3000 Tennessee library books pulled: topics of slavery, the Holocaust, menstruation, ancient history, unclothed animals

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

Library books on slavery, Holocaust pulled in Rutherford County
Books featuring topics of slavery, the Holocaust, menstruation, ancient history, unclothed animals were flagged as potential violations of state and federal legal standards.

Books were flagged by librarians for possible violations such as:

“unclothed anthropomorphic animals, violence”

“Adam and Eve nude in the Garden of Eden; Violence”

“underpants shown during cartwheel”

“An image capturing an affectionate gesture where a girl gives a boy a kiss on the cheek on the school bus during Valentine's Day.”

“Fictional male rabbits get married”

“Civil War Hero, Mary, dresses in pants, history of undergarments present and modeled by chickens”

“Kissing”

“Words "ass" appears for donkey and "cock" for rooster”

“2 male neighbors speaking to one another, one has a rainbow and his produce bag**”**

“LGBTQIA+ rights”

“implied breastfeeding”

“nude mummified body”

“classroom discussion of book bans and censorship”

“discussion of teen getting period”

“woke”

Popular titles flagged and pulled include Aesop’s Fables, two Magic Treehouse books by Mary Pope Osborne, multiple Harry Potter books by J.K Rowling, and a Charlie Brown book by Charles Schultz.

https://archive.ph/4Dmxf

Key Points
A letter from Secretary of State Tre Hargett prompting public libraries across the state to submit a review of their collections has led to the removal of nearly 3,000 books in one county.
The letter asked public libraries to complete a review of their entire juvenile collections within 60 days and provide a report to Hargett's office to avoid the risk of losing funding.
The letter sent libraries across the state scrambling over the holiday season, even as state officials deny it was ever an order.
Books on slavery, racism and the Holocaust are among the nearly 3,000 pulled from public library shelves across Rutherford County following a letter from State Secretary Tre Hargett prompting a review of juvenile collections across nearly all state public libraries.
Four Anne Frank biographies, more than 30 books focused on the Bible, five books on women’s history and suffrage and numerous books on ancient civilizations were among those removed for review.

[dweller]

1. Da fuq ?

Snoopy has no pants on?
and what is a “ produce bag**”** ?

(most every sentence in those books have a ‘ period ‘ at the end of sentences )


✌🏻

[Celerity]

2. Produce bag is a shopping bag I would guess

[riversedge]

3. "implied breastfeeding" whow just whow!!

[babylonsister]

4. Shocked the librarians cooperated to

this extent. That's disheartening.

[Easterncedar]

5. Looks to me like some are responding with decently contrived over compliance

Adam and Eve? Biblical violence?

[babylonsister]

6. The 'underpants shown during cartwheel' made

me produce a big eyeroll, but that's a lot of books.

[TheRickles]

7. Ban the Bible!

[Joinfortmill]

8. These guys hate women. Well, you know what to do, ladies. Shut it down. No more nookie.

[Red Mountain]

9. You know what would make kids even safer?

Prosecuting pedophiles.

[OGBuzz]

10. removing Anne Frank biographies?

Does this not qualify as anti semitism?

[mysteryowl]

11. Menstruation!!!

What the hell are men afraid of? Those foolish religious right... $&@#*!
Just stop it!

[milestogo]

25. Girls don't need to know about it until it happens to them and they think they are dying.

Back in the day this was not uncommon. Ignorance is not bliss.

[bdamomma]

30. Just

call them for what they are Weak and Damaged.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

33. They dont like thise "everybody poop" books either..nothing below the waist

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Tennessee striving to become the most illiterate state in the Union.

[B.See]

34. MAGA MOTTO: IGNORANCE IS BLISS.

[Collimator]

13. Here is an adorable book that riled up folks in the state of Alabama

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rabbits'_Wedding
A black bunny rabbit and a white bunny rabbit wear flower crowns and get married. Very Subversive stuff.]

[70sEraVet]

19. Thanks for that little history lesson, Collimator!

I had never heard of that book, nor the silly controversy.
I enjoyed the comment the author made, after the book was attacked by The White Citizens Council of Montgomery Alabama; "I was completely unaware that animals with white furs, such as white polar bears and white dogs and white rabbits, were considered blood relations of white human beings,"
(Same link)

[Collimator]

36. There is absolutely no indication of the gender of either rabbit in the story.

I know because I read it many years ago in a school library that was part of a state institution for the developmentally disabled.

I think that the writer/illustrator just made one bunny black and the other white to evoke associations with a groom in a black tux and a bride in a white wedding gown.

All the other bunnies in the story are typical wild brown bunnies.

It really is one of the sweetest, most innocent stories that I've ever encountered. The two bunnies just play and hop around together and decide that they want to spend the rest of their lives playing and hopping around together. It's sort of the equivalent of two little children playing house and having a make believe wedding.

I feel genuinely sorry for anybody who got worked up about it.

[milestogo]

26. I'll bet nobody would make a wedding cake for them.

[hatrack]

14. "Unclothed Animals"?

Also, I checked. This isn't some remote rural county in the Great Smokies. This is almost immediately south of Nashville (the country seat is Murfreesboro).

[OldBaldy1701E]

16. If you have ever lived that area, you would not be surprised at this.

Especially if you know Murfreesboro.

(Go ask those that live there about why they refuse to pay anything for the upkeep of Davidson county (Nashville), where they all work and spend most of their time, while moving to Williamson country and turning it into a wealth enclave that favors the rich and won't tax them appropriately. Go on... ask them.)

[travelingthrulife]

22. Do they clothe their animals there?

[OldBaldy1701E]

24. I tried to stay away from there as much as I could.

But, knowing what I know about that area, I would not be surprised if they did.

[flvegan]

15. "Adam and Eve nude in the Garden of Eden" So, the Bible then?

Did they ban the Bible?

Unclothed animals and underpants. These are the things they're concerned with. Imagine this was your life.

[Ping Tung]

17. What gender is God? Do the true believers ever ask or imagine?

[evolves]

18. My home state

Leading the way in stupid for the past 25 years 🤦🏻‍♀️

[Picaro]

20. What a bunch of snowflakes

Absurd.

[70sEraVet]

21. What snide, sniveling rodents we manage to elect here in TN!

“We made a request. We asked, we said please," (State Secretary Tre) Hargett said in a video posted to social media. "There’s been no order, there’s been no directive.”
(Same link as above)
No, no order -- just a good old-fashioned threat!

[travelingthrulife]

23. These religious loons need to be taxed back into political silence.

[WmChris]

27. Will the ignorant be dancing?

Around the bonfires with confederate flags and swastikas. When will the madness end?

[Mysterian]

28. This is your brain on Christianity

Get rid of the evil books and go to church and play with rattlesnakes.

[Rob H.]

29. I was a senior at the University of Memphis when Hargett was in student government there

After I graduated, the student LQBTQ+ group (known first as GALA, for Gay and Lesbian Awareness, then B-GALA for Bisexual, Gay and Lesbian Awareness, and now Stonewall Tigers) was working to get sexual orientation added to the university's nondiscrimination statement, and Hargett was a very vocal opponent and fought against it.

At an anti-LGBTQ+ protest at the University in the early to mid-1990s, Hargett carried a sign saying: “Blacks can’t help being black, Women can’t help being women. Gays=/=Minority.” I don't know whether he realized that the sign made him look racist and sexist in addition to being an outspoken homophobe. He also passed out religious tracts saying gay people are going to hell at a panel discussion about religion and sexuality organized by the student LQBTQ+ group (GALA or possibly B-GALA then).

In the last 30+ years, he's learned nothing and hasn't changed.

[bluestarone]

31. Wake up America.

Religion used wrong again. Nothing worse than these religious FANATICS!! That's a FACT!

[PittBlue]

32. As a retired high school librarian, this makes me absolutely sick.

I was a librarian for 20 years in a school district in SW PA. In those 20 years, I had two book challenges and my administration backed me in both cases. Tre Haggert is obviously a Nazi with mommy issues.

[pansypoo53219]

35. i have been to tennessee. grafitti in the bathroom was BIBLICAL.

a whole different country.

[Initech]

37. MAGA needs to be purged at every fucking level.

Holy shit, they are dragging us so backwards that they'll overturn Brown V Board.