Oh, I love a comment filled with false equivalencies. As a lawyer, they are my favorite. Let's unpack it all:
(Oh, and thanks for calling me a "journalist." I'm honored, but I'm nothing of the sort.)
1. Twitter is a private company, and is not the government. Private companies can choose who can use their product, as long as they aren't denying access on a protected ground. Twitter is not school board, which is a government entity put in place to (hopefully) promote the (public) education of children. Twitter and public schools are not the same.
2. Christian books, like all religious books, should not be on the shelves of public schools. Private schools are different. See the Establishment Clause of the U.S. constitution.
3. Not sure where you are asking me the COVID material should be? In schools? As the daughter of a chemistry professor, I'll say this: anything that has been subject to the scientific method (question > research > hypothesis > testing > observation > analysis/conclusion) sure, put it on the shelves. But most of the anti-vax rhetoric has NO STUDIES behind it at all, not even small studies, and is based on anecdotal evidence, so yeah, probably doesn't belong in schools at this point.
4. Do you really have an objection to 14 year olds reading about suicide? REALLY? I don't believe that for a second. And it's been awhile since I read Maus, but I don't even know if the rough language includes "fuck."
5. if you're so sure that other books were also removed by that Tennessee school board, maybe you should "do your own research and see." But the reporting thus far hasn't mentioned that.
6. If a parent wants to opt out their own kid from a reading assignment, then they can take that up with the school. But this is a school board removing the option for the teacher to teach it at all, which is a completely different thing. Again, false equivalency.
7. Obviously "fuck" is not my favorite word, and if you read any of my other work you would know that. (But don't bother reading it, sometimes I write about sex and I wouldn't want to offend your fragile sensibilities). The word "fuck" is used in the piece to OBVIOUSLY prove a point. But if think that it's the word "fuck" that's coarsening society, and not say, the rise in hate crimes, bullying on social media, and oh, thing like the violent takeover of the capitol, and then we really will never find common ground and I pretty much find common ground with almost anyone (what you should probably read are my pieces about my affair with a full-on MAGA guy).
Anyway, thanks for the laugh re my being a journalist. I can't stop giggling about this.
