blog: CBLDF: Fight Censorship from February 16 2014Saturday, February 5, 2022A Sense of Doubt blog post #2545 - Dear Book Banners, Please Actually READ Gender QueerThursday, February 3, 2022
Tuesday, February 1, 2022
A Sense of Doubt blog post #2541 - BANNING BOOKS 2022: WTF?!? They banned Maus on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day??? Welcome to the 1950s and the new Satanic Panic!
Because let's not sugar coat this dangerous, hateful, oppressive trend. It's the same trend that existed before Hitler's Nazi party took over Germany. It's the same trend depicted in Persepolis as the Iranian Islamic Revolution. It's not what America is or should be, but it is what America has been.
History repeats.
Let's break the cycle.
Pennsylvania school district pulls Marjane Satrapi’s PERSEPOLIS from curriculum
The Franklin Regional School District opted to hold teaching the graphic novel following parental complaints.
Earlier this year Art Spiegelman‘s Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic memoir Maus was pulled from a Tennessee school library after parents objected to its content. Now another award-winning graphic novel is facing similar opposition in Pennsylvania. Earlier this month TribLive, a news outlet covering Pittsburgh and western Pennsylvania, reported that the Franklin Regional School District has “paused” the planned teaching of Marjane Satrapi‘s Persepolis in a 9th Grade Honors English class after parents complained about the book’s language and depictions of violence.
Persepolis is Satrapi’s graphic memoir about growing up during the Islamic Revolution in Iran and Austria. Released two parts in 2000 and 2004, the book has won numerous awards including multiple prizes at the Angoulême Festival in 2000, 2004, and 2005. It’s also been the subject of numerous challenges and bannings over the years since its release, landing at #2 on the American Library Association’s list of Most Challenged Books for 2014, and at #40 on the ALA’s Most Challenged Books of 2010-2019 list. The book is also the subject of a case study in censorship by the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.
The Franklin Regional School District’s curriculum committee previously approved the teaching of Persepolis during a regular review last year; a public review of the approved curriculum earlier this year is what prompted the complaints from parents, and a school board meeting last week included public debate about teaching of the book. The justifications offered by several parents for the challenge to the book are pretty much what you’d expect (emphasis added for ridiculousness):
Carla Williamson of Murrysville said she had read “Persepolis” and supported its removal from the curriculum.
“I was dismayed by the scenes of violence and torture,” Williamson said, before quoting a passage that included the F-word.
“Please excuse my foul language,” she said. “I don’t think it’s appropriate here, and I don’t think it’s appropriate in the classroom.”
Williamson said she believes the book “pushes a liberal ideology that does not belong in our school.”
[…]
Gretchen McGee of Murrysville said the covid-19 pandemic has brought parents into much closer contact with their children’s school curriculum, and that “there are underlying themes to a lot of what our children are being taught.”
McGee used examples from one of children’s school workbooks that explores a Black student who encounters racism from a white teacher, as well as a passage about a Chinese boy who is asked to disavow his father’s belief in communism.
“There is a lot that doesn’t align with what we are teaching our children at home,” McGee said.
Feels like it really speaks for itself where this is coming from.
The debate about Persepolis in the Franklin Region will continue as the school district’s curriculum committee must now make a recommendation to the school board about whether to go forward with teaching the book. No word on when that might take place.
This is not a new situation...
There was a similar case almost ten years ago in CHICAGO of all places...
https://www.comicsbeat.com/persepolis-removed-from-chicago-schools-amidst-confusion-protest-scheduled/Persepolis removed from Chicago schools amidst confusion; protest scheduled
Marjane Satrapi’s PERSEPOLIS, a stunning coming of age story considered a classic by many, has been ordered removed from Chicago’s Lane Technical High School for reasons that remain unclear.
The story broke at former teacher Fred Klonsky’s blog, where he posted a letter circulated in the Chicago Public School system:
Yesterday afternoon, one of the Network Instructional Support Leaders stopped by my office and informed me (per a directive given during the Chief of Schools meeting on March 11) that all ISLs were directed to physically go to each school in the Network by Friday (3/15) to:
*Confirm that Persepolis is not in the library,
*Confirm that it has not been checked out by a student or teacher,
*Confirm with the school principal that it is not being used in any classrooms,
*And to collect the autobiographical graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi from all classrooms and the Library.
I was not provided a reason for the collection of Persepolis. If I learn more I will inform all staff.
While there is some speculation that the removal had to do with books that were accidentally ordered, chatter in the comments indicates that this is unlikely—PERSEPOLIS is actually taught in several classes and is included in the new Common Core standards.
Books are not to be removed from school library without due process, and a comment below confirms that it is not being removed from school libraries:
Dear Librarians –
We have received clarification from the Chief Education Office that the directive to remove Persepolis from schools does not apply to school libraries, and that any further challenge or attempt to remove this or any other book from a school library must be guided by the Collection Development policy which outlines the review procedure.
This clarification and a copy of the Collection Development policy has been forwarded to all school chiefs. As you know, the Collection Development policy is posted on the Department of Libraries wiki at http://cpslibraries.wikispaces.com/collectiondev
Any questions regarding copies of Persepolis that are not in the school library should be directed to your principal.
No plausible reason has been given for the removal, and in a later post a librarian suggests that the topic was being squelched:
Fred
I’m a CPS librarian very worried about the possible banning of the book Persepolis. We received the email below today, after HS librarians raised the issue days ago on our listserv. We have a CPS listserv for librarians, but a friend of mine tried to comment on this issue and was censored from discussing the issue further on this listserv. We were also told it was Fullerton Network where the book was being removed.
-N
Amidst all the confusion and backtracking, a protest has been scheduled for 3:30 this afternoon:
A group of students, parents and teachers from Lane Technical High School are planning a protest this afternoon at the corners of Western and Addison streets. They will be protesting the action of CPS bureaucrats who have attempted to pull the acclaimed graphic novel, Persepolis, off of school book shelves.
As alluded to above, PERSEPOLIS is a modern classic, presenting a moving story of a young woman’s struggle in an oppressive society, that is taught in schools around the world. It was adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie. Although the US has an embarrassing history of removing classic works from schools and libraries, whoever decided to remove this book is pretty certain to end up on the wrong side of history.
Case Study: Persepolis
Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s graphic memoir of growing up during the Iranian Revolution, has received international acclaim since its initial publication in French. When it was released in English in 2003, both Time Magazine and the New York Times recognized it as one of the best books of the year. In 2007 it was adapted as an animated film, which was nominated for an Oscar and won the Cannes Film Festival Jury Prize and a French César. Although it was certainly controversial in the Middle East, there were no publicly reported challenges or bans of the book in U.S. schools or libraries until March 2013, when Chicago Public Schools administrators abruptly pulled it from some classrooms.
At the time, the circumstances surrounding the ban were unclear. In an email to employees, principal Christopher Dignam of Lane Tech College Prep High School initially said that he had been instructed by district administrators to remove Persepolis from the school’s library in addition to discontinuing its use in classrooms. Predictably, a furor ensued as students and teachers held protests and anti-censorship groups, including CBLDF, demanded an explanation. The day after Dignam’s email, district CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett sent another email to principals claiming that the intention was never to remove the book from libraries, but only from classrooms due to “graphic language and images that are not appropriate for general use.” The book was approved for use in grade 11 classrooms, removed from grade 7 classrooms, and reviewed for use in grade 8 – 10 classrooms. Following the district’s review, grade 8 – 10 teachers who wish to use the book in their classrooms are now required to first complete supplemental training. Persepolis remains banned from CPS classrooms below grade 8.
As Chicago students themselves pointed out, the few panels in Persepolis depicting torture techniques that were used on Iranian dissidents are no more graphic than images encountered while studying other true events such as the Holocaust or slavery. Moreover, many of these same students are exposed to real-life violence daily in their own neighborhoods, so the official CPS justification for the restriction of a modern classic in the nation’s third-largest school district remains unconvincing. In 2015, University of Illinois Library & Information Science graduate student Jarrett Dapier obtained the release of 45 pages of emails between then-CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and other top district administrators discussing the removal of Persepolis from classrooms without much regard for CPS policy or the book’s literary quality and critical acclaim. Dapier provided further insight on the ban in an interview with CBLDF.
Possibly as a result of publicity from the 2013 CPS ban, Persepolis faced three more school challenges in 2014, landing it the #2 spot on the American Library Association’s Top Ten List of Frequently Challenged Books for that year. First, a parent in Oregon’s Three Rivers School District demanded the book’s removal from high school libraries because of “coarse language and scenes of torture.” After some contentious school board meetings, the graphic novel was ultimately retained in the school libraries without restriction.
Less than a week after the Oregon challenge, Persepolis was targeted again in central Illinois’ Ball-Chatham School District, where a parent said it was inappropriate for the senior-level English students to whom it was assigned. He also “questioned why a book about Muslims was assigned on September 11.” The Ball-Chatham school board voted unanimously to retain the book in the curriculum.
Islamophobia was also evident in the third 2014 challenge to Persepolis in Smithville, Texas, where the book was part of an innovative community book discussion series called “Let’s Talk About It: Muslim Journeys — Points of View,” funded by a grant from ALA and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The Muslim Journeys programs were held in 125 communities around the country in 2013-2014 and aimed “to foster opportunities for informed community conversations about the histories, faith, and cultures of Muslims around the world and within the United States.” Students in Smithville High School’s World Geography class read excerpts from Persepolis and another book from the discussion series, In the Country of Men, and were encouraged but not required to attend the Muslim Journeys events that were held outside of school hours.
Some parents and community members were displeased with this cross-cultural engagement, however. Library director Judy Bergeron said about 30 of the 100 people who attended the discussion of In the Country of Men on September 16, 2013 were “not supportive of the program.” That same night, a large crowd also attended a school board meeting to voice their concerns “about the newly-introduced Islamic literature available to students.” Debate at that meeting seems to have mostly focused on In the Country of Men, with parent Charles King saying that the book “should be pulled from the schools.”
School board documents and a report from the ACLU of Texas show that King later filed a formal challenge to both In the Country of Men and Persepolis, the only two books from the Muslim Journeys series that were used in Smithville High School’s curriculum. The school board heard his complaint at a meeting on February 17, 2014, but voted 5-1 to concur with the recommendation of an administrator (apparently Superintendent Rock McNulty) to retain the books.
In June 2015, Persepolis was one of four graphic novels that a 20-year-old college student and her parents said should be “eradicated from the system” at Crafton Hills College in Yucaipa, California. After completing an English course on graphic novels, Tara Shultz publicly raised objections to Persepolis, Fun Home, Y: The Last Man Vol. 1, and The Sandman Vol. 2: The Doll’s House as “pornography” and “garbage,” saying that Associate Professor Ryan Bartlett “should have stood up the first day of class and warned us.” Crafton Hills administrators responded with a strong statement in support of academic freedom, although President Cheryl Marshall did note that future syllabi for the graphic novel course will include a disclaimer “so students have a better understanding of the course content.” CBLDF joined the National Coalition Against Censorship to protest this attack on academic freedom, and the district backed away from the proposed disclaimer plan.
As of late June 2015, Tara’s father Greg Shultz said he plans to speak to the San Bernardino Community College District Board of Directors which oversees Crafton Hills, and he also contacted state lawmakers. He has since stopped responding to media inquiries.
Additional resources:
Adding Persepolis to Your Library or Classroom Collection
Using Graphic Novels in Education: Persepolis
Download a PDF of the Persepolis discussion guide here.
Blog Vacation Two 2022 - Vacation II Post #30
I took a "Blog Vacation" in 2021 from August 31st to October 14th. I did not stop posting daily; I just put the blog in a low power rotation and mostly kept it off social media. Like that vacation, for this second blog vacation now in 2022, I am alternating between reprints, shares with little to no commentary, and THAT ONE THING, which is an image from the folder with a few thoughts scribbled along with it. I am alternating these three modes as long as the vacation lasts (not sure how long), pre-publishing the posts, and not always pushing them to social media.
Here's the collected Blog Vacation I from 2021:
Saturday, October 16, 2021
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- Bloggery committed by chris tower - 2203.25 - 10:10
- Days ago = 2457 days ago
- New note - On 1807.06, I ceased daily transmission of my Hey Mom feature after three years of daily conversations. I plan to continue Hey Mom posts at least twice per week but will continue to post the days since ("Days Ago") count on my blog each day. The blog entry numbering in the title has changed to reflect total Sense of Doubt posts since I began the blog on 0705.04, which include Hey Mom posts, Daily Bowie posts, and Sense of Doubt posts. Hey Mom posts will still be numbered sequentially. New Hey Mom posts will use the same format as all the other Hey Mom posts; all other posts will feature this format seen here.
Persepolis frequently found itself under fire by Muslim-hating race bigots masquerading their hate with lamentations about supposed vulgarity and OH MY violence! Many of these same people have a row of guns on their back car window as their "stick figure family."
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