A Florida school board has been forced to mute a father’s microphone after he read ‘pornography’ in a bid to show people an example of books that can be found in schools.
Bruce Friedman tried to read an excerpt from Alice Sebold’s 1999 memoir “Lucky,” which documents her rape as a freshman and how it affected her.
Friedman is the president of the Florida chapter of No Left Turn in Education, a group dedicated to the mission of “reviving in American public education the foundational discipline of critical and active thinking that is evidence-based, ‘investigation, logic and sound reasoning’. ‘
Friedman highlighted three books he found inappropriate, including “Lucky.” The other two were “A Court of Silver Flames” by Sarah J. Maas and “Triangles” by Ellen Hopkins.
“A Court of Silver Flames” is a fantasy romance while “Triangles” is about three different middle-aged women navigating their love lives.
All three books contain graphic details of sexual encounters that vary in nature, but all of which were deemed objectionable by Friedman.
Before reading, Friedman told the Clay County School District Board that he wanted them to discuss “the process by which these books come to shelves.”
He also warned viewers “if kids are watching, cover your ears” because the reunion was being streamed on YouTube.
Friedman’s microphone was cut off as he launched into part of the book, probably one of the most graphic sequences in which Sebold describes what happened to him.
Bruce Friedman, president of the Florida chapter of No Left Turn in Education, asked school board members about the content of books available in his son’s school system.
He also denounced Drag Queen Story Hours, like this one in New York, and said parents need to ask themselves “why do drag queens want kids’ audiences?”
After muting his mic, Friedman places a triboard poster he made directly in front of one of the school board members
After asking why it was cut, a council member explains ‘the problem sir is that these meetings are being broadcast, there are people at home watching this on YouTube’. There are people watching it on community television.
The council member continued, “There are federal and state laws that prohibit you from saying the things you say on television. There are prohibiting state laws in the federal communications laws that prohibit you from posting these things to a child. You don’t have the ability at this point to determine who is watching the TV show. And to tell you, ‘everyone blocks their ears’ is not enough.’
Friedman, who had brought a starboard poster on which he had pasted excerpts from the book, then went to place the poster directly in front of a board member, who told Friedman he had “where he came from “.
Last year, Clay County removed George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” which chronicles Johnson’s experiences as a gay black man in New Jersey and Virginia.
Some students believe the book offers a unique coming-of-age story that underrepresented groups can relate to, but it was pulled from libraries after a complaint from a parent.
Daily Mail has asked for a full list of books No Left Turn wants removed from libraries, but has not yet received a comment.
In an interview with Fox News, Friedman said he was so outspoken because “people don’t work to protect their kids until they get hurt.”
Friedman says he has “skin in the game” because his 15-year-old son was previously enrolled in a New York public school which caused him “considerable harm.”
‘I never got rid of it. I never stopped fighting. We put him in a private school soon after first year, but the damage was done. It took five years, in my opinion, to get it back on track,” Friedman said.
He also said he refused to put his son in a school that has “caretakers, pedophiles and twisted sick people”.
Friedman called books like Sebold’s memoirs “poison” and said there was “no literary value in any of it”.
“Lucky” has sold over a million copies, and Sebold also wrote another well-known book called “The Lovely Bones”, which was adapted into a film starring Saoirse Ronan and directed by Peter Jackson in 2009.
The banning of books in schools has seen a dramatic increase over the past year, especially books centered on difficult topics like racism and sexuality.
More than 700 book challenges targeting 1,597 titles were submitted in 2021, according to the American Library Association — more than double the previous year’s numbers and the highest since 2000.
The three most contested tracks of 2021 were Maia Kobabe’s “Gender Queer”, Jonathan Evison’s “Lawn Boy” and George M. Johnson’s “All Boys Aren’t Blue”.
On drag queen storytimes, Friedman said people “shouldn’t ask whether or not our kids can attend a drag queen storytime, we should ask why drag queens want kids’ audiences. “. ‘
He has also intervened in debates surrounding critical race theory, highlighting it as another threat to children receiving an education in the United States.
“It’s so much worse than anyone could believe it’s mind-boggling. To prepare for this battle, I took classes as if I was going to have to teach critical race theory. I know it well. I know exactly how bad that is, and it’s bad for kids of all colors,” Friedman said.
‘No good comes from this poison. Thank goodness Ron DeSantis is helping us get it out,’ he added.
Friedman says critical race theory can be cloaked by alternative names such as inclusion, diversity, and equity and believes this is part of an attempt at “Marxist” indoctrination.
“They won’t be happy until we’re all equal. Socialism is a shared misery. But we will do better. We have a constitution.
