Florida school bans Amanda Gorman poem after racist parent complains

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2021 Young Poet Laureate Amanda Gorman’s maiden poem “The Hill We Climb” was banned from elementary classrooms at a Florida K-8 school for clearly racist reasons and the details of the case are illuminating when it’s about understanding the right-wing, ideologically-directed attacks on education in the state.

So they ban my book for young readers, confuse me with @oprah, don’t specify what parts of my poetry they object to, refuse to read reviews, and offer no alternative dos?? DONATE here: pic.twitter.com/p96dlnrSp4

— Amanda Gorman (@TheAmandaGorman) May 23, 2023

“The Hill We Climb,” which Gorman read aloud at Joe Biden’s 2021 presidential inauguration, is a poem that acknowledges the country’s troubled past and the difficulty of the present, while envisioning a future of beauty, of unity and hope. Written in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection and its assault on democracy, the poem includes powerful verses like “a nation that is not broken, but simply unfinished” and “we must first put our differences of coast. We lay down our weapons so that we can reach out to each other.

Gorman envisions a world where America can live up to its myth, right the wrongs of its past, and serve all its people, whoever they may be. “We will not return to what was, but we will move towards what will be,” she wrote. “A country bruised but whole, benevolent but daring, fierce and free.”

While it may seem incomprehensible that someone is reading hate messages in Gorman’s poem, a parent identified as Daily Salinas by the Miami Herald at a K-8 school in Miami-Dade County, Florida, demanded that it is prohibited for exactly these reasons. Mistakenly identifying the poem’s author as Oprah Winfrey instead of Gorman (Winfrey wrote the foreword to the book version of Gorman’s poem), Salinas’ official complaint was that “The Hill We Climb” did not is “not educational and has indirectly [sic] hate messages” that would “confuse” and “indoctrinate students”.

Also, in the section of the form that asks what age group the complainant recommends having access to the poem, he simply replied, “not for schools.” Apparently, a poem that was read to the entire nation at the current president’s inauguration is too dangerous for anyone who hasn’t yet graduated from high school to read.

Salinas also filed similar complaints regarding The ABCs of Black History, Cuban Kids, Country in the News Cuba and Love to Langston, accusing them of containing “references to critical race theory, indirect hate messages, ideological gender and indoctrination”. While there are no other complainants and the baffling errors made by Salinas in the complaint itself, all but Country in the News Cuba have been placed under restricted access. While middle schoolers can still access copies of the restricted books, elementary school students are no longer, even though The ABCs of Black History was specifically written for children five and older.

This kind of excessive age restriction on challenged books, when not outright banned, is becoming more common under Florida’s new “don’t say gay” law, the “Stop WOKE Act.” and other censorship-based bills. According to Stephana Ferrell of the Florida Freedom to Read Project, this is deliberate, as part of a concerted effort to raise the age at which access to books dealing with contentious or difficult topics, especially those dealing with ethnicities, marginalized communities, racism or our history of racism” is considered appropriate. Speaking to the Miami Herald, she said let’s see these topics pushed [away] of our children at a time when they are most accepting of our differences. This is the time to tackle the most difficult topics in an age-appropriate way. Instead, these books are not available to them.

Obviously the accusations of “hate messages” and “indoctrination” in “The Hill We Climb” fall into the same category as the hysteria around “critical race theory” (something that doesn’t has ever been taught in American schools) and other attempts to portray any discussion of America’s problem with systemic racism as some kind of anti-white conspiracy. There are no messages of hate in Gorman’s poem, indirect as the reader might imagine, but there are criticisms of white supremacy which is a key part of America’s past and present, and that’s what book banners don’t want kids. to know how to read. We all know now that the purpose of book bans, and how much easier Florida legislation has made it for an easily offended parent, is not to protect children, but to indoctrinate them, by strictly controlling the information and ideas they disseminate. be able to access. Freedom of thought and the ability for children to explore all relevant opinions and evidence before coming to their own conclusions is what really scares these people and what they are so determined to prevent.

As Gorman said in his social media post, “Depriving children of their chance to find their voice in literature is a violation of their right to freedom of thought and expression.” Meanwhile, Salinas isn’t happy with the result either. Insisting that she ‘is not for weeding out or censoring books and just wants things to be ‘proper’, Salinas argues they should all have been removed completely, saying the books in the library are there. to support the school curriculum and I don’t see how these books support the curriculum.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that Salinas has ties to extremist groups, including the Proud Boys, after attending rallies organized by the far-right hate group.

Gorman ended his initial message with a call to action, encouraging people to speak out against book bans and to donate and support PEN America, a century-old organization advocating for free speech in the United States, which takes already taking action against this new wave of book bans.

(featured image: Patrick Semansky-Pool/Getty Images)

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