The former host of ‘Reading Rainbow’ used to encourage kids to read books. Now he’s telling adults not to ban them
CNN —
As the National Book Awards came to a close on Wednesday, finalists for the prestigious literary prizes took the stage in New York to speak about the Israel-Hamas war, with others at the ceremony also choosing to address banned books.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/16/style/national-book-awards-2023-ceasefire-book-bans-cec/index.htmlOpen linkView original on lemmy.world1132
Comments98
Interesting article organisation. Tease LeVar Burton, but don't introduce him until the second section.
Also, his name is LeVar Burton, and the man has done a lot of things.
Seriously whats with this "former host" bullshit
Everybody wishes they could be LeVar Burton
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwyXURokKM
RIP Lance Reddrick
You can't disappoint a picture
I didn’t know I needed that today.
I don't know what days I don't need that.
Don't forget Roots
"Where's my iconic slave role?"
And can I just add... DAMN he's aged well. That beard is on point.
Ngl how fabulous he looks is the first thing I noticed about the post.
He inspired a generation to wear their mom's hairband over their eyes
Who does CNN think their target demographic is with that headline? If you're reading CNN, you remember Reading Rainbow, and if you remember Reading Rainbow, YOU PUT SOME RESPEK ON LEVAR BURTON'S GATDAMN NAME.
Don't mess with Kunta Kinte!!!
Could you imagine bouncing a check to that guy!
People who don't read books want them banned!
Pages 11-12
LeVar Burton is a national treasure, his podcast is amazing.
https://www.levarburtonpodcast.com/
Basically Reading Rainbow for adults.
Nice to see short fiction making a bit of a comeback. Shame all this MAGA stuff didn't bring back the best thing about the 50s: short format and serial fiction periodicals.
Some of the short fiction magazines that still exist have had to stop accepting submissions from unknown authors. The month chat gpt was released they saw a 10x increase in submissions.
Amazon only accepts 500 book submissions per author now. Per day.
That's just bonkers. I'm sure the 99 cent shovelware ebook market is absolutely flooded.
I just can't believe there's that many people who can read that many books in the world.
Like, I can read a few books a year. Not 500 a day! If everybody wrote 500 books a day we would have like billions of books written per year.
They literally cost nothing to produce and the authors get pennies on the dollar, they didn't have to sell very many copies to make money.
I use SCP writings to replace the short form horror texts
Some of those are really good!
Yeah there's some really great and really terrible one lol. I like to listen to The Exploring Series on YouTube, he covers them really well.
Boy, does it feel like we've failed our childhood heroes.
We really have.
Mr Rogers would also be disappointed.
Yes, but the other Mr Rogers is pretty happy.
How sad that it's come to this. On the other hand, maybe if Mr. Rogers was still around, we'd have someone to talk to Republicans about kindness.
Republicans have tried demonizing him as woke trying to indoctrinate our children. So unfortunately unlikely.
The irony is, he is woke. Dude was literally Kunta Kinte.
Fred Rogers is the guy this particular thread of the post is referring to. He would have made an interesting casting choice for Kunta Kinte.
that’s because “wokeism” has become a right wing dogwhistle for basically ‘anything that forces us to confront our shitty and outdated ideas’.
Whether woke is good or bad depends entirely on how it's defined. I generally see it as an antithesis to ignorance. So a combination of both educated and rational thinking.
Sometimes it describes things that are educated and irrational thinking, which is ironically what the right does a lot. Basically fear mongering.
Then you just use the two interchangeably to make it sound like rational observations are radical.
Oh I know. But even then they're intentionally inconsistent so the good and bad gets mixed in together.
They would call him too woke.
Fox News called him evil, so… at least he’s not woke.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-fred-rogers-evil/
Ah yes the Presbyterian minister who devoted his life to teaching kids we should Love Thy Neighbor and it's ok to have feelings.
Of course the fake ass Christians hate him. They'd call Jesus a longhaired communist if he came back today.
They wouldn't listen to him, and would call Mr. Rogers woke trash. The current Republican Party and its supporters are a hot mess.
Depending on how you define “modern” Fox News did call him evil in 2007.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fox-fred-rogers-evil/
There is also that whacko on Newsmax that calls
the MuppetsSesame Street a bunch of evil communists.This is him when he was on Fox but he has ranted about wanting to debate that well known commie Big Bird a couple times while on Newsmax.
https://youtu.be/LWFCja7MTPI?si=SstDGuWFht9N4fLn
To be clear: this man wants to debate a fictional character on a beloved children's TV show and Fox and Newsmax continued to employ him.
Haha, what even is this timeline?
I need The Muppet-churian Candidate...... Oooh and Dr. Strangemuppet!
I did not know about this one.
How far gone does one have to be that saying this on TV is not only okay, but encouraged?
I forgot about this.
Anyone else feel like the country would be better off if more adults read books too? Only half joking...
I think it would depend on the books.
Yeah, for all i know the only approved book in a conservative adult book program would be mein kampf
Or the Bell Curve.
Fabio taught me a lot about living life to the fullest!
Fabio the taught me to watch out for birds.
That's why people need to read a LOT of books. The only thing worse than someone who doesn't read at all is the person that reads like one book a year and let's it define their whole personality.
It is known.
Isn't that the whole argument for banning some books and not others?
All I'm saying is I don't think we'd be better off if more people started reading books like the Turner diaries. I'm not making a censorship argument here
Aye, didn't want to accuse you of advocating for censorship. Just a friendly reminder that even the most "dangerous" texts are that way because of context, not content.
Also I was today years old when I learned about The Turner Diaries. Yikes.
There's a book called the collector that had inspired a couple serial rapist/killers. I consider myself a curious person and I truly love learning but there are some books that I would love to see only in libraries and very dusty because I don't know how they add constructively to society.
Who else has a copy of "Mein Kampf" or "My New Order: A Collection of Speeches" on their nightstand.
Right guys?
Like, I get the joke, but yeah, uniroically people should read those and just about everything else they can. That's what being well rounded is, taking in all of the information you can, from all sides, interpreting it, and determining how it fits, or doesn't, with all of the other knowledge you've learned.
That's fair.
I read manga, does that count? lol
Oppai ga daisuki desu 😀
edit: damn, tough crowd, guess my joke didn't land lol
Yes. Manga isn't my thing but yes it counts. Frankly any book counts.
I'm gonna hope you mean stuff like Ghost in the Shell and 20th Century Boys and not .... the other kind of manga.
It's called hentai and it's art
I mean, there’s like dozens of types of mangas (or comics, for that matter), reducing them to two camps isn’t that efficient.
I like wholesome manga, Nagatoro is good.
Moms of Liberty: Reading "Rainbow", omg we HAVE to ban that from schools as it has a gay agenda!
Qwack jobs like those need to read the Constitution more instead of reinterpreting their Bible to fit their own agenda.
Shout out to LeVar, a true National Treasure.
If only adults realised the value of actually reading books instead of merely gouging on TV and Internet talking points.
More and more people are reading every year. The latest generation are devouring books.
The old grumpy TV glued generation are dying off and being replaced by book reading activists that care about the future.
Can you cite a source for this? I say this not to challenge you, but because I really hope it's objectively true.
Set phasers to love me
Set phasers to stunning!
Oh man
I couldve sworn Levar Burton had died recently.
It was Lance Reddick i was thinking of
Don't worry, it's a reference/joke.
Bird up
WARP SPEED DONT RAINBOW READ ME
Now he has another reason to wish he was Lavar Burton
The chain you want to have happen aint gonna happen bro.
He was a childhood hero my mine as well. I wanted to be on reading rainbow so bad as a kid.
Reading Rainbow 2034: Please Stop Burning Books
https://youtu.be/3L4YrGaR8E4?si=WS6CNYhsUHKwU-7C
Go to 1:49
Love RATM
He also promoted violence against women, but OK.
I imagine you're talking about this and every single member of "Mom's for Liberty" absolutely deserves it.
Gender is irrelevant, it's more the being an absolute shit stain on humanity by being bigoted and wanting to ban books part.
Edit: Here is an article linking to the books banned by Florida since OP is lying saying Florida hasn't banned books.
Agreed. Punching fascists is a noble pursuit. Klanned Karenhood is a fascist group. The math isn't that hard.
Fun fact, no books are banned in FL
Fun fact, you're full of shit.
Oh, you mean the people who quoted Hitler? - https://apnews.com/article/moms-for-liberty-adolf-hitler-newsletter-quote-bcce698e901b9e782970030ccd710512
Yeah, they're real model citizens.
The fun part about looking at Breitbart's headlines is you can tell what the free thinkers are thinking about that day.
Yes, politically right conservatives with anti-LGBT+ political agendas are in fact trying to ban books. Why are you lying and misrepresenting reality?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2023/10/05/website-driving-banned-books-surge-moms-for-liberty/70922213007/
https://www.tallahassee.com/story/news/politics/2023/07/11/moms-for-liberty-leads-florida-school-district-to-pull-five-books/70397263007/
https://www.newsweek.com/moms-liberty-banned-book-list-schools-1756574
https://suburbanturmoil.com/moms-for-liberty-books-are-dangerous-banned-books/2022/02/15/
https://kentuckylantern.com/2023/02/16/moms-for-liberty-gets-three-books-removed-from-campbell-county-school-libraries/
https://news.wfsu.org/wfsu-local-news/2023-07-12/leon-schools-removed-5-books-after-moms-for-liberty-raised-concern-more-could-follow
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/education/education/2023/06/06/parents-rights-group-moms-for-liberty-behind-kentucky-book-bans-labeled-by-extremist-splc/70294867007/
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2022/09/26/moms-for-liberty-expands-efforts-to-ban-books
https://www.wbaltv.com/article/book-ban-carroll-county-schools-review-parent-concern/45107473
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-e8EwRkphmI
Add this one to the pile Utah law banning books with "pornographic content" leads several books to be banned, ironically including the King James Bible and The Book of Mormon. Of course, they overturned the ban on the King James Bible and probably The Book of Mormon too because hypocrisy.
Youre conflating the problem to a black and white issue. Playboy was never okay to be in the classroom inthe first place. The problem isnt that banned books didnt already exist (of course they always do, some of the most common books banned are historically classical books, Huck Finn. Color purple, 1984), its a matter of people using it to ban books with subjects they dont like, and you can tell because one instance a kids book was banned because the authors name is Gay.
The people banning books arent doing any due dilligence on the books their banning. They are just searching for words in the texts for themes they don't like and putting them on a list of books to be removed.
So do you believe its okay for some school to ctrl+f "gay" through any text in a book and automatically ban it. Liberals arent saying that there should be no book bans, like ive mentioned there are already several books that have been banned for several decades now. Its about finding the ones and doing proper bans. Its just that jurisdictions who are actively banning them are taking every short cut possible to remove books with any theme with them. Do you actually think liberals would okay having Mein Kampf in yheir students libraries? By saying that you believe liberals are fighting against banning books at all, you have litterally just painted liberals in a black and white fashion.
Thank you for reminding us that every word uttered by a conservative is deception or manipulation.
Nearly every hate crime, act of oppression and act of bigotry ever committed in the U.S. has been committed by conservatives. We should be teaching children why it is immoral to conduct business with or keep relationships with conservatives.
I'm not insinuating that you are a conservative. I'm calling you out for espousing a very conservative position. Supporting conservative positions is a pretty conservative thing to do. You should not pretend to be so surprised that someone has called you a conservative.
And, like most conservative positions, the one you chose to support is harmful to vulnerable people, intentionally hateful and toxic as fuck. You chose to defend an evil position using deception. I didn't do that. You did that.
I'm glad you would find being called conservative offensive. Being called a conservative should always be taken as an insult.
Strange. That doesn't happen to normal people. Maybe try not espousing hateful, deceptive conservative positions. Hope that helps.