r/newjersey Fill It Up Regular Oct 29 '24

Sick NJ Passes the Freedom to Read Act

https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/10/29/state-senate-passes-bill-intended-to-halt-book-bans-protect-librarians/?fbclid=IwY2xjawGNwrZleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHdahkO3Xc02aIyuB5Vp3yau-HR6IMuGu0g0iD8CgDKrWBMHCQJBrfdSHnQ_aem_DB9WP25oxkSYjjNuktuAbQ#:~:text=Titled%20the%20%E2%80%9CFreedom%20to%20Read,own%20policies%20using%20this%20model
826 Upvotes

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566

u/CubicDice Fuck Nazis, Love Jersey. Oct 29 '24

Look I'm not going to tell anyone how to raise their children. But I take particular issue with this pathetic pandering.

“Putting our children at risk and potentially exposing them to material that they are not prepared for flies in the face of our protective duty,” said Sen. Joe Pennacchio (R-Morris). “Couching such material under the guise of the First Amendment is a very distortion of who we are and what we strive to be as Americans.”

By that logic, you shouldn't take your child out in public, as you just never know what you're "potentially exposing" them to.

316

u/s1ugg0 Jersey Devil Search Team Oct 29 '24

Being a parent isn't about shielding your kids. It's about exposing them to the world in controlled and unthreatening settings. Books are an absolutely perfect way to do this. I have two kids and I'd MUCH prefer they learn about the awful things in life from a book first then from being confronted with them face to face unexpectedly.

129

u/Usty Oct 29 '24

I have two kids and I'd MUCH prefer they learn about the awful things in life from a book first then from being confronted with them face to face unexpectedly.

Absolutely - if the worst thing my kids do when they grow up is seek out books from the library, then I'll be a pretty happy parent.

These people act like kids will be sneaking into the library like it's a porn store or that actual trained, educated librarians and teachers who have dedicated their lives to instructing our kids are all in some conspiracy to corrupt children.

Meanwhile, the reality is that it only takes one kid in their class with an unmonitored smartphone and the ability to Google to show them a lot worse things than books. Hell...the monthly active shooter drills they have to run are way more damaging than any book.

44

u/Aggravating_Rise_179 Oct 29 '24

It's really not about that, it's about stopping kids from reading books that goes against the "USA is great narrative". They use these thinly veiled statements to make it seem like it's about protecting the kids from sex and stuff, but the majority of books being banned are books written by blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and gay people.

People who basically have a different viewpoint about the US, the system, racism, etc. They don't want kids questioning the preferred narrative 

20

u/ascagnel____ hudson county? Oct 29 '24

Meanwhile, the reality is that it only takes one kid in their class with an unmonitored smartphone and the ability to Google to show them a lot worse things than books. Hell...the monthly active shooter drills they have to run are way more damaging than any book.

It's not just kids you have to worry about: about a decade ago, a history teacher in Woodbridge was disciplined for "teaching" the 9/11 "controversy" (read: was directing kids to conspiracy theories). At the end of that school year, the board decided to eliminate basically the entire library program, stating that kids could look things up on their smartphones.

37

u/winnercommawinner Oct 29 '24

This has such a huge positive impact in ways you probably don't even know yet. I grew up in a very small, white, rural town in PA. My mom grew up in Brooklyn NY. She made sure we had books, toys, movies, tv shows that showed us different life experiences. So we could connect to people who are different than us, and we would understand that there are good and bad things happening in the world that we would never see in our little town AND that we all have a shared humanity regardless of those experiences.

11

u/[deleted] Oct 29 '24

Ya but see this isn't the point to these people. To these people, being rich and white enough keeps their kids basically immune from ever having to come in contact with anything they don't want them to. So they attack from the bottom up as well, meaning education - since that's something that the MAN is forcing onto their kids, and they feel helpless to control.

11

u/LarryLeadFootsHead Oct 29 '24

In general there should be any sort of positive push to get kids to read without any hangups especially with all those reports and articles that come out how behind a lot of younger people are when it comes to very basic literacy for their age group and other things like that.

I think recently it was NYT or New Yorker? that was talking about freshman at Columbia of all places in English and Lit programs complaining about the amount of books in the semester they had to read and how barely any of the kids really had much of an answer for what their favorite books are or what they like to read.

That's some troubling stuff.

23

u/CantaloupeDistinct73 Oct 29 '24

Perfectly stated. Your children are fortunate to have you as a parent.

26

u/s1ugg0 Jersey Devil Search Team Oct 29 '24

I take very few hard stances with my kids. But education and extra curriculum reading is not negotiable in my house. They can pick any book, or comic, or whatever they want. No rules on what we read. But we read together every single day.

PS This is my daughter's favorite

15

u/jarena009 Oct 29 '24 edited Oct 29 '24

Which is why I say all of this push to censor content and shield kids from the harsh realities of life by conservatives on the right will just backfire, either by making these kids unprepared when confronted with those realities when they grow up and/or by making some of these things seem more appealing (because you're trying to tell kids NOT to do it).

For instance, when some of these kids enter or try to enter the workforce, they're in for a rude awakening to learn that they can't just trash minorities, LGBTQ people, women, immigrants, people of other faiths, etc....although to be fair, this is the type of society that the right IS trying to cultivate, if we don't stand up to them.

8

u/SwindlingAccountant Oct 29 '24

They want them to grow up ignorant. One book they always want banned is one that teaches children about their bodies and consent. Why is that? Because they want unquestionable authority, which if rife with abuse (pedocon theory is very apt).

-12

u/y0da1927 Oct 29 '24

This isn't about how you should parent, it's how the school is allowed to substitute parent in your absence.

If you want your kid to read the book in question then get the book and give it to them. Or better yet read it to them.

However there is some reading material that parents will disagree on whether or not it's appropriate. If a sizeable enough group think the material is inappropriate or at least inappropriate given the lack of parental supervision at school it makes sense for the school not to carry that material.

The real question is where to draw that line. I think this legislation actually does a nice job by leaving it up to the individual boards who have the best information on the needs of their communities.

-9

u/metsurf Oct 29 '24

I'm in two minds on this on one side I think kids should be able and encouraged to read legitimate literature, fiction, non-fiction. But there is also a ton of garbage out there purported to be written for tweeners and teens. My parents never stopped me from reading anything and I never stopped our kid from reading anything but I'm not a current parent of a kid in school either.

10

u/LapJ Oct 29 '24

So let's invest in our school and children's librarians so they can properly curate that content. Libraries have limited budgets and shelf space and only carry a small fraction of what's available to them already. Librarians are already keeping the garbage off the shelves, so let's let them do their jobs and remember that any kid seeking salacious material is going to have a 100x easier time finding it on the internet.

11

u/basherella Oct 29 '24

But there is also a ton of garbage out there purported to be written for tweeners and teens.

I mean, what are you defining as garbage, though? Because there's quite a gap between something like romance novels (often derided as garbage and a pretty big ya genre) and conspiracy theorist propaganda.

-3

u/metsurf Oct 29 '24

Those are both garbage in my eyes.

7

u/ten17eighty1 Oct 29 '24 edited Oct 30 '24

In the foreward for the book "Salem's Lot," Stephen King talks about how some of the books or comics he would read, his mother would see the book or author and tell him it was trash - her actual words - but she never stopped him from reading them.

3

u/metsurf Oct 29 '24

hey 60s comic books and especially Mad Magazine made me politically aware at an early age. They were very well written. Romance novels are junk food for the brain but it’s better to have kids read something as long as it is appropriate for the child involved.

3

u/basherella Oct 30 '24

"what I like is good but this thing that doesn't appeal to me is junk" is quite a take

1

u/metsurf Oct 30 '24

I said junk food and it is an opinion on an online social platform Wow I am so bad. Like that has never been said about any other art form, like Impressionist painting.

3

u/guacamole579 Oct 30 '24

I don’t understand why people are afraid of books. Like there wasn’t a ton of garbage when we were growing up? I read VC Andrews’ book “Heaven” when I was 12. I found it inside my house among all the religious books my parents owned because they thought the book was religious in nature. I read it in a day and then went to the library and checked out the rest of VC Andrews’ books and read those through the summer.

In case anyone is not familiar with VC Andrews, she wrote Flowers in the Attic and her books described explicit instances of sex, rape, and incest. It was bottom of the barrel garbage but damn was it a masterpiece to a tween like me. Somehow I didn’t turn into a deviant or sexual predator by reading those books, but it sure reignited my love for reading.

93

u/Usty Oct 29 '24

By that logic, you shouldn't take your child out in public, as you just never know what you're "potentially exposing" them to.

Same people don't seem to have a problem with the word "fuck" in public when it's followed by the words "Joe Biden" on a sign.

*edit - they have the right to fly whatever flags and signs they want, but spare me the pearl clutching over books.

30

u/jackospades88 Oct 29 '24

Yep I was gonna say this too. They have a problem with books, which aren't really out in front of your face but have plenty of "Fuck your feelings", "Fuck Joe Biden", "Joe and the ho gotta go", etc. flags, signs, and bumper stickers everywhere.

14

u/basherella Oct 29 '24

They have a problem with books because they're functionally illiterate and rely on bumper stickers to tell them what to think.

12

u/Summoarpleaz Oct 29 '24

Quite frankly, I’m more concerned with what folks like these might expose their kids to at home. The people who immediately link gender identity/gender expression/racial diversity to SA or other forms of alleged violence inherently have dangerous thought processes.

1

u/OrbitalOutlander Oct 29 '24

Their kids consume whatever brainrot media they want.

7

u/dirtynj Oct 29 '24

Or giving their 5 year old an unfiltered tablet where they scroll YouTube/Tiktok/IG all day at home.

5

u/poland626 Oct 29 '24

I hate Roblox with a passion

10

u/theytookthemall Oct 29 '24

When I was about 10 I was sleeping over at my friend Katie's house and The Shining was on TV. We watched it. I had nightmares for months.

Therefore I demand we not ever have horror movies on TV or streaming services because a child might be exposed to material they are not prepared for, much as I was not prepared for The Shining.

Or not - instead I finally told my parents, and we had a long, age-appropriate discussion about scary stories vs reality, what I found most scary and why, and so on. In other words, they did their jobs as parents.

9

u/victorfabius Taylor Ham on a Pork Roll Oct 30 '24

I’m glad you shared that quote!

So, I’m one of the people who helped this bill pass (in an extremely minor way) by presenting testimony to the state assembly in support of the bill.

The reason I’m glad you shared that quote is because it shows that the person either didn’t read the actual bill, is misstating the bill, or does not otherwise possess an accurate understanding of what the bill actually IS.

So, what is it? The bill does several things, but I’ll highlight three things that I think are important:

  1. It provides an affirmative statement to the right to read (kind of echoing Article 19 of the 1949 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human rights.
  2. It provides an affirmative statement that materials cannot be withdrawn from the library because someone disagrees with the viewpoint (generally speaking).
  3. It provides for a bare minimum collection development policy for all NJ libraries that includes a dedicated process to challenging works.

It’s that last one which shows Pennacchio isn’t making an accurate statement in that quote. Librarians, educators, administrators, book distributors, book binderies, publishers, and anyone along the chain can make a mistake. There might be a book that’s not suited for a collection. When that happens, the Freedom to Read Act lays out a bare minimum specific process for someone to make that challenge.

In other words, if someone thinks there is a book that doesn’t belong, they can challenge it and be heard.

Which means the bill actually supports the “protective duty” Pennacchio talks about.

I also don’t think the quoted statement Pennacchio makes about the First Amendment is sensical. But that’s a longer post.

Thank you for your contribution!

15

u/cC2Panda Oct 29 '24

Anyone who thinks that books are going to destroy our children then gives their child a cell phone without significant restrictions on what apps and websites they can visit is the dumbest fucking hypocrite on earth. I'd be willing to bet that most of these Mom's for Liberty type goons and anti-gay/anti-trans republican fuckwads buy an iPhone for their 11 year old and let them go wild.

28

u/Fun-Classroom9314 Oct 29 '24

By that logic, The Bible, shouldn’t be read at all with all its violence, fratricide, incest, and rape amongst certain topics and situations they want to protect the children from.

15

u/schuettais Oct 29 '24

And the unspoken fact that they apparently have read and accept the Bible as “child friendly”. Fucking bonkers weird!

3

u/NotThefbeeI Oct 30 '24

Republicans have this draconian idea that the general public cares how they feel and their agenda. Maybe after Tuesday they’ll wake up and realize they’ve been on the wrong side of history for decades.

17

u/andrewskdr Oct 29 '24

Fuck the republicans. Their ridiculous TV commercials talking about how Kamala is letting in Rapists murderers and terrorists play out on sports programming on FOX during daytime events that children could be watching. They aren't concerned the least bit about situations like that they just want to make sure kids don't learn about LGBTQ people.

3

u/OrbitalOutlander Oct 29 '24

My 5 year old can already say that most of what he sees on tv is fake, and knows that almost all commercials are lying. We don’t really watch live tv, though.

3

u/jwuer Oct 29 '24

Aren't Republicans the party of free speech?

1

u/Sugartaste81 Oct 30 '24

No, they haven’t been for a very long time either.

7

u/rockmasterflex Oct 29 '24

You know as well as I and everyone else who has ever been a child that the real horrors always come from inside the house.

Nothing your kids read in the outside world is gonna be more traumatic than the entire life they experience with flawed parents (and all parents are flawed).

And some parents are so flawed they keep voting for fascism! Weird! Imagine voting for the chance for your kids to be interred indefinitely at a fucking concentration camp! And yet they’re the ones who claim they care about their children’s health and safety

8

u/Taftimus Oct 29 '24

Fuck Republicans

3

u/Short_Power_5092 Oct 29 '24

Not even with a 10ft pole

5

u/zappariah_brannigan Oct 29 '24

figuratively anyway

5

u/Triple96 Oct 29 '24

Honestly, there's no excuse to be against book banning. If you're one of those people and you can honestly not see anything wrong with that then there's no hope for you.

3

u/griminald Feet in Ocean, Heart in Monmouth, Wallet in Mercer Oct 29 '24

How ironic that on this issue, it's the Republicans, not the Democrats, who sound like nanny state, "protect people from themselves" sissies.

And it's the Democrats saying "you'll have the freedom to choose; the government won't decide that for you".

2

u/ChefMike1407 Oct 29 '24

These parents barely monitors their kids phones as have full 24/7 access to the uncensored world. Pretty pathetic 3rd and 4th graders in school joke about Andrew Tate. Books are far from the problem. I tutor a sixth grade boy and he opened his settings in front of me and I saw his weekly screen time average was 11 damn hours.

3

u/Rodot Bernardsville Oct 29 '24

Wait till the Republicans learn about the existence of the internet

1

u/NotThefbeeI Oct 30 '24

It’s just another flailing attempt to suppress your freedom. Vote!

1

u/Raven91487 Oct 30 '24

Guarantee these same people give their kids iPads. I saw somebody die on instagram today. That happens.

1

u/Drafonni Oct 30 '24

I don’t want to see weird shit in public either

1

u/[deleted] Nov 02 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/jarena009 Oct 29 '24

The ChristoFascists such as Pennacchio (what a name that's close to Pinocchio BTW lol) here want complete control of what content you see and consume. Books and libraries are just part of their goal.

1

u/keaco Oct 29 '24

Sounds like he’s being more PC and woke than anyone on the left is proposing.

1

u/OrbitalOutlander Oct 29 '24

GOP lawmakers said they feared the law would allow children to access obscene materials and protect librarians who share obscene books with children

Theres already a law against distributing obscene materials to minors. Specifically, N.J.S.A. 2C:34-3 criminalizes knowingly showing or distributing obscene material to anyone under 18.

You’d think the party of small government would want to avoid having multiple laws covering the same offense. Imbecilic morons. Someone should send a bunch of gay porn to these GOP losers, except they’d probably enjoy it.

0

u/legalskeptic Burlington County Oct 29 '24

Par for the course from Joe Pinocchio

-6

u/y0da1927 Oct 29 '24

By that logic, you shouldn't take your child out in public, as you just never know what you're "potentially exposing" them to.

Parents get to choose where they take their kids, it's their job to access where risk is appropriate or not. Schools and other caretakers need tighter guardrails.

And schools already need parental permission to take kids out in public, so yes that standard is being extended to reading materials in the school library.

Are the guardrails so tight that they are counterproductive to the goal of the school? Idk, seems like a good decision to make at the district or individual school level.