The Banning of “Maus.” It’s Dumber Than You Think

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/the-inside-story-of-the-banning-of-maus-its-dumber-than-you-think/

by Anon84 • 4 years ago

31 53 4 years ago

aahortwwy3• 4 years ago

depicts nudity (that is, illustrated animal nudity).

I'm pretty sure they're referring to the depiction of the author's mother's nude corpse in a bathtub full of bloody water.

HarryHirsch• 4 years ago

Died in Auschwitz 20 years later. That happened. And since there's no way to sugarcoat that fact they ban the book instead.

finite_jest5• 4 years ago

We don't have a moral duty to make eighth-graders see depictions of everything that is heinous and ugly about the world.

echlebek• 4 years ago

I read the article and it was exactly as dumb as I would have thought. I pity the children growing up there.

ALittleLight5• 4 years ago

This author just doesn't seem honest. Reading a few paragraphs in I see that he incorrectly describes the decision as a ban when, in reality, the school board decided to use a different book, if they could find it. Not every change in curriculum is a ban.

Shortly after the author describes one of the complaints against the book as that it includes animal nudity. In fact the book includes drawn human nudity from the images I've seen.

If white supremacists and Nazis had taken over a school board and were trying to conceal the Holocaust - that would be a story. If a school board thinks they can find more age appropriate material for their students... Well, that's their role. Is there some law that everyone needs to read Maus?

In general, the fact that a random Tennessee school is adjusting their Holocaust curriculum based on what they think is age appropriate is a non-story. People like this author dishonestly sensationalize it to get clicks.

FooBarBizBazz3• 4 years ago

Could you post a link to what exactly you found objectionable? I did an image search; I see crude drawings of animals.

My rule of thumb here is "go to the primary sources".

ALittleLight5• 4 years ago

I don't recall saying I found anything objectionable about Maus. I've never read it. I said the author was dishonestly portraying objections.

https://twitter.com/theVoltist/status/1487550149509406722?t=...

That's an image showing human nudity for example.

bumbledraven4• 4 years ago

Dishonest article. It claims, falsely, that "a Tennessee school board voted to ban the book."

But the book was not banned; it was simply removed from the curriculum. The board even suggested adding it back if they couldn't find an alternative they preferred.

According to the minutes of the 2022-01-10 McMinn County Board of Education meeting [1]:

Jonathan Pierce: My motion was to remove this particular book from our curriculum and that if possible, find a book that will supplement the one there.
...
Rob Shamblin: At that point if it’s been removed, it could be added back if there is no better alternative, I assume? I don’t know what it’s going to take to find an alternative.

The motion passed unanimously (10-0).

[1] https://core-docs.s3.amazonaws.com/documents/asset/uploaded_...

legerdemain6• 4 years ago

Prohibiting books from being added to a curriculum is what banning is.

I have seen this disingenuous copy-paste objection show up in every thread on this topic on HN, and it hurts to see people swallow it.

Especially since it then conveniently leads down the slippery slope into aggrieved complaining about scumbag reporters and scumbag press and how newspapers were newspapers and news was news back in the good ole days in the nineteen umpties.

bumbledraven4• 4 years ago

Stating that Maus was "banned" without qualification is misleading. It gives the impression that the book was removed from the library and that teachers are prohibited from using it as a resource. The author had plenty of space to clarify this in the article and chose not to.

What happened is that the board approved a motion to remove Maus from the list of prescribed materials for the 8th grade unit on the Holocaust. Lord of the Rings isn't on that list either. Neither book has been "banned".

Prohibiting books from being added to a curriculum is what banning is.

The board didn't "prohibit" anything from being added to the curriculum. They are the ones responsible for the curriculum and they simply removed Maus from it. As noted in the meeting, they could add it back at any time if they choose.

finite_jest5• 4 years ago

I have seen this disingenuous copy-paste objection show up in every thread on this topic on HN

To be fair, your comment is objectively more generic and closer to a "copy-paste objection" than the GP's.

I have no idea how the press were in nineteen umpties, but it seems clear to me that the reporting by Mother Jones is pretty biased, and they have their fair share of polemic-level opinion pieces.

Do you think they would cover the recent removal of To Kill A Mockingbird (which is ironically a book they do mention in the article) from the curriculum by a Washington school board [1] in the same way? I don't think so. I searched their website, and it looks like they haven't covered it at all.

[1] https://www.newsweek.com/schools-drop-kill-mockingbird-requi...

errcorrectcode6• 4 years ago

I watched a recent interview of Art Spiegelman just this week on Democracy Now!. IIRC, he flatly called the 10 voting board members "baffling" and "stupid" for banning it for a naked corpse of a cartoon mouse, hanged mice (like what happened), and saying "God damn" while being genocided!

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/2/2/art_spiegelman_maus_a_...

PS: Book bans are the best form of promotion ever. Thank you stupid people! I hope it makes Art richer to promote sanity and education.

The Banning of “Maus.” It’s Dumber Than You Think

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