It's perplexing how a nation that once liberated the world from fascism is now becoming fascist and triggering fascist movements worldwide.
Note that prior to getting involved in the war, there was substantial support for the Nazis among Americans. It's always been there. It just got swept under the carpet for a few decades, though if you go back and look at the politics of the fifties, you'll see mcarthyism and all sort of court cases on indecency and lots and lots of violence against homosexuals.
I don't think I spelled mcarthyism correctly. It's early and I'm not inclined to bother spell checking.
It should also be noted that Adolf Hitler based some of his ideology off of the proto-fascism of pre-Civil War America (and the deep racial inequalities which persisted afterwards), and praised it his book Mein Kamph.
Yeah, I'm absolutely not perplexed by American fascism in the slightest.
I think we can also show we didn't do what people think what we did when we look at things on a time line.
WW2 ended in 1945.
Emmett Till was murdered in 55. 10 years later. Ruby Bridges went to what was an all white school in 1960. That was 15 years later. The Civil Rights Act happened in 1964. 19 years later. The MOVE Bombing happened in 85. 40 years later.
The Stonewall Riots happened in 69. 24 years later. The UpStairs Lounge Arson attack happened in 73. Which was 28 years later. Harvey Milk was assassinated in 78. 33 years later. The Shelby bookstore murders happened in 87. So 42 years after.
We can sit here and list different events all day that happened after the war. We were the good guys off fighting evil, and those soldiers would totally hate the bigotry we see today... Except there's a good chance that tbe vast majority of them weren't any better. Even the black soldiers still weren't allowed to fight with the white ones. We were fighting fascism over there while it was still happening over here.
McCarthyism, close enough lol
Stopping fascism wasn't the point. After liberating the camps, they even threw the homosexuals right back in. (Source)
They were just worried that the USSR was going to beat them to Berlin, and then keep going across the entirety of Europe. Likely a valid concern, to be fair.
While a romantic prose, I wouldn't go saying they liberated the world of anything like that until it was almost too late.
But when they finally did fight, fuck yeah, they fought.
I love it, objected to by "Moms for Liberty". I guess that works in fascist land where words mean the opposite of what they are.
And leave it to one of these bullshit 'Liberty' or 'Patriot' organizations to completely distract from the point that Anne Frank was a teenage girl growing up in an attic, hiding from an insanely hateful political group/police who wanted to kill her and her entire family.
"Moms for Liberty" is a straight up hate group. Like, I'm not doing that hyperbole thing. They are racist bigot fascists dead set on white, straight supremacy.
The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam. Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.
So basically exactly like all of the 13 yr olds in the class, who are probably taught at home how their body parts are shameful.
Were they specifically shown just that part? Or was it part of reading the entire thing? I could see how the first scenario would be a bit odd and would like more context but if it's just in the book they were reading then this article is kind of misleading.
Also agree with you that this is totally normal thing for 8th graders to think about... the book was written by someone their own age for fucks sake.
From an interview with David Polonsky, the illustrator:
In illustrating those more sensitive pages, Polonsky says he took great care to make sure nothing was too explicit for young readers.
Frank's musings about vaginas are illustrated with a black and white swirl, inspired by painter Georgia O'Keefe's famously vaginal flowers, he said. When Frank ponders female nudes, Polonsky draws her walking through a garden surrounded by Greek sculptures.
"I took inspiration from Anne's own world. She was really into Greek art and sculptures," he said. "I decided to show the nudes through classical marble sculptures, which I believed six years ago would be a mainstream thing that wouldn't be too controversial."
The illustrations from the book.
Georgia O'Keefe's famously vaginal flowers
This book was out for six years before it became a "problem". Real "someone think of the poor children" bullshit moral panic that is thinly disguising its fascism.
“This book adapted explicitly from writings at the time doesn’t depict the Holocaust accurately” fucking batshit
Moms for Liberty are just mad that the book doesn't portray the nazis as the good guys like their newsletter does.
They never have a problem with Mein Kampf.
America’s pearl clutching around all sexual topics is so insane to me. 13 year olds are gonna think about their genitals and who they’re attracted to, so why is it that we have to treat the idea of sexuality as taboo? God forbid adolescents don’t feel shame for completely normal feelings
I guess the long lasting cultural effects of antiquated abrahamic religion is the cause. But horrific violence? Meh no prob. Make war not love, I guess.
It's a way to keep the Christian nationalists to keep voting. True of all the culture crap keep Christ in Christmas and stuff like that. If they can't keep the religious bigots voting then it will really go badly for the trumpy grumpies.
The Dutch "Avondshow met Arjen Lubach" did a funny piece on this. A lot of people are laughing at the US, or it ultra-conservative parts at least, but it's a bit sad that's it's so bad, to be honest.
Heaven forbid we see the thoughts of a normal kid growing up in a war that she wouldn't see the end of.
If I wasn't an American I would find the back and forth idiocy of Texas and Florida hilarious. I mean, one does some crazy stupid shit and they other says hold my beer.
LOL, tell me II have to check if a book is approve before talking about it and it and I will resign on spot. I'm dead serious. Conservatives seem to see in schools ans teachers the new enemy. Teaching is an already shitty under-paid job, I suggest they stop pushing against people who take care of their spoiled stupid kids 40 hours a week, unless they want to take care of education themself.
unless they want to take care of education themself.
Oh, they do. That's part of the problem.
Eh, then it will eventually become a borderline daycare center for anyone who can't pay for the serious education/indoctrination.
I remember going to the Holocaust museum in 8th grade. How times have changed.
My school had a "Holocaust" week when I was in 8th grade. They re-enacted separating out specific kids as "jews" (they were chosen at random not based off anything) and discriminated against them in various ways on the first day to give an idea of what it was like. We had no advanced warning this was going to happen we just came in one morning and all the teachers were in the gym pulling people out of their various groups secret police style and lining them up. I actually got in trouble for giving one of them a piece of candy later in the day. All our classes were put off that week and it was just learning about the holocaust in detail all day for the whole week and they did not pull any punches. I still remember some of the images they showed us to this day. At the end we had to do a presentation on ANOTHER genocide (I got Khemer Rouge) and go into detail on that one. Honestly it was one of the most educational experiences I ever had in school.
Glad I read the article. She wasn't fired for showing the book to hers students. She was fired for showing an unapproved book (which I then assume is not in the 8th grade curriculum) to her students. Teaching outside the curriculum is generally a big no no.
The question should be, why is that book not approved? That's a rhetorical question btw.
Despite claims by school officials that the adaptation had not been approved, KFDM notes that the book “was on a reading list sent to parents at the start of the school year,” so the district’s suggestion that the teacher “went rogue” seems…not true at all in the, y’know, actual sense of the word. A source close to the teacher told KFDM that the school’s principal had approved a syllabus that included the book. “There is an active investigation,” Mike Canizales, a spokesperson for the Hamshire-Fannett ISD, told the outlet.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2023/09/texas-school-fires-teacher-over-anne-frank-graphic-novel
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Texas teacher was fired after assigning an illustrated adaptation of Anne Frank’s diary to her middle school class, in a move that some are calling “a political attack on truth”.
The graphic novel, written by Ari Folman and illustrated by David Polonsky, adapts the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank, who wrote while hiding in an annexe in Nazi-occupied Amsterdam.
Eighth-grade students were reportedly shown a section of the graphic novel where Frank reflected on her own genitals and wanted to see a female friend’s breasts, according to KFDM.
Discussions of sexuality were included in the original written version of Anne Frank’s diary, but were edited out in subsequent reprints.
A Florida high school removed the graphic novel after a chapter of Moms for Liberty, an extremist advocacy group, objected to the book’s sexual contents and claimed it did not teach the Holocaust accurately, the Associated Press reported.
The Republican governor, Greg Abbott, signed legislation in 2021 severely limiting how educators can teach topics of race and gender.
The original article contains 519 words, the summary contains 168 words. Saved 68%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
