Where the Hell Am I?
Did I Step Through a Portal to the Past?
Warning: If you’re looking to be uplifted today, this article isn’t for you. And, if you think banning books is part of a holy war to defeat the devil, don’t bother to read this article either.
Do you ever wake up and wonder where the hell you are?
As book banning increases across the US, I keep checking my pulse to see if I’m still alive. Did I hitch a ride through a portal to the dark past?
This is surreal.
I left the religious cult I was raised in many years ago, but it followed me into the government. All I’ve ever wanted, since I was a kid, was for religious fanatics to leave me the hell alone.
I try to do what everyone else does, just ignore it and go on about my business, but this harmful nonsense is triggering me big time.
I’m sure glad that I retired from public education 17 years ago. I couldn’t bear what teachers go through these days. One book after another, one school library after another, one teacher after another, one librarian after another, is being attacked, regulated, and made to feel like they’re a danger to society. It’s making me feel creepier and creepier by the day.
I try to ignore what’s happening.
I realize that if you’ve not been through what I experienced that it’s impossible to see these strange occurrences in the same way I do. However, just when I think I’ve managed to push it to the back of my brain, there’s another story about another school district that is prohibiting teachers from reading books to their kids or librarians from buying new books for their libraries. Some teachers are forbidden to buy books as gifts for their students. Even the traditional annual book sale to raise money for schools is presently off-limits in some districts as well.
As if society’s biggest worry should be that kids read too much.
I remember as a teacher searching for strategies to encourage parents to read to their kids. Books were a sacred source in schools. For many students, their first real encounter with books is in school. Every year, it was painfully obvious that lots of kids came from households where books were not available.
And now books are seen as part of the bigger problem, designed to harm children?
I asked my sister who works in a Florida school district, a sunny state for shady people, what her colleagues were saying about all this lunacy. She told me they were mostly quiet. Teachers, especially elementary teachers, are usually rather easy to push around. After all, they’re mostly women. They’ve been undermined for as long as I can remember. Hell, there was a time when they were forbidden to even marry. And if a teacher got pregnant, she’d be whisked away before you could count to ten.
Good grief! As if elementary teachers have been the biggest threat to society. Give me a break.
Suddenly, this group of professionals that have largely been viewed as glorified babysitters is now so powerful that they’re collaborating with the devil to destroy the American family. You know, the famous all-American families that are suffering from multiple divorces and conflicts which damage their offspring.
Puh-lease! Nobody believes that it’s elementary teachers, often the most stable adult in a child’s life, who are threatening family values.
If children are unhappy, and many of them are, it isn’t because the word gay was mentioned in a book or that one of their classmates has two daddies. It’s because they have miserable parents. The things that go on behind closed doors would make your hair stand on end. More than once, as a principal, I had to report suspicious behaviors to the authorities and then face the wrath of the parents as they accosted me with threatening words.
Their children didn’t tell on them either.
Children don’t do that to their parents. Teachers are trained to recognize signs of abuse and neglect and are required by law to report their suspicions to the principal. I shudder when I think how many kids are living in horrible situations. It keeps me awake at night.
Everyone knows this is true. When growing up, we either knew a hopelessly damaged family or came from one.
So now parents are rushing into schools to protect their children from books, many of which couldn’t be found in an elementary school library if you turned the bookshelves upside down.
Why are they so afraid that their children will read something that differs from what they hear at home or in church every Sunday?
I never worried when my kids asked me hard questions. I worried more when they didn’t ask me questions. Discussions were encouraged in my house. The world is full of diversity and curiosity is natural. An open mind isn’t the devil’s playground. It allows us to engage in critical thinking and to develop our standards, preferences, goals, and dreams.
You know where this is going next, don’t you? Universities!
They won’t be content to ruin the lives of elementary school teachers. This is only an experiment to see how far they can go with these outlandish demands. The hatred fanatics have for the liberal arts, books, writers, and institutions of higher education is far stronger than they have for elementary schools.
The liberal arts have been under attack for decades and are slowly but surely dying across America.
It’s part of an agenda that’s been around for a long time. The party that wanted to privatize everything is dismantling our systems. They have learned to make use of the far-right evangelicals to help destabilize everything, but their end goal is to reshape our institutions to conform to the markets. No more public schools, only schools for profit. No more public colleges, only private institutions. No more social security, Medicare, post offices, national parks, or federally funded roads and bridges.
Everything for profit.
Plus, an educated population is a major drawback in an authoritarian society. You don’t want thinkers, writers, linguists, philosophers, historians, and psychologists influencing the population.
Trump meant it when he said he loved the uneducated.
So, as the oligarchs strive to reach their goals, evangelicals have proven to be of good use to their cause. They’ve employed their wacky ways to undermine the foundation of our social programs and create division and confusion. Out of the chaos will come the fulfillment of their dreams, an America that has finally rid itself of the New Deal and any social programs and institutions funded by the government.
Any thinking person should know that most of these politicians and business leaders aren’t evangelicals.
Religion doesn’t guide most of their lives. There are exceptions like Ted Cruz, but the vast majority are in it for the money. Well, Ted Cruz is in for the money, too, but he’s been told more than once that he’s God’s anointed, so I’m sure his wet dreams are a bit more grandiose.
Republicans formed an alliance with the evangelicals a long time ago.
It began with Reagan and Billy Graham and Bush and Jerry Falwell. They recognized that there’s no one more formidable than a rabid, religious fanatic because they think they have God on their side. They’re on a holy mission. Get them riled up, make them feel important, support the two or three holy issues they stand for, and they’ll beat the doors down to get to the voting booth and vote for their candidate. They are relentless.
Sigh
I’m tired. Bone tired. I wish I could leave this all behind. My rant is over for now. Sorry but not sorry. If you disagree feel free but don’t bother me with your point of view today, because I won’t respond.
I’m too exhausted.
Teresa is a retired educator, author, world traveler, and professional myth buster. You can find her books on Amazon.
