One of my favorite books is Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman’s brilliant 1986 graphic novel that recounts his parents’ harrowing experiences during the Holocaust when they were imprisoned in Auschwitz. In the book, Jews are depicted as mice, Germans as cats, Poles as pigs. It is a richly and simply drawn blend of history, fiction, and memoir that captures the story of these survivors, their trauma, and the consequences for their son. The book is a complete artistic success, hailed widely as a masterpiece and awarded a Pulitzer, the first ever handed to a graphic novel. Not to overstate Maus’ significance, its publication legitimized this form of storytelling and marked a historic moment in American literature. In 1992, the Museum of Modern Art mounted an exhibition displaying Spiegelman’s original panels for the work. Two weeks ago, a Tennessee school board voted to ban the book.

That decision of the board of education of McMinn County—located in the southeastern part of the state—generated headlines. Maus was the anchor text for an eighth-grade module on the Holocaust, and the reason for knocking it out of the curriculum was that the book includes a few “cuss” words, as one county school board member put it, and depicts nudity (that is, illustrated animal nudity). The offending phraseology was “bitch” and “god damn.” Of course, it’s ridiculous to object to an account of the mass murder of 6 million Jews and millions of others because of salty language and (animal!) nudity. But that’s what happened. Spiegelman told the New York Times it seemed to him the board members were asking, “Why can’t they teach a nicer Holocaust?” To understand this decision—which was rendered just down the road from where the Scopes Monkey Trial occurred in 1925—I read through the minutes of the school board meeting devoted to Maus. It makes the story worse.

The session opened with Lee Parkison, the director of schools for the county, noting that “there is some rough, objectionable language in the book” and that two or three school board members came by his office to discuss it. He consulted with the attorney for the school system, Scott Bennett, and they decided the best fix was to redact “eight curse words and the picture of the woman that was objected to.” Apparently, that was not sufficient.

Board member Tony Allman remarked, “We don’t need to enable or somewhat promote this stuff. It shows people hanging. It shows them killing kids. Why does the educational system promote this kind of stuff? It is not wise or healthy.” Julie Goodin, an instructional supervisor who used to teach history, patiently explained to Allman that “there is nothing pretty about the Holocaust and for me this was a great way to depict a horrific time in history.” Allman wouldn’t relent: “I understand that on TV and maybe at home these kids hear worse, but we are talking things that if a student went down the hallway and said this, our disciplinary policy says they can be disciplined and rightfully so. And we are teaching this and going against policy.” Melasawn Knight, another instructional supervisor, took a stab at it: “People did hang from trees, people did commit suicide, and people were killed, over six million murdered... [Spiegelman] is trying to portray that the best he can with the language that he chooses that would relate to that time…Is the language objectionable? Sure. I think that is how he used that language.”

Allman went on to say that Spiegelman had once done artwork for Playboy: “You can look at his history, and we’re letting him do graphics in books for students in elementary school.” The book, though, was being taught in the eighth grade. He continued: “If I had a child in the eighth grade, this ain’t happening. If I had to move him out and homeschool him or put him somewhere else, this is not happening.”

Goodin tried again: “We have to teach our kids. Are these words okay? No, not at all… Are we going to be teaching these words outside of this book as vocabulary words? No, you know me better than that, Tony Allman.” It wasn’t working. He shot back: “If a student sitting in the cafeteria decides to read this out loud and complete the sentences, what are you going to do?” He and other members appeared obsessed with the notion that students would be reciting portions of the book just so they could say “bitch” and “god damn.”

Steven Brady, another instructional supervisor, explained to the board that though Maus is the anchor text for this English Language Arts module on the Holocaust, the class also includes interviews with Holocaust survivors, excerpts from other books, and assorted news stories. And that Maus was chosen in part because of its format. Students in this class create graphic novel panels as part of their study. (The other three modules for the year cover Latin America, food, and the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.) Brady remarked, “We are not promoting the use of these words. If anything, we are promoting that these words are inappropriate and it’s best that we not use them.” He told the board that Maus could not be replaced without “redoing this whole module.”

School board member Jonathan Pierce didn’t buy that. “You can take that module and rewrite it and make it do the same thing…The wording in this book is in direct conflict of some of our policies. If I said on the school bus that I was going to kill you, we would be bringing disciplinary action against that child.” Another member, Rob Shamblin, interjected: “My bigger concern is that this is probably the tip of the iceberg of what is out there.” He was suggesting that the entire curriculum needed more vetting to catch Maus-like problems.

It's easy to imagine the frustration of the educators up against this. Knight tried again to reason with the board, pointing out that the numerous books taught in the system contain “foul language,” including Bridge to Terabithia, The Whipping Boy, and To Kill a Mockingbird. That was a no-sale. Board member Mike Cochran piped up: “I went to school here thirteen years…I never had a book with a naked picture in it, never had one with foul language…So this idea that we have to have this kind of material in the class in order to teach history, I don’t buy it.” He groused that the book obliquely refers to Spiegelman’s father losing his virginity and explicitly depicts the suicide of Spiegelman’s mother. “A lot of the cussing had to do with the son cussing out the father,” he complained, “so I don’t really know how that teaches our kids any kind of ethical stuff…We don’t need this stuff to teach kids history… We don’t need all the nakedness and all the other stuff.”

To make his point, Cochran raised the issue of a poem that he claimed was being taught in seventh grade and he insisted on reading it:

I’m just wild about Harry, and Harry’s wild about me

The heavenly blisses of his kisses, fill me with ecstasy

He’s sweet just like chocolate candy

Just like honey from the bee

Oh I am just wild about Harry, and he’s just wild about me

He griped that students were asked to define “ecstasy” and that they were being exposed to “vulgarity.” He went on: “It looks like the entire curriculum is developed to normalize sexuality, normalize nudity, and normalize vulgar language. If I was trying to indoctrinate somebody’s kids, this is how I would do it.”

I don’t know if the educators present kept a straight face. Cochran was quoting not a poem but the lyrics of the song “I’m Just Wild About Harry,” which was written by Eubie Blake in 1921. Judy Garland had a hit with the tune in 1939. And in 1948, President Harry S. Truman adopted the number as his campaign theme song. Yet for Cochran this 100-year-old song was too racy for a middle schooler. It was obvious how he would be voting.

The educators pushed on mightily. Knight explained further how this module is purposefully based on “a graphic novel to highlight different types of writing and style.” Brady pointed out, “It’s the only Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel…It’s very highly acclaimed.” He noted that because the modules build on each other, striking the Holocaust module (which would be necessary with the removal of its anchor text) would leave the students less prepared for the next one. Pierce responded, “Don’t tell me there’s not another book out there.”

The board discussed with Bennett, the lawyer, the possibility of redacting more than the eight words cited as offensive and a picture or two. Bennett said that there could be copyright issues doing that. In any event, Shamblin suggested, this wouldn’t do: “It’s more offensive than that.” He added this kicker: “I have not seen the book and read the whole book. I read the reviews.” The only item on the meeting’s agenda was what to do about Maus, and this board member had not bothered to glance at it.

Moments later, the board voted. All 10 members chose to boot Maus. Not one vote for teaching reality. This is a loss for the students and their teachers. They will miss out on a literary breakthrough and a crucial slice of history. (A 2020 poll found that 63 percent of adults under the age of 40 did not know that 6 million Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.) What’s worse for the kids is that their intellectual development is being held hostage by board members who are stuck in another era, who find vulgarity in an old pop song, and who cannot be bothered to do their own homework. The best hope is that this foolishness from the board will prompt students to read Maus on their own—the book sold out on Amazon as the result of this sad kerfuffle—and, more important, take a hard look at these censorious overseers and their closed-mindedness. That will provide a good education for the teenagers of McMinn County.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at thisland@motherjones.com.

A Note to You, Dear Reader: If you’ve been enjoying This Land, please help us expand our audience by forwarding this or any other issue to a friend, colleague, neighbor, or nemesis and tell them they can sign up for a free trial subscription at www.davidcorn.com. Many thanks.

Dumbass Comment of the Week

It’s been said that Newt Gingrich is a dumb person’s idea of a smart person. (That phrase apparently and unfortunately was not inspired by Gingrich.) He used to trade on the fact he was once a history teacher, and he fashioned himself as a Big Thinker and visionary who hobnobbed with futurists. In a training session he conducted in 1992 for Republican candidates who wanted to be more like Newt, he proclaimed that his “primary mission” was to be an “advocate” and “definer” of “civilization.” Whatever. He was mostly a nasty opportunistic politician who craved power and had no concern for the civility of “civilization.” His central realization was that one could go far by simultaneously exploiting grievances and anger and by demonizing opponents as the evil enemy. So how surprising was it when Gingrich recently warned that members of the House select committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol could wind up imprisoned, if the Republicans prevail in the coming midterm elections? Appearing on Fox, he assailed the committee and said, “I think when you have a Republican Congress, this is all going to come crashing down. The wolves are going to find out that they’re now sheep and they’re the ones who are in fact, I think, face a real risk of jail for the kinds of laws they’re breaking.”

You’d think a former House speaker—even Gingrich—might be a tad more responsible in his remarks. But he’s been a Trump cultist for years, and let’s not forget that means accepting, if not encouraging, the anti-democratic lock-her-up sentiment at the core of the Trump movement. Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), a member of the committee, had something to say about this: “A former Speaker of the House is threatening jail time for members of Congress who are investigating the violent January 6 attack on our Capitol and our Constitution. This is what it looks like when the rule of law unravels.”

She’s correct. Gingrich is a poster boy for the authoritarian impulse. Speaking of Cheney, you should check out the story I did this week about the big-money GOP donors lining up behind her opponent in the Republican primary for her House seat. One is a major Trump donor who owns the Jackson Hole ski resort and who last year held a fundraiser for Big Lie proponent Rep. Jim Jordan and QAnon-friendly Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Another is a retired commodities trader who claims that on his own he discovered evidence the election was stolen from Trump and who lobbied against a state gay rights bill by comparing homosexuality to incest.

The contest for Dumbass Comment this week was competitive, and Gingrich was edged out by Jordan Peterson, a Canadian clinical psychologist described on his Wikipedia page as a “YouTube personality.” His schtick is to be a bad-boy, conservative provocateur, perhaps best known for his blasts against feminism and his assertion that the world currently is suffering a “crisis of masculinity”—meaning that men are no longer allowed to be macho. He is another fellow who can be called a dumb person’s idea of a smart person, as he demonstrated this week on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Denying climate change, Peterson tried too hard to appear more intelligent than he is:

There is no such thing as climate. ‘Climate’ and ‘everything’ are the same word. That’s what bothers me about the climate change types. It’s like, this is something that bothers me about it technically. Climate is about everything. Okay. But your models aren’t based on everything. Your models are based on a set number of variables. That means you’ve reduced the variables—which are everything—to that set. Well, how did you decide which set of variables to include in the equation, if it’s about everything? That’s not just a criticism. That’s like, if it’s about everything, your models aren’t right, 'cause your models do not and cannot model everything.

This sounds like something that might be said in a dorm room full of ganja smoke. It’s too dumb to even label as disinformation. Scientists immediately derided Peterson. A statement like this ought to disqualify him from speaking before an audience. (Yes, cancel culture…for idiocy.) But it won’t. He has 2.2 million followers on Twitter. By the way, on that Rogan podcast, Peterson also said that being transgender is the result of a “contagion,” and he compared it to “satanic ritual abuse.” I’ve consulted with the judges, and they have agreed that this week for the first time we can hand out two prizes to a single contestant.

The Mailbag

Mail kept coming in in response to my recent piece on how Joe Biden and the Democrats should move past the showdown with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-Obstructionism) and the related “Reader Speak-out.”

Mary Bonnette emailed and referred to my observation that White House communications director Kate Bedingfield recently had a good appearance on MSNBC defending Biden’s first year but said not a word about Republican obstructionism.

David, I’m with [new subscriber] Sharon Vollett on signing up. I’m in. On her question Why? Why are Republicans so powerful and destructive that they easily take over the country? I would argue that building deception, division and fear-based politics is bullying at its core. This may seem like an oversimplification, however, before a problem can be overcome, it must first be identified. Being in the defensive mode (per Kate Bedingfield) is not going to cut it. Your solution could be very powerful: “Tell a story” [and] "cast the Rs as the impediment to better days.” Repeat, repeat, repeat story in 100 different ways so it can be heard by many different ears!

Jim Foster emailed:

Your answer, “power” to Sharon Vollett’s first “WHY” reminded me of Orwell’s 1984, in which the torturer O’Brien asks the tortured protagonist Winston, “Now tell me why we cling power. What is our motive? Why should we want power?” After more torture, O’Brien goes on to explain: “Now I will tell you the answer to my question. It is this. The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power . . . Power is not a means, it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.” Your newsletters are terrific. Thank you!

Thanks, Jim. It is hard to improve on Orwell. If he were around today, imagine what he would write.

Margo Waring chimed in:

Thanks for the post of January 22. Lots of good thoughts there. Let me add to the mix about why people follow Trump and the GOP. I think that way too many people want easy answers to our host of problems. For some, it is that God is punishing us. For others, it is the vast international conspiracy, etc. The statistic that I keep reminding myself of is that 52 percent of adult Americans read at the 6th grade level or less. These folks have not been given the critical thinking tools to sift and sort through so many statements and lies. So they grab one that has an emotional appeal and an easy answer. Long term, real education is one answer.

Margo, it might be worse than that. In 2020, Forbes reported, “According to the U.S. Department of Education, 54% of U.S. adults 16-74 years old—about 130 million people—lack proficiency in literacy, reading below the equivalent of a sixth-grade level.” Trump has done stunningly well among non-college educated voters. According to Pew Research, “In 2020, Trump won 65% of White non-college voters—nearly identical to his 2016 share.” Among men in this category, Trump scored 73 percent.

My neighbor Peter Kovar wrote:

I'm continuing to enjoy This Land. Thanks for doing it! One strategy progressives and Democrats should adopt is to stop referring to supporters of the attempt to overturn the voters’ will as “believers” in the Big Lie. Republican operatives and elected officials know the Big Lie is false, and I think the vast majority of voters who claim in polls and elsewhere to believe it actually know Joe Biden was legitimately elected. This is just a power grab by a group which feels they’re losing political influence, and probably understands at some level they’re in the minority from a national perspective. But instead of trying to advance their views through normal political channels, they’re excusing a violent overthrow attempt. Instead of accepting—as most Democrats did in 2000, admittedly with bitter disappointment—a Supreme Court ruling that decided the presidency, Big Lie proponents refuse to acknowledge that even a court with three handpicked Trump justices didn’t question dozens of judicial rulings finding no significant fraud in Biden’s win. So they pretend to back an idea only deranged conspiracy theorists actually think is true. We should stop giving them credit for “believing” the Big Lie, and recognize that they’re abandoning the democratic process because they doubt they can win any other way.

Good point, Peter. I am no mind-reader, and I admit that sometimes I find it difficult to tell what Trump and his cultists really believe. I’ve spoken to some of his loyalists who do seem fixated on the false notion that he and they were swindled out of an election victory—even though they can cite no hard evidence. Certainly, some Trumpers are using the Big Lie cynically and know they are. Others just might be living in a bubble untethered to reality.

Ann P. White had a related thought:

I think you hit a valid point in your discussion of what makes Trumpers so illogical: fear, anger and hate are not logical thought-lines. They are a cluster of powerful negative emotions which may momentarily rule a person's worldview; or one can cling to them for years as nuggets of justification for the refusal to accept change. Adaptation is essential for the human being to survive. Change is often painful, can make one uncertain if he will be able to function in an unfamiliar world order where the old norms of racial superiority, employment security, social status, and educational level assured one a place in his social circle. Those are all-encompassing orbits in which we evaluate our self-worth…People who are fearful of change, angry at the need to adapt, who hate those who erode their sense of superiority are ripe for a strong man to lead them. They've got plenty of fiery emotional heat to respond to the con, who can stir up social media to reflect their self-justification. These are not people who respond to the logic, facts and assessments the rest of us are so anxious to serve them. They do not eat from that plate. They cling to their fantasy to survive, which is puzzling and scary as hell for the rest of us.

Paul Raetsch sent a message for Moxie:

Sarafina is too young to drive, but she wants Moxie to know being a Wawa-doodle is more fun than a Sheetz-doodle because she gets true hoagies.

Moxie says thanks for the pic and notes she prefers deli sandwiches that don’t use processed meats.

MoxieCam™

Someone got a new toy.

Read Recent Issues of This Land

January 25, 2022: The snowflake-ization of the right; would you buy cryptocurrency from this man (Steve Bannon)?; Belfast, a feel-good movie about a civil war; Elvis Costello’s delightful and cynical new album; and more.

January 22, 2022: Readers speak out: How to save the republic from Republicans; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

January 19, 2022: Why the Democrats must yield to Manchin to keep the Trump cult from gaining power; gushing about The French Dispatch; a true-crime podcast with political and international significance; and more.

January 15, 2022: We’re all tired of Trump’s crazy, but it’s dangerous to ignore; Dumbass Comment of the Week (US Senate edition); the Mailbag; (a harrowing) MoxieCam™; and more.

January 11, 2022: My interview with Jamie Raskin about his son’s suicide, January 6, and the second Trump impeachment; Aaron Sorkin’s one big mistake in Being the Ricardos; Slow Burn’s look back at the LA riots; and more.

January 8, 2022: It’s time for Merrick Garland to reveal if the Justice Department is investigating Donald Trump; Dumbass Comment of the Week; the Mailbag; MoxieCam™; and more.

January 4, 2022: The lesson of January 6: Tragedy does not yield national unity; Ayman Mohyeldin’s impressive American Radical podcast; and more.

December 23, 2021: Farewell to a stupid year; Dumbass Comment of the Year; Mailbag, MoxieCam™; and more.