On Monday in the city of York, Pennsylvania, the Central York School Board voted to keep a list of banned books dealing with race on its resource list or materials for students, despite protests from students and members of the community.
According to the York Daily Record:
Jane Johnson, president of the school board, said in a Sept. 10 release the materials were banned because of concerns from parents, the retirement of longstanding Superintendent Michael Snell and the shelving of a social studies program which focused on Black Lives Matter and other racial justice material.
Johnson said the content was banned because of the material and not because the authors are almost all from Black or Latinx heritage.
“The board believes that the fundamental purpose of school is that of core academics, objective education without indoctrination from any political or social agenda, and we look forward to the forthcoming review of the List and bringing balance to our classrooms,” Johnson’s statement read.
One of the books on the list is I Am Rosa Parks, written by Brad Meltzer, who has also authored historical books for children about Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others. He said Sunday on CNN that he cannot understand why the school board objects to a book about civil rights icon Rosa Parks:
“You know, all my friends were so angry, but I was heartbroken. I was heartbroken because it means that there are all these students that will never hear the story of Rosa Parks. And that’s exactly why I started writing these books, is to kids can see these amazing members of history. They can learn empathy, and compassion, and kindness. They can call it a freeze, but when kids can’t get these books, it’s a ban. And these kids can’t get the story of Rosa Parks or Malala [Yousafzai] or others, it breaks my heart.”
Meltzer added that teachers are now telling him they’re afraid to even mention race in their classrooms:
“Race is a hard subject matter, but nothing good comes from not discussing something that’s hard. And to me, that’s what these great leaders always stand for is you have to deal with these issues. If we don’t, we can’t go forward. What you’re seeing now is a pushback against that boogeyman of critical race theory where they are scared of what to do.”
What makes no sense at all, Meltzer concluded, is that the people making the decisions about what to teach to black children are all white:
“Listen, you have an all-white school board who bans a list that is basically almost every person on there, is it a book about someone who’s Black or by a Black author? Do the math on that. And when you hit Rosa Parks, a children’s book about Rosa Parks, the reason I’m talking to you today is that you realize that in all the back and pointing fingers, we’ve lost common sense. It’s Rosa Parks. You messed up if you’re banning Rosa Parks.”
Banning Rosa Parks. There should be a law against THAT, not against teaching the history of this country.
Here’s Brad Meltzer on CNN:
