Source: Port City Daily
The Pender County school district has now officially joined the ranks of school districts across the country to ban books thanks to extremist groups intent on curating the content that children should be allowed to read based on their own ideology and ignoring all others.
Among the eight books banned were the classic “A Brave New World” by Aldus Huxley, Patricia McCormick’s “Sold,” about a Nepalese girl sold into sexual slavery, and Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian,” which depicts the reality in the life of a 14-year-old Native American boy.
The book challenge was not brought by a parent in the Pender County school system, but by school board member Brent Springer who was using a targeted book list being circulated by extremist groups like Moms for Liberty.
While Brent Springer made the motion to remove the titles, the list was submitted by resident and former sheriff candidate Mike Korn.
Korn and his advocacy group, Concerned Citizens of Pender County, partnered with Pavement Education Project, a Durham-based “nonpartisan” group geared toward alerting parents to “obscene” books and materials in public schools.
In fact, only one actual parent has challenged a book in the county this year and it was denied by the board and remains on shelves.
This is just the latest attack on the freedom to read for kids in public schools. The list of targeted books is overwhelmingly concerned with books that feature non-white, non-heterosexual perspectives, a fact that many parents and educators find unsettling.
As a community, we need to come together to ensure our schools have the funding and resources they need, not allow extremist groups and their political allies to gin up controversy, demonize LGBTQ students and attempt to erase vital parts of our history from classrooms.
