McAuliffe vs Youngkin - Opt-in, Opt-out or straight up brainwash?

in virginia •  3 years ago 

image.png

Terry McAuliffe's doubling down against opponent Glenn Youngkin has a fatal flaw that people aren't bringing up - maybe a few flaws.

First, books not making it into curriculum isn't necessarily book banning. All education is curated. The fact that I read Animal House and 1984 for the first time in school and I ended up reading Brave New World and The Time Machine on my own time doesn't mean that the latter two books were banned - they just didn't make the curriculum.

To my knowledge, Youngkin hasn't called for Toni Morrison's novel Beloved to be removed from the school's libraries. Youngkin supports an opt-out if parents don't want their kids exposed to certain sexually explicit content - Beloved depicts a mother killing her two year-old child, sexually explicit scenes, assaults, and beastiality.

So, if you're hard left and you think that McAuliffe is right to take his position, think about it for a bit.

First of all, when I was in K-12, we had these things called "permission slips" - some of you may remember them. These were opt-ins. If we didn't produce parent's signatures, we couldn't participate. When my middle school history class showed an edited version of the film Glory, I needed to opt-in with a permission slip because I was still a kid and the movie was still fairly violent even after the edits. Was that movie banning or censorship? Is it movie banning or censorship to not let twelve year-olds into a movie like Mandy unattended?

That's all opt-in. McAuliffe doesn't want parents and kids to be allowed to opt-out. That's much much worse.

What's more, isn't Youngkin just asking for trigger and content warnings? I thought it was only libertarians and right wingers who didn't like trigger warnings. So, adults in college can throw fits if they don't get a trigger warning about, say, Titus Andronicus, which depicts the brutal rape and mutilation of a girl and, usually, if such warnings are provided, students can opt-out - right? But, when we're dealing with minors, there's something nefarious about asking for content warnings and the ability to opt-out - right?

With all of the real cases of sexual assault that have happened in Virgina public schools, maybe some of the minors who attend those schools deserve a little warning. McAuliffe is against it because he's a dictator and he wants kids to be brainwashed.

Authors get paid when people like you upvote their post.
If you enjoyed what you read here, create your account today and start earning FREE STEEM!