





Texas Censorship Board Declares Nonfiction Book To Be Fiction So It Can Bury History It Doesn’t Like | Techdirt














































































 

















							Sign In						



							Register						



							Preferences						







				Techdirt				





TechDirt
GreenHouse
Free Speech
Error 402
Ctrl-Alt-Speech
Deals
Jobs
Support Techdirt














 

Daily Deal: uTalk Language Learning
Florida Health Dept. Lawyer: I Quit Rather Than Carry Out DeSantis’ Censorship Threats









	
			Texas Censorship Board Declares Nonfiction Book To Be Fiction So It Can Bury History It Doesn’t Like
	
	







				Culture			


from the not-even-pretending-there's-a-mask-to-take-off dept


		Wed, Oct 23rd 2024 10:48am - 	
Tim Cushing

People are censoring books all over the country, thanks mainly to a new wave of hatred encouraged and blessed by a failed businessman and marginal golfer who somehow managed to be elected president for a single term. 
These book ban laws encourage activists with “conservative views” (you know which ones) to “challenge” any content they don’t like. Unsurprisingly, most book challenges target books that either contain LGBTQ+ content or highlight America’s history of racism. These challenges have nothing to do with “protecting children” from inappropriate content (since there are plenty of pre-existing obscenity laws capable of keeping this content out of the hands of kids) and everything to do with hateful people erasing people they don’t like, along with any criticism of the parts of history (slavery, segregation, etc.) they do like. 
Governments get to censor what they want while pretending it’s just acting in the interest of concerned citizens. Governments provide the weapons and the laws placing book challenges in citizens’ hands gives them the (im)plausible deniability. 
When all the parts start moving, the outcomes are literally Orwellian: a government entity declaring certain facts to be fiction in order to deny people access to factual historical accounts. Here’s how this all went down, as recounted by founders of Texas Freedom to Read Project, an activist group fighting a battle on multiple fronts to ensure Texans’ access to books a bunch of bigots would rather no one had access to.
While book challenges and book challenge avenues are a dime a dozen thanks to tons of elected bigots, this new twist belongs to one county in Texas, which has given certain people the power to unilaterally decide what is or isn’t factual. 

[A] decision made this month in a county near Houston left us stunned. The Montgomery County Commissioners Court ordered librarians there to reclassify the nonfiction children’s book “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” as fiction.


This reclassification decision is a consequence of a contentious policy change in March. Right-wing activists pressured the Montgomery County Commissioners Court to remove librarians from the review process for challenged children’s, young adult and parenting books. 
[…]
Shortly thereafter, the newly formed Montgomery County “Citizens Review Committee” reclassified “Colonization and the Wampanoag Story” as fiction. The committee reviewed the book in a closed meeting — all its meetings are closed to the public — and it offered no explanation for its decision. The new policy does not allow decisions made by the Citizens Review Committee to be appealed.

That’s how you start erasing your own history. You take the librarians out of the equation. Next, you remove the public from the conversation by making these discussions private. Then you give only the citizens you want to hear from — including any non-residents who want to challenge content they don’t like — the only invitation to the discussion: the blanket permission to challenge books and/or their classifications. Then you seal it with a court order and pretend this is just citizens protecting each other, rather than the government engaging in censorship on behalf of people who love censorship as long as it only silences the people they don’t like.
So, maybe it is time to let Texas secede. It’s always wanted to. And the past decade of state leadership has proven it has no desire to be part of a constitutional republic… at least not as long as that requires it to respect the US Constitution. This state — like far too many in the US right now — is willingly embracing the very worst of its residents. And that means far too many people in positions of power cannot be trusted to govern, not when they’ve decided the most hateful in their midst should be given the largest platforms. They’re literally trying to rewrite history at this point. If they’re not stopped now, they won’t give up until they’ve managed to marginalize or disappear millions of people who they’re supposed to be representing.


	Filed Under: 1st amendment, book ban, censorship, libraries, montgomery county, texas




























25 CommentsLeave a Comment







			If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...		




								Police Union Still Insists NY Misconduct Records Are Secret Despite Court Decisions Saying Otherwise							



								Steve Wynn Asks Supreme Court To Gut Key First Amendment Standard							



								Appeals Court Says Town Can't Forbid Cops From Flying The 'Thin Blue Line' Flag							



								Federal Court Shuts Down Louisiana's Unconstitutional 'Police Buffer Zone' Law							



								No More Pretense: Carr's FCC Threatens News Radio Station For Reporting The News Too Specifically							










































Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed


Insightful
Lightbulb icon








Funny
Laughing icon
















Abusive/trolling/spam
Flag icon




Insightful badge
Lightbulb icon




Funny badge
Laughing icon





Comments icon







			Comments on “Texas Censorship Board Declares Nonfiction Book To Be Fiction So It Can Bury History It Doesn’t Like”			

Subscribe:
					RSS

Leave a comment



Filter comments in by Time


Filter comments as Threaded


Filter only comments rated Insightful


Filter only comments rated funny LOL


Filter only comments that are Unread




					25 Comments				
Collapse all replies







Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:04 am





You know flat earthers will love banning science books.


Collapse replies (5)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


Stephen T. Stone (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:14 am


						Re: 					


And racists will love banning books about slavery, Jim Crow, redlining, the Tulsa race massacre, Emmett Till…


Collapse replies (4)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [3]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:16 am


						Re: Re: 					


it got reversed btw


Collapse replies (3)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [4]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 8:37 pm


						Re: Re: Re: Plural nominative					


It most certainly did not get reversed. Lest you think it had some role to play, it took many times the thing that it was about, leaving its owner with nothing to show for it.


Collapse replies (2)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [5]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 6:53 am


						Re: Re: Re:2 


What are you talking about? Jim Crow absolutely did get reversed.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word







Threaded [5]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 8:53 am


						Re: Re: Re:2 


buddy look at the guardian


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word













This comment has been deemed insightful by the community.


Eric Knapp says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:06 am


						Good follow up news					


Good News. It looks like this decision has been reversed.  Better News. The secret board that did this is getting replaced.  https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/oct/23/texas-indigenous-book-montgomery-libraries


Collapse replies (2)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:11 am


						Re: 					


nice


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word







Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:47 am


						Re: 					


Incorrect.  The board is not being replaced.  A new board is being created to provide oversight. I’m not entirely sure a government oversight board overseeing the citizen’s review board really solves anything.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word










Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:10 am





nice


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word









Toom1275 (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:16 am





Like declaring pi to be 3.0


Collapse replies (4)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:26 am


						Re: 					


Hey!  Pi == 3.0 is close enough for government work.  That’s what we learned in school…


Collapse replies (3)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [3]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 11:49 am


						Re: Re: 					


Must’ve gone to a different school.


Collapse replies (1)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [4]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 12:10 pm


						Re: Re: Re: 					


Well, the government farms out engineering decisions to the private sector…  usually.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word








Threaded [3]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 4:08 am


						Re: Re: 					


“Hey! Pi == 3.0 is close enough for government work. That’s what we learned in school…”
You don’t need to know that Pi is a thing at all when working at berder flippin.  That’s what we learned flippin berderz.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word











This comment has been deemed insightful by the community.


Thad (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 12:31 pm






  So, maybe it is time to let Texas secede.

The nearly-half the Texas population that’s the victim of these policies, not the perpetrator, loves hearing that.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word









Anonymous Coward says: 

October 23, 2024 at 3:00 pm


						Texas secession is a great idea					


So, maybe it is time to let Texas secede.
Let’s. And after they secede, we can declare war on them, impose a land, sea, and air blockade, cut off the oil, cut off the gas, cut off the electricity, cut off the water, cut off the food, force them into surrender, arrest their political leaders and imprison them, impose martial law, and appoint a military governor — someone suitable for dealing with a state full of inbred hillbilly racist misogynist shitbags.  (I’m certain some of these idiots will resist.  Good.  They have their guns and bullets, we have advanced fighter aircraft and precision-guided munitions.  This will be very entertaining.  But only briefly.)
But…we need to carve out a special case for Austin, which has a vibrant musical and cultural scene completely out of place in a primitive place like Texas. I think we should offer them a deal: they can join Massachusetts or California or some other enlightened, civilized, superior state.  We’ll give them tax breaks, they can keep the music playing, everybody gets an extra taco on Tuesdays.
I think it’s a good deal all around.  And I look forward to Ken Paxton spending the rest of his life in a forced-labor camp. I mean, who wouldn’t?


Collapse replies (1)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 6:50 am


						Re: 					


And yet that utterly fucks the many reasonable people that live in Texas (yes, we exist) while creating a carveout for the city fucking Abbott and Paxton work in.
Yeah, super swell plan.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word










That One Guy (profile) says: 

October 23, 2024 at 8:53 pm


						'Someone said something mean about me, safe space, safe space!'					


When your entire worldview and self-image is build upon nothing but lies, bigotry and delusions of racial grandeur reality itself becomes an existential threat.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word









Bruce C. says: 

October 24, 2024 at 5:09 am





One thing that surprises me about these book-banning stories is the difference in law regarding the rights to free speech and freedom of the press. There is established precedent (Heckler’s Veto) for speech that just because speech may cause shock or offend, the speech cannot be suppressed based on the potential conflicts it can cause. Yet in the world of publishing, “hecklers” have all sorts of options that rely on certain works being shocking or offensive to a portion of the population to get books censored by the government.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word









This comment has been deemed insightful by the community.


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 6:49 am






  Texas Censorship Board Declares Nonfiction Book To Be Fiction So It Can Bury History It Doesn’t Like

Cool. So now we can shelve the Bible in the fiction section of libraries since it contains things known to be impossible, such as the burning bush and water gushing from a rock after being struck with a wooden staff.*
*Yes, I’m a Christian, but I’m a scientist too.


Collapse replies (1)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


That One Guy (profile) says: 

October 24, 2024 at 9:47 am


						Re: 					


Oh no no no, the bible gets special exemptions from all sorts of book banning laws like this one, where it would clearly be considered in violation otherwise.
The books of other religions on the other hand…


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word










Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 8:41 am





One part of history that is ignored is, when Hitler and his cronies came to power, they looked around for bright ideas, and found them in the U.S. that was sporting a parallel “master race” ideology expressed at the time as Jim Crow laws.
I hear associated with the Holocaust, the phrase “never again”, but I remembering hearing “never forget”. Here in America, I think we should stick with “never forget” because the surest way to have another Holocaust is to forget what led up to the first one.


Collapse replies (2)
Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word






Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 24, 2024 at 9:19 am


						Re: 					


Something else that is often forgotten is the fact that the eugenics Hitler so badly emulated didn’t even originate in the US. It was created in the 1880s by Francis Galton, who was English, so Hitler was actually looking much closer to home than the US when he decided to mass murder ‘imperfect’ people.


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word







Threaded [2]


Anonymous Coward says: 

October 26, 2024 at 4:25 am


						Re: 					



  I hear associated with the Holocaust the phrase “never again”, but I remembering hearing “never forget”.

Actually, the correct phrase is “Lest we forget.”


Reply View in chronology



Make this comment the first word
Make this comment the last word








 

Add Your Comment Cancel replyYour email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register hereName Email Subscribe to the Techdirt Daily newsletterURL Subject Comment * Comment Options:Use markdown. Use plain text.Make this the First Word or Last Word.No thanks. (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?What's this?Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »
 

Δ 



Daily Deal: uTalk Language Learning
Florida Health Dept. Lawyer: I Quit Rather Than Carry Out DeSantis’ Censorship Threats






Follow Techdirt



Techdirt Daily Newsletter











A weekly news podcast fromMike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw
Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »Essential Reading


The Techdirt Greenhouse
Read the latest posts:



							Winding Down Our Latest Greenhouse Panel: The Lessons Learned From SOPA/PIPA						



							From The Revolt Against SOPA To The EU's Upload Filters						



							Did We Miss Our Best Chance At Regulating The Internet?						




		Read All		»



Trending Posts


 

									Reddit Defeats Film Studios' Attempt To Reveal Identities Of Anonymous Users Over RCN Trial							


 

									Some Follow Up Questions For Elon Musk, After He Admits He Gets Stuff Wrong Sometimes							


 

									A Coup Is In Progress In America							





Techdirt Deals



Techdirt Insider Discord




The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...





Become an Insider! 


Recent Stories







							Sunday						




12:00


							Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt						
						(32)					





							Saturday						




12:00


							This Week In Techdirt History: February 9th - 15th						
						(17)					





							Friday						




19:39


							No Personal Liability For DOGE Yet, But With Two More Lawsuits We Get Closer						
						(53)					


16:01


							Ctrl-Alt-Speech: Backdoors And Backsteps						
						(24)					


13:49


							Trump's DOJ Corruption Laid Bare… By His Own Conservative Prosecutors						
						(77)					


12:07


							Drugs Have Won The War On Drugs: Drugged-Up Rat Infestation Edition						
						(19)					


10:55


							Police Union Still Insists NY Misconduct Records Are Secret Despite Court Decisions Saying Otherwise						
						(6)					


10:45


							Daily Deal: Linux/UNIX Training Bundle						
						(1)					


09:25


							DOGE's 'Genius' Coders Launch Website So Full Of Holes, Anyone Can Write To It						
						(52)					


05:29


							Price Hikes, Enshittification Trigger 700K Customer Losses At Disney+, ESPN+						
						(28)					





			More		









 

×
Email This Story



This feature is only available to registered users.
You can register here or sign in to use it. 







Tools & ServicesTwitter
Facebook
RSS
Podcast
Research & Reports
 CompanyAbout Us
Advertising Policies
Privacy
 

ContactHelp & Feedback
Media Kit
Sponsor / Advertise
 MoreCopia Institute
Insider Shop
Support Techdirt
 







				Brought to you by 				Floor64


Proudly powered by WordPress. Hosted by Pressable. 









	This site, like most other sites on the web,  uses cookies. For more information, see our 
		
		privacy policy	

























It's wild how many replubicans really do think like comedic representation of replubicans though. These all feel like things you'd see Mr.Burns from the Simpsons try, or some jokey offhand idea from Jack on 30 rock.