PLEASE GO TO THIS LINK TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE AND ALSO TO SEE THE MANY PHOTOS, VIDEOS, AND CHARTS THAT DOCUMENT THE EVENTS:

https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen4/23a/TX-MR-forces-school-to-remove-book/index.html

Humble, Texas is a suburb of Houston. The region is very conservative. But as in many “red” states, leftists campaign as conservatives and get elected to the School Board.

The current chairman and others recently ran as a “conservative” slate and were endorsed by the local GOP and Tea Party (which sadly, are routinely clueless). Once elected, they proceeded to collude with the “woke” Superintendent to make lives miserable for pro-family parents who speak out.

Our Texas MassResistance leader, Tracy Shannon, lives in the Humble school district. Starting last August 2022, Tracy began helping local parents deal with dozens of obscene sexual and other highly inappropriate books that they had found in their school district libraries.

Some of these books are beyond belief in their sexual depravity. But the position of the school officials was that the books were “educational” and the parents were ignorant extremists.

From a book in the high school library. This is an example of what the School Board, Superintendent, and staff have termed "educational material" that "supports diversity." -- PLEASE SEE AN ACTUAL CHART FOUND IN A BOOK IN THE HUMBLE ISD SCHOOL LIBRARY: https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen4/23a/TX-MR-forces-school-to-remove-book/index.html

Tracy began by going through the schools’ arduous and bureaucratic “book challenge” process. She filed challenges for 35 books in all – about half during August and the other half in November…

Even though none of the books were removed, a “banned books” hysteria broke out among school officials and leftists in the district.

…Starting in August, the militant School Board chairman imposed an outrageous 1-minute limit on all public testimony (which is enforced by turning off the microphone). The deadline for signing up to testify is noon the day of the meetings, so they know in advance who will be there. This has had the desired effect of keeping most people from bothering to show up. Often the “public testimony” portion of the School Board meetings lasts just over 5 minutes.

In addition, citizens are banned from taking photos or videos – not only during School Board meetings but anywhere on the property where the School Board meets. At one meeting, Tracy was recording herself in the hallway outside the School Board chambers, and the police threatened to arrest her. At another meeting, Tracy called a press conference on the grass outside the building, and the police came and forced her to leave. (Tracy has filed a legal complaint over this, which the school has appealed to the Attorney General!)

Over the next few months, various school people spoke out at School Board meetings to intimidate parents over the obscene book controversy:

• At one meeting, the Superintendent spoke (in rather insulting bureaucratese) about how these books are actually about “diversity” and that individual parents should work with the school if they had concerns about their individual children; but the books were staying! Parents were appalled. Tracy posted this video of Supt. Fagan’s comments, with the vulgar text of books superimposed. (Caution!)
• A former Humble school district teacher (who brags about being a member of a pro-LGBT church) addressed the meeting, comparing the parents to Nazi book-burners: “You don’t have to be a historian to know that the people banning the books are never the good guys.” See video here.
• Another former teacher came to thank the School Board for keeping the pornographic books in the library, because they help kids develop “quality reading skills,” and that “banning books is never the right answer.” Instead, she said, “Choice is the answer. Thank you for selecting books from quality selected authors from our students.” She looked right at Tracy while saying this.

…One of the “woke” English teachers runs a far-left DEI (diversity-equity-inclusion) high school club called “Diversify Our Narrative.” The club offers “anti-racist” lesson plans such as “The End of White Innocence” and links to lessons on gender identity and sexual orientation. Four girls from the club were coached to go to the next School Board meeting to stand up for their “intellectual rights” to read pornography.

On January 10, 2023, the School Board held its first meeting of the new year. The Board seemed ready to continue pushing back against parents.

When the public comments section began, the four high school students were called up to speak. They read from prepared scripts. They told the Board how “shocked” they were to see a shelf for banned books in the library, and how very important it was that no books be banned. They said that these are important books about “diversity” and “helping us understand ourselves” – that these books are especially needed because they help them “deal with their stress.”

Tracy spoke next. In her allotted minute she threw cold water on the girls’ arguments. She looked right at the Board, held up two of the books, and read from one of them, Fun Home. It was extremely graphic. She described the images of a boy ejaculating, females engaged in oral sex, and a chapter on “kink.”

Anyone hearing Tracy’s testimony would be sickened. But the School Board and Superintendent were totally unaffected. Just the opposite: Directly after the testimony, four of the Board members – including the Chairman, and Superintendent – gushed about how wonderful it was that the students took the time to come and speak. “Thank you for coming and thank you for expressing your concerns,” they said. “It’s always important to have you here and hear your voice … We want the students’ voice at the table.”

Almost immediately after the January 10 meeting, social media began to burn up over Tracy’s testimony and the reaction by the School Board. Tracy sent out a document of quotes and sample pages from Fun Home. [Caution: graphic text and images.] Enormous outrage over that book from the conservative community hit the School Board members and school officials.

The day after the meeting, the school library Internet system mysteriously was shut down. The following day it came back up, but Fun Home was nowhere to be found. The district also erased all the history of who had checked out the book, perhaps to avoid being sued.

On January 13, the district admitted that Fun Home had been removed from the library.

The district blamed “Scholastic Publishing,” the vendor, who sent the book as part of a bundle. According to Tracy, the district sent Scholastic a “cease and desist letter.” (This should serve as a warning to parents not to trust Scholastic!)

None of this excuse has any credibility. The school staff is responsible for what it puts on its shelves. They could have just sent the book back. We’ve been assured that the librarians are experts and know how to select books, and that we should not question them. In other words, they knew exactly what kind of a book it was.

…Tracy and her group are not finished! There are more books that will see community outrage!

“Banned books” is a ploy promoted by the American Library Association (ALA) to push pornography, homosexuality. And gender confusion on children. They all but admit this on their website.

…Tracy attempted to donate The Health Hazards of Homosexuality to the school district to offer a more honest discussion of LGBT issues. She was told the district only allows books that are reviewed by certain professional organizations, all of which are affiliated in some way with the ALA. That is called “gatekeeping.”

Recall that the ALA also fought to prevent the Child Internet Protection Act requiring libraries to put porn filters on computers used by children in public libraries.

Finally, Tracy reports that her group has already recruited two candidates to run in the Humble district School Board elections this May against incumbents.

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