Tucson Unified School District Bans Books

Remember when Arizona banned ethnic studies in the state’s schools?

Well.

The Tucson Unified school district has succumbed, deciding against fighting the measure, and has complied a list of books that are banned from the district’s classrooms.

from Brenda Norrell:

“Students said the banned books were seized from their classrooms and out of their hands, after Tucson schools banned Mexican American Studies, including a book of photos of Mexico. Crying, students said it was like Nazi Germany, and they were unable to sleep since it happened.”

This is unacceptable. Banning books is banning knowledge–just what is it that Tucson and Arizona officials do not want schoolchildren in Arizona to know?

Here is a shortlist of the books banned:

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by  Paolo Freire

Occupied America: A History of Chicanos by Rodolfo Acuña

Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years by Bill Bigelow and Bob Peterson

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

Chicano!: The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement by Arturo Rosales

500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures by Elizabeth Martinez

Critical Race Theory by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic

Evidently, anything where “race, ethnicity and oppression are central themes.”

The Tucson Citizen reports that OccupyTUSD will be holding a daily protest from 4-6pm at the school district headquarters.

I plan to add these books to my reading list–anything that John Huppenthal, the Tea Partier that was elected in 2010 to Arizona’s statewide superintendent of public instruction post, is so afraid of. (And really? Who the fuck elects a Tea Partier to an education post? Apparently Arizona. Come on, Arizona. What. The. Fuck.)

You know what I’d like to do, though? I’d like to send copies of these books to the students that had theirs snatched away from them. Let’s do that. Would anybody else like to do that?

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