Why is Texas Trying to Ban These Books? Officials Claim It’s Porn

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A storm of controversy is raging in the Lone Star State right now, and at the center of it all is a handful of books that can likely be found in your child's school library.  While some claim that they are essential reading materials, Texas Governor Greg Abbott calls them inappropriate and pornographic.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott wants these "bad" books gone

Earlier this week, Gov. Abbott sent a letter to Texas Association of School Boards executive director Dan Troxell stating that Texas parents should have the right and ability to shield their children from books that he says contain "pornographic or obscene material."   Abbott is demanding that such books be identified and removed from school libraries across the state.

In the letter, which you can read in it's entirety here, the Texas Governor had this to say:

A growing number of parents of Texas students are becoming increasingly alarmed about some of the books and other content found in public school libraries that are extremely inappropriate in the public education system.  The most flagrant examples include clearly pornographic images and substance that have no place in the Texas public education system.

 

These parents are rightfully angry

Abbott isn't the only Texas politician who wants these books removed

Texas House's General Investigating Committee chairman Matt Krause has also penned a letter to the Texas Education Agency's deputy commissioner of school programs and school superintendents announcing his intention to investigate the books school districts in Texas make available to their students.  Unlike Abbott, Krause has already compiled a "hit list" of books he wants removed.  This 16-page list details the approximately 850 books Krause deems unacceptable.

These are some of the books Krause wants removed

Some of the books on Krause's long list include the National Book Award winning Cider House Rules by John Irving, Ibram X. Kendi’s How to be an Antiracist,  Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s And Still I Rise: Black America since MLK, We the students : Supreme Court cases for and about students by Jamin B Raskin, Life, death and sacrifice : women and family in the Holocaust by Christian Burch, and V for Vendetta by Alan Moore.

Critics claim that the push to get rid of these books is politically motivated

According to a report from NPR, most of these books are about or are related to "gender identity, sexuality, race and sexual health."  The Dallas Morning News has taken a deep dive into Krause's list only to find that out of the first 100 books listed, 97 were written by women, people of color or LGBTQ authors.  Outspoken opponents like Chloe Latham Sikes with the Intercultural Development Research Association claim that removing these books would be nothing less that an “attack on truth.”