Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) slammed House Republicans and other members of the GOP across the country as they engage in blatant censorship of anything they consider to be “woke,” even though their definition of the word seems to include any subject that might require people to open their minds to other points of view.
During debate on the Republican-sponsored Parents Bill of Rights Act in the House of Representatives, Ocasio-Cortez said what bothers her the most about the legislation (which passed on Friday) is the way it arbitrarily bans some books that every young person should read.
“Look at these books that have already been banned due to Republican measures. ‘The Life of Rosa Parks,’ this apparently is ‘too woke’ by the Republican Party. ‘Song of Solomon’ is ‘unacceptable’ to Republican politics.”
The real intent of the law, AOC noted, isn’t to give parents more information about their kid’s education, but to place controls on what students can and cannot read.
According to The New York Times, a textbook publisher who provides reading materials to 45,000 Florida schools recently removed any reference of Rosa Parks’ race in a draft lesson plan for the Sunshine State to comply with Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) “Stop WOKE Act,” of which the governor noted, “In Florida we are taking a stand against the state-sanctioned racism that is critical race theory. “We won’t allow Florida tax dollars to be spent teaching our kids to hate our country or to hate each other.”
Ocasio-Cortez said she also found it interesting that nearly half the banned books deal with LGBTQ issues:
“This Republican bill is asking the government to force the outing of LGBT people before they are read. And talking about the rights of parents in this gallery today, the National Parents Union is here saying, ‘Don’t do this.’
“When we talk about progressive values, I can say what my progressive value is,” said Ocasio-Cortez. “And that is freedom over fascism.”
