In Columbia County, Georgia, where I live, the daily newspaper in neighboring Augusta, Georgia reported that a resident has been advocating that the Board of Education remove Drama by Raina Telgemeier from its middle school libraries and update its media policy to inform parents that "Media Centers and Teacher Libraries may provide material containing sensitive topics such as sexuality, homosexuality, and/or transgender ideology."
I have previously reported on my county's censorship of reading materials in public schools (more here). I oppose discrimination against LGBTQ people and don't believe the party line in our religion about a lot matters related to sexuality. I'm also opposed to the people who typically advocate for imposing morality. Nevertheless, before spouting off, I bought and read the book.
Most of the book is about drama programs in school, i.e. putting on plays. The characters work hard, do varied tasks and cooperation and teamwork are essential. I had for some reason disliked the drama students in high school. Reading this made me regret my prejudices and wish I'd at least given it a shot.
Some of the book is about personal drama: adolescents discovering their attractions to potential sexual partners. There is no nudity or profanity. There are a few kisses! And some of the characters are boys attracted to other boys.
On pages 64-67, Justin, an aspiring thespian, confides to Callie, the female protagonist who is responsible for set design and who was complaining to him about her on/off boyfriend, saying, "I like boys." After some hesitancy and awkwardness in Callie, Justin says, "Um, is that cool? Is it OK that I told you?" Callie replies, "It's cool." Later, she promises not to reveal this secret about him.
I personally think this is a scene where Callie behaves ethically. She accepts her friend's sexuality and commits not to share it with others while he continues to conceal it.
Because some people in my predominantly white, Christian county are upset about this, I wondered if Muslim parents have ever joined in calls for censorship of books from public school and public libraries. Muslims here who advocated for a private Islamic school portrayed public schools as cesspools of immorality hostile to Islam and dangerous to children's safety in the Next Life. So they might use this as further evidence of the need for all Muslims to attend private Muslim schools.
What do Muslims think their children should do when their friends discuss their sexuality? Should their children say, "I cannot be your friend if you talk to me about these things."? Worse, in my opinion, is for Muslims to say, "It's OK for you to listen to your heterosexual friends talk about these things, but don't have any association with homosexuals." That's just hypocrisy and deference to the more powerful people in society.
If you have experience with any aspects of Muslim parents' engagement with public schools on matters of sexuality, please share in the comments.
I spoke at my local Board of Education meeting to stop an attempt to remove "Drama" by @goRaina from public school libraries & to reject library policies which would restrict the types of media they offer to students & stigmatize LGBTQ people #censorship https://t.co/LN1zbc9HwW
— Ayman Hossam Fadel (@aymanfadel) July 14, 2021
P.S. G. Willow Wilson sensitively and ethically portrays a high schooler's coming out as a lesbian in Ms. Marvel Vol. 7 Damage Per Second.
P.P.S. An advocacy group is emerging in my county to resist censorship & other white-supremacist, Christian Dominionist policies in the public schools. In the course of researching, I began looking at the organization No Left Turn in Education. On its website, it has a document entitled "2019 Porn in schools report." Among the books it considers pornography is Drama by Raina Telgemeier. The report is so biased and incoherent, I hope it makes you think many times over before you think about joining hands with such people because you think they uphold your beliefs about sex outside of heterosexual marriage. So here's the link to the report, and I've uploaded a PDF version just in case the document is removed.
The mere portrayal of a gay teenager is labeled "Bias Indoctrination." Two students kissing in a closet is "Age Inappropriate." Another preset code the evaluator can attach to a scene or passage in a book is "subjecting all readers to LGBTQ agenda."
The Florida Citizens Alliance, which compiled the report, is so concerned about exposing minors to its shocking content, its website demands affirmation that the reader is not a minor and will not distribute to minors!
According to the metadata in the MS Word document, it was last edited by Ryan Kennedy.
Telgemeier Graphix DRAMA 2012 Puleo-final-16 by Ayman Hossam Fadel on Scribd
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