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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Sexual Assault Is Already Happening in the Metaverse – Futurism

Posted: December 17, 2021 at 11:03 am

Formerly-known-as-Facebook megacorporation Metas virtual reality platform Horizon Worlds has barely made it out to the public, and users are already being sexually harassed and even assaulted, The Verge reports.

Sexual harassment is no joke on the regular internet, but being in VR adds another layer that makes the event more intense, the user wrote in Facebooks official Horizon group, as quoted by The Verge. Not only was I groped last night, but there were other people there who supported this behavior which made me feel isolated in the Plaza.

Metas VP of Horizon, Vivek Sharma, called the situation absolutely unfortunate in an interview with The Verge.

Thats good feedback still for us because I want to make [the Safe Zone feature] trivially easy and findable, Sharma told The Verge.

Rather than ensuring Horizon Worlds doesnt foster a culture of strangers groping each other in VR, Meta is hoping to make the problem go away by making adjustments to its tools. The company says users can turn on a feature called Safe Zone, which creates an impenetrable bubble around the user when they want more space.

But personal space is likely to be a galling problem for social VR applications.

I think people should keep in mind that sexual harassment has never had to be a physical thing, Jesse Fox, an associate professor at Ohio State University, told MIT Technology Review. It can be verbal, and yes, it can be a virtual experience as well.

Bloomberg columnist Parmy Olson also wasnt exactly impressed by Metas VR experience, either. Once in the VR lobby of Horizon Venues Metas VR events platform that is serving as Horizon Worlds precursor she was being surrounded by a group of male avatars who started taking pictures of her.

One by one, they began handing the photos to me, Olson writes. The experience was awkward and I felt a bit like a specimen.

Olson also noted that her conversations with other users were constantly disrupted by children screeching into their microphones despite the fact that the VR platform is putatively limited to US or Canadian users who are above 18.

Metas approach isnt exactly confidence-inspiring, and seems to continue themes of controversy from Facebooks history. Its shifting at least some of the responsibility to its users by giving them tools like Safe Zone, in addition to assigning moderators to each VR space.

We will continue to improve our UI and to better understand how people use our tools so that users are able to report things easily and reliably, Meta spokesperson Kristina Milian told Tech Review. Our goal is to make Horizon Worlds safe, and we are committed to doing that work.

But will UI tweaks really tackle the underlying issues of unwanted advances and harassment? Facebook has repeatedly proven that its unable to protect its users on its existing platforms.

And that doesnt bode well for its Metaverse.

READ MORE: The metaverse has a groping problem already [MIT Technology Review]

More on Meta: How to Talk to Your Family About the Metaverse

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NASA’s Probe Took a Video as It "Touched the Sun" and Wow – Futurism

Posted: at 11:03 am

It was "like flying into the eye of a storm."Touching the Sun

NASAs Parker Solar Probe made history by becoming the first spacecraft to have touched the Sunearlier this year, the agency has now confirmed.

The tiny probe made its way through the stars upper atmosphere, taking important readings of its surroundings.

It even took the time to capture tons of images during its amazing stunt, which scientists stitched together for an incredible video with the Milky Way peeking out behind a stream of highly energized particles an unprecedentedly close and fascinating look at our star.

It must have been quite the experience for the Solar Probe as it made its way through a feature of the Suns atmosphere called a pseudostreamer, which are huge ribbon-like structures that are visible during solar eclipses.

Passing through the pseudostreamer was like flying into the eye of a storm, reads NASAs statement. Inside the pseudostreamer the conditions quieted, particles slowed and the number of switchbacks dropped a dramatic change from the busy barrage of particles the spacecraft usually encounters in the solar wind.

Switchbacks are zig-zag-like magnetic structures, the result of dramatic magnetic explosions occurring in the Suns atmosphere. The Parker probe recently found that they were a common feature of the solar wind, and not nearly as rare as previously thought.

We see evidence of being in the corona from magnetic field data, solar wind data, and visually in white-light images, said Nour Raouafi, the Parker Solar Probe project scientist at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, in the statement.

Its an amazing video especially considering the probe was screaming through the Suns atmosphere at over 142 kilometers per second. Now, what it discovered could change our understanding of the Sun forever.

Updated to fix error in how fast the probe was traveling.

More on the probe: NASA Brags That Its Bone-Covered Probe Officially Touched the Sun

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Billionaire Space Tourist Basically Says "Let Them Eat Cake" – Futurism

Posted: at 11:03 am

A Japanese billionaire who spent tens of millions of dollars to take a leisurely trip to the International Space Station doesnt care that his vacation among the cosmos is only accessible due to his obscene wealth.

In an interview with theAssociated Pressconducted from his $80 million vacation aboard the ISS, fashion tycoon Yusaku Maezawa mused that those who criticize are perhaps those who have never been to space.No kidding, sir!

Yes, it is still rather expensive, but it is not only about money, he admitted to the AP. It takes time for your body to adjust in this environment and the training for emergencies takes at least a few months. So, honestly speaking, it is only accessible for those who have time and are physically fit and those who can afford it.

We poor suckers on Earth may not have to wait forever, though: Maezawa said that we dont know if that is still going to be the case in 10 years, 20 years time.

Worth just under $2 billion, Maezawa and his very lucky assistant Yozo Hirano made history last week by becoming the first space tourists to enter the ISS since 2009. Their 12-day stay has followed the billionaires headline-grabbing quest to go to space led to a canceled reality show and a pact with SpaceX to send eight other lucky folks on a trip around the Moon on their dime.

Earlier in his ISS voyage, the billionaire claimed hes going to give away some of his vast wealth while hes in space, but it remains unclear why, how much, to whom, or when such charity will occur and the question of his proclamation did not come up in APs latest report.

While hes clearly thrilled to be among the 0.00000000001 percent of people who can afford to send themselves and their friends to space, it hasnt been all fun and games so far, as Maezawa told the AP that hes had difficulty sleeping and experienced motion sickness since entering the ISS.

But rest assured, the billionaire is getting over the motion sickness so I can enjoy the remaining days.

I am returning on the 20th and starting to miss Japan, he said. Once I return, I want to have sushi!

Wouldnt we all like to have what hes having!

READ MORE: The AP Interview: Japanese tourist says space trip amazing [Associated Press]

More on Maezawa: Billionaire Playboy Shares Video of Himself Frolicking in Outer Space

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Man With Wingsuit Flies Inside Mouth of Active Volcano – Futurism

Posted: at 11:03 am

"Fear is a very positive thing."Into the Volcano

In Red Bull-sponsored stunt news, a daredevil wingsuit pilot became the first person to fly in and back out of an active volcano, CNN reports.

The best part about the story? It has nothing to do with the COVID-19 pandemic or the surging Omicron variant.And for that, were grateful.

The pilot, Chilean daredevil Sebastin lvarez, plunged towards the Villarrica volcano, which is Chiles most active volcano and which erupts frequently, after jumping from a helicopter at 11,500 feet above the surface.

It took 40 long seconds for lvarez to reach the mouth of the 650 foot crater,where he swooped inside before adjusting his wingsuit to emerge triumphantly on the other side of the volcano.

The pilot spent three minutes in the air, reaching blistering speeds of up to 176 mph.

Fear is a very positive thing, lvarez said in a statement. I welcome it, because it makes me feel super-active and 100 percent focused. Nevertheless, you must manage the fine line between fear and panic.

This is by far the most extreme project Ive ever done, he told CNN. Thats for sure. Especially because of all of the factors; it was an active volcano, it was at high altitude, cold, windy and so there were a lot of things that I needed to take care of.

The risks were very real.

But lets talk seriously, this is a volcano and its active and if I fail, you know the result, lvarez added. If the volcano doesnt want me there, he can do whatever he wants, you know, so I asked for permission and then I went there [afterward] and said thank you.

READ MORE: Welcome to the Devils House: Wingsuit pilot becomes first person to fly in and out of an active volcano [CNN]

More on stunts: Billionaire Buys SpaceX Ticket To Make Space Beer in Absurd PR Stunt

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Furious at the Concept of Paying Taxes, Elon Musk Lashes Out at Elizabeth Warren – Futurism

Posted: at 11:03 am

The worlds richest man had yet another temper tantrum on Twitter yesterday when a US lawmaker had the audacity to *checks notes* suggest that he should actually pay taxes.

On Tuesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk raged at Senator Elizabeth Warren after she tweeted, Lets change the rigged tax code so The Person of the Year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else.

Not one to take a slight from a public figure lightly, the billionaire fired back his own five-tweet broadside.

Stop projecting! Musk tweeted, while linking to an article about Warren having misrepresented herself early in her career as having substantial Native American heritage, which she later apologized for. He went on to say that she reminded him of his childhood friends angry Momwho would randomly yell at everyone for no reason.

Please dont call the manager on me, Senator Karen, he added.

Not yet satisfied, the SpaceX CEO sent two tweets at her again three hours later all of it suggesting that Warren clearly got underneath his skin.

And if you opened your eyes for two seconds, you would realize I will pay more taxes than any American in history this year, he added. It should be noted that a ProPublica investigation published this year discovered that Musk paid $0 in federal income tax in 2018 despite being worth $297 billion.

An Insider report also found that Musk doesnt want the government to touch any of his wealth, despite the fact that he relies on lucrative federal contracts to keep his fledgling aeronautics company afloat and benefits greatly from subsidies to his electric vehicle company Tesla.

Its fair to point out that Warren definitely took the shot at Musk first. Hes within his right to respond to the progressive firebrands attack but its hard to interpret his five-tweet replies as anything but defensive to the point of embarrassment.

Between his beef with Senator Bernie Sanders and now with Warren, its clear that Musks willing to go to eyebrow-raising lengths to fight back against taxes.

More on Musk vs politicians: Elon Musk Fans Are Furious at Him for Being Mean to Bernie Sanders

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Princeton Researchers Create Terrifying VR Simulation of Nuke Attack to Train US Officials – Futurism

Posted: at 11:03 am

If Russia launches nuclear missiles at the US, the president or whoever has the authority at the moment has just minutes to react. As the clock ticks down, theyll be forced to make whats arguably the most consequential decision in human history.

How would you handle the situation?

Thats the question behind Nuclear Biscuit, a virtual reality simulation depicting what a president would go through during a nuclear crisis. The experience was developed by the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University, in collaboration with nuclear disarmament group Global Zero.

The researchers showed off Nuclear Biscuit named for the card containing the presidents nuclear launch codes at last years Munich Security Conference. Lawmakers and national security experts donned a headset and underwent the scenario in which they assumed the role of the US president and were tasked with deciding how to respond to a nuclear attack, if at all.

You walk into that simulation and come out a changed person, Richard Burt, former US negotiator for nuclear arms control with the Soviet Union, said in a press release after his turn on the headset.

The experience begins with you at the presidents desk in the Oval Office just as youre told that a national emergency is underway, The Guardian reports. Youre then taken to a situation room somewhere below the White House, where youre then informed that hundreds of Russian intercontinental ballistic missiles are en route to the western seaboard.

A voice then tells you that you have less than 15 minutes to choose from three options that a Pentagon official offers regarding if and how you should retaliate. No matter what you do, millions of people will die. It just depends on how many millions you want to kill in your response, like the trolley problem on steroids.

The simulation sounds like a haunting experience that experts say accurately reflects the tension and anxiety a president would feel in that scenario.

People felt they were making decisions under uncertainty, Sharon Weiner, associate professor at the School of International Service at American University and co-creator of the project, told the Guardian. They wished they knew more or thought that something wasnt clear, but there was pressure to make a decision anyway.

I think some people pick an option just because they want to be over,she added.

The team plans to bring the simulation to Congress to allow lawmakers to experience it themselves. Weiner hopes that the folks on Capitol Hill will see the consequences of the choices theyve made about the nuclear weapons issue.

Using immersive VR tech is an inventive way to bring light to what exactly would happen if the US experiences a nuclear attack. Hopefully, lawmakers learn something from it rather than doubling down on the burgeoning 21st century arms race.

READ MORE: 15 minutes to save the world: a terrifying VR journey into the nuclear bunker [The Guardian]

More on nuclear war: US Officials Shocked by Chinese Missile Test That Went All the Way Around the Earth

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‘The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, And The Global War On Democracy And Public Health’ Book Review – Eurasia Review

Posted: at 10:57 am

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo*

In his must-read new book,The Real Anthony Fauci, Robert F. KennedyJr. describes how journalist Liam Scheff chronicled Faucis secretive experiments on hundreds of HIV-positive foster children at Incarnation Childrens Center (ICC) in New York City and numerous sister facilities in New York and six other states between 1988 and 2002 (p. 245). He describes in detail how Faucis NIAID (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) and his Big Pharma partners turned Black and Hispanic foster kids into lab rats, subjecting them to torture and abuse in a grim parade of unsupervised drug and vaccine studies (p. 246).

The real Anthony Fauci was a greedy egomaniac hell bent on creating an image of himself as the savior of the world during the AIDS crisis while generating billions in profits for his pharmaceutical industry partners. The partners would then share some of the loot with Fauci and others in various ways, including sharing in patent rights, the revolving door of very highly paid jobs for former government bureaucrats, paying multimillion dollar user fees to the NIAID, distributing shares of stock, etc.

The pharmaceutical industry remunerated Incarnation Childrens Center for supplying children for the tests, writes Kennedy. The tests involved giving the children experimental drugs that were toxictheyre known to cause genetic mutation, organ failure, bone marrow death, bodily deformations, brain damage, and fatal skin disorders (p. 246). Torture is not too strong a word to describe what happened to these children. If the children refuse the drugs, says Kennedy, theyre held down and force fed. If the children continue to resist, theyre taken to Columbia Presbyterian hospital, where a surgeon puts a plastic tube through their abdominal wall into their stomachs. From then on, the drugs are injected directly into their stomachs (p. 246). This wasnt science fiction or a sick horror movie, says Kennedy, but Fauci-funded AIDS research.

Many of these children died as a result of the research. Investigative journalist Vera Sharav, who spent years investigating all of this, told Kennedy that Fauci just brushed all those dead babies under the rug. They were collateral damage in his career ambitions. She said that at least 80 children died from Faucis drug torture chamber in the Manhattan foster home alone.

You probably never heard of this, but the BBC produced a documentary of the savage barbarity of Dr. Faucis science projects in 2004 entitled Guinea Pig Kids. A BBC investigative journalist said in the documentary that I found the mass graves at Gate of Heaven cemetery in Hawthorne, New York. I couldnt believe my eyes. It was a very large pit with AstroTurf thrown over it. Under it one could see dozens of plain wooden coffins there may have been 100 of them (p. 247).

The New York City Administration of Child Services commissioned a four-year investigation of Faucis Dr. Mengelestyle experiments and found that eighty of the 532 children who participated in Faucis clinical trials diedand twenty-five died while enrolled in a medication trial (p. 251). By 2003 Faucis NIAID was running 10,906 clinical trials involving children in ninety countries (p. 257). Today Fauci, his longtime vaccine-manufacturing billionaire partner Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the World Economic Forum are desperately campaigning to have every child in the worldeven infantsinjected with their latest vaccine. These are the same people who have publicly fantasized about all humans someday having an implanted digital ID in their bodies to achieve their goal of transhumanism. They say they want a digital IDimplanted into everyone for purposes of government monitoring of all human behavior by some kind of super, internationalgovernment institution. (Where is James Bond when we need him?)

Another charming fact about Fauci that Kennedy discuses is that Fauci has also funded (with your hard-earned tax dollars) experiments where Beagle puppies had their heads locked into cages where they could be eaten to death by flies. He also gave University of Pittsburgh researchers $400,000 to graft the scalps of aborted fetuses onto living mice and rats (p. 253). Not exactly the type of job one would expect a good Jesuit Catholic schoolboy like Anthony Fauci to have. Fauci is a Catholic in the same sense that abortion worshipper Joe Biden is a Catholic.

The man is in reality a sociopath who has pushed science into the realm of sadism writes Kennedy (p. 253). Who else but a criminal sociopath would have any involvement at all in such things? (Or for that matter in dropping atomic bombs on helpless Japanese civilians; firebombing entire European cities occupied by civilians; lobbing thousands of artillery shells a day on your own countrys cities also occupied only by civilians, i.e., Atlanta, Charleston, and Vicksburg during 186165; killing four hundred thousand Filipinos for refusing to be occupied and conquered by your government; mass murdering fifty thousand Plains Indians to make way for the railroads, as General Sherman once announced, etc., etc.ad infinitum? But I digress).

Government bureaucrats love crises like wars, hurricanes, depressions, pandemics, etc. because in times of crises millions of average citizens become childlike, their IQs seem to be cut in half (at least), and they beg for a substitute mommy and daddy to protect them, their new mommy and daddy being the state. All of a sudden they are willing to abandon all of their civil liberties and embrace totalitarianism like a drowning man embraces the side of a lifeboat. This is exactly the behavior of millions of Americans since March of 2020.

Theabsenceof a crisis, on the other hand, creates a crisisfor government bureaucrats. To the bureaucrat there is a crisis crisis whenever there is no real crisis. It is imperative, therefore, that every government bureaucrat becomes ahysteric who is constantly trying to alarm the public with theperceptionof a crisis or an impending crisis. He is professional liar, in other words, and can rely on the socialist indoctrination organs known as the media to hype his crises. After all, itsperceptionsthat count in politics, not reality.

Fauci is no more than your ordinary, run-of-the-mill bureaucratic crisis monger and serial liar, as Kennedy documents in chapter 11, Hyping Phony Epidemics: Crying Wolf. Early in his government career Fauci was involved in promoting hysteria over what was called the swine flu. NIAID and its pharmaceutical industry puppet masters told Congress and the White House that the swine flu was the same strain of virus that caused the infamous 1918 Spanish flu epidemic that is said to have killed 50 million people worldwide. The government poured money into Faucis NIAID and Big Pharma made big bucks by getting President Ford (in 1976) to give them $135 million to supposedly inoculate 140 million Americans. In the end, writes Kennedy, the actual number of pandemic swine flu casualties in 1976 was not 1 million but 1 (p. 358).

Patients injured by the experimental swine flu vaccine filed 1,604 lawsuits forcing the government to pay out over $80 million in damages and incur tens of millions in legal fees. Kennedy hits the nail on the head when he concludes that At the dawn of Dr. Faucis career, he learned that both pandemics andfake pandemicsprovide an opportunity to expand the bureaucracys power and to multiply the wealth of its pharma partners (p. 360, emphasis added).

Then there was the 2005 bird flu hysteria where Fauci once again predicted unprecedented carnage. This time he partnered with Bill Gates and hired the now disgraced and discredited British conman statistician Neil Ferguson to construct models that predicted up to 150 million people could die from the bird flu. In the end, about 100 people died from it, and most probably had comorbidities that were the real causes of death. That was after President Bush asked Congress for $1.2 billion for Big Pharma to come up with another of its experimental vaccines.

The 2009 Hong Kong swine flu caper was a carbon copy of the earlier ones. Fauci promised to fast track a vaccine once again, and the mediadutifully poured on the government-sponsored hysteria.

By the Fall of 2009 thousands of Americans were complaining about devastating side effects of the new Fauci shot. Fauci promised the public that Big Pharmas new drug was perfectly safebut in reality there was an explosion of grave side effects, including miscarriages, narcolepsy, and febrile convulsions as well as severe neurological injuries, paralysis from Guillian-Barre syndrome and cataplexy as well as brain damage (p. 365). Some things never change. The epidemic never materialized and As usual, there was no investigation of Dr. Fauci or the other medical officials who choreographed this multi-billion-dollar fraud (p. 366). Congress would never investigate it because too many fingers would be pointedat themfor funding the whole charade. They just collect their millions in campaign contributions from Big Pharma as a form of kickback for the millions in taxpayer dollars given to these corporations and then move on to the next phony health crisis for which they will also take no responsibility.

In 2016 Fauci diverted billions from taxpayer-funded research on malaria, influenza, and tuberculosis to his newest scam, the zika virus. Right on cue, he enriched his Big Pharma partners with $2 billion to produce yet another vaccine to prevent microcephaly, a supposed effect of the zika virus. In the end, there were fifteen cases of the virus in the USandnoneof them was associated with microcephaly. Dengue fever was another Fauci scam in that same year that funneled additional billions to Big Pharma withsurprise!the exact same scenarios and results.

In every single instance, Kennedy writes, Fauci and others at National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention load up the committees that vote for permission to market all of these experimental drugs with people who have Big Pharma connections or who are current executives for one or another pharmaceutical company. It is all rigged, all permeated by mountains of lies repeated over and over by the lying lapdog media which pockets millions or billions in advertising revenue from Big Pharma. (Have you watched network television lately?). It is not about public (or private) health at all, but to make more billions for Big Pharma, to bloat the NIAID budget even more than it already is, while throwing a few crumbs to Big Pharmas supporting cast of house pets in the public health bureaucracy and academic world. They fully intend to keep this racket going forevereven if it kills you.

*About the author: Thomas DiLorenzo is a former professor of economics at Loyola University Maryland and a member of the senior faculty of the Mises Institute. He is the author ofThe Real Lincoln;How Capitalism Saved America;Lincoln Unmasked;Hamiltons Curse;Organized Crime: The Unvarnished Truth About Government; andThe Problem with Socialism.

Source: This article was published by the MISES Institute

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'The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, And The Global War On Democracy And Public Health' Book Review - Eurasia Review

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Censorship Effects on Society | World Wide Women

Posted: at 10:56 am

Censorship is something that takes place in every country all around the world. Not all countries share the same forms of censorship or the same amounts of censorship, but in one way or another, all societies are affected by it. In a general sense censorship is the supervision and control of the information and ideas that are circulated among the people within a society. There are many different ways that censorship is implemented though. In the United States we are used to curse words being blocked out along with nudity which is most of the censorship we experience. In Poland and Ukraine however it is different. Censorship in those two countries is more like prevention by official government action of the circulation of messages. In Poland and Ukraine, the censorship that they experience has more of an effect on the societies, because they are not always exposed to the whole truth.

Media censorship can really hinder a society if it is bad enough. Because media is such a large part of peoples lives today and it is the source of basically all information, if the information is not being given in full or truthfully then the society is left uneducated. Both Poland and Ukraine experience this type of censorship but Ukraine experiences it more now because they are in a state of crisis. This type of censorship in these two countries is a setback in todays world. International communication and globalization are such major advances in our world, but if the information that is being given to these societies is one sided and only what the government wants them to hear, then they cannot fully understand and accept other countries and cultures.

Censorship is probably the number one way to lower peoples right to freedom of speech. When a journalist has to report on only what the government wants people to know, they do not have the freedom to express what they really want to. In the countries of Poland and Ukraine people have to be careful of the information they are putting out there because, although they are supposed to have the right to freedom of speech, there can be some serious consequences for their words and actions.

References:

http://www.worldissues360.com/index.php/how-censorship-affects-society-580/

http://www.targetgdpi.com/2014/03/media-censorship-good-or-bad.html

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Can The 1982 Island Trees Case Impact Todays Book Censorship? This Weeks Book Censorship News… – Book Riot

Posted: at 10:56 am

If you care about book challenges and censorship, one Supreme Court case you should familiarize yourself with which hasnt been cited nearly during this flux of challenges is Board of Education, Island Trees School District vs. Pico (Island Trees). This landmark 1982 case was the first to address the removal of books from school libraries across the country. Though it was a 5-4 split within the court, the ruling in favor of Pico meant that no school board could remove books from a library once itd been added, simply because they disagreed with the content within it.

Justice Brennan, in announcing the judgement which did not have a majority opinion to it, stated:

The Island Trees case came from an incident in the school district located in Levittown, New York, in 1975. A group which called themselves Parents of New York United submitted a list of 11 books they considered inappropriate to the school board, which then removed the books from the library and proceeded to send them through the review committee. Even though the committee said five of nine titles should be returned to shelves, the school board overruled the decision, returning only two (the other two books in question were a book in the junior high school that contained the satirical essay A Modest Proposal, and a book in the 12th grade curriculum, and both were removed).

The school board made this decision because they were anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy, according to the case syllabus.

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High school senior Steven Pico, in the case, helped bring the voices of four fellow high school students and one junior high school student into the story. All of them pushed back against the boards decision. They believed thanks, in part, to the precedent set with the Tinker vs. Des Moines case that their First Amendment rights were being violated.

One possible reason why this case hasnt been cited is that it wasnt legally binding because there wasnt a majority opinion. But because it also hasnt been challenged, it stands as a powerful reminder of a few things: this isnt and never has been the first time books in school libraries have been challenged, let alone that books by authors of color have been at the center of the discussion (the 11 titles included books by Piri Thomas, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright, Alice Childress, and Eldridge Cleaver); its not the first time that students have been forced to speak up for their First Amendment Rights; its noteworthy that the ruling stated this means books cannot be removed from school libraries because of disagreement with what they present (i.e., stories of those from the global majority and queer stories); that school boards have exerted more power than granted to them; and more.

When and if we begin to see lawsuits arising from todays censorship landscape, watch for Island Trees to be cited and revisited. The Supreme Court isnt stacked in favor of intellectual freedom right now, given the appointments made by the treasonous former administration, but prior rulings give weight to the reality that book censorship denies rights granted to young people in the First Amendment.

Onto this weeks book censorship news, with a toolkit for how to fight book bans and challenges, as well as how to spot fake news sites many of which are fueling these censorship attempts. Note: This will be the final roundup of 2021. Roundups will continue beginning the first full week of 2022.

Heres this weeks intellectual freedom hero:

And a couple more must-reads from authors experiencing challenges or outright censorship: author Jo Knowles talks about two of her queer-positive books being challenged in Texas and Derf Backderf talks about why his graphic memoir My Friend Dahmer has been banned.

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Bill would legislate how slavery is taught, critic calls it "outright censorship" – Claremore Daily Progress

Posted: at 10:56 am

OKLAHOMA CITY An Oklahoma lawmaker says he wants to put the teaching of slavery in America in context, but one of the nations leading historians, after reading the bill, called it radical legislation that amounts to outright censorship.

State Rep. Jim Olsen, R-Roland, said House Bill 2988 prohibits teaching slavery in Oklahoma public schools and universities in a way that might lead one to think America is worse than other nations in history or that one race is a unique victim or oppressor. He said anybody if they trace their lineage back far enough is eventually going to find slave owners in their family tree.

He also said his bill does not prohibit someone from teaching that slavery existed in America, but bans the teaching of the 1619 Project, which supporters say aims to reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Americans arrived on Virginia soil as our nations foundational date.

(Slavery) is a problem common to mankind, Olsen said. Thats not to excuse America or the evil of American slavery, but some of the folks behind this type of curriculum, they really hate America. And if you teach America with only its faults and flaws out of context, then young people grow up hating America.

He said the important thing is to teach slavery in context, noting that America was guilty of slavery but other nations and cultures were guilty, too. He said that of all the slave trade from Africa, America received just 3%.

The important thing is just to teach it in context, not to deny our own culpability, but not to present it in a way that America is more culpable than all other nations, Olsen said.

He acknowledged that primarily Black people were enslaved in America and owned by whites, but said there were some African American and Native American slave owners, too.

He said the measure, which he believes is the first of its kind, has garnered strong support among his colleagues. He also said a similar measure is in the works in Missouri.

Its very hard for a teacher to teach about slavery without emphasizing that in the United States (or) in the areas that would become the United States, it was generally white people who enslaved Black people, said James Grossman, executive director of the American Historical Association. Thats a fact, not an interpretation.

Grossman, author of books on the Black experience in America, said the measure is radical legislation that is either designed to indoctrinate Oklahoma students with a notion of history that is untrue or leave out some of the most important aspects of history.

He said 10 million Africans were kidnapped from Africa, and many of them died on the passage that brought them to the Western Hemisphere. Yes, slaves were not only brought to the United States, but also to the Caribbean and to Brazil, and Europeans also enslaved Africans, and Africans enslaved each other. But he said that doesnt change the fact that Americans bought and sold people of African descent.

And if you dont tell students that fact, they will be ignorant of American history, Grossman said. You could title this bill, To Ensure the Ignorance of American Youth.

He said historians both agree and disagree with aspects of the 1619 Project, but its not the business of the state legislature to prohibit teachers from assigning certain materials any more than its the business of the state legislature to prohibit libraries from putting materials in the library.

This is just outright censorship, he said.

He said he doesnt think Oklahoma would want its students to be unable to score high on the college-level Advanced Placement history exam, and doesnt believe the state would want its graduates to be ignorant of their own history. Employers, he said, want employees who can think critically, ask questions and are knowledgeable about their countrys past. This bill would make the state less competitive on the job market.

What theyre trying to do here is prevent teachers from helping students to understand the history of racism in the United States and the legacies of that history, Grossman said.

State Rep. Monroe Nichols, D-Tulsa, said that the measure goes beyond prohibiting the teaching of slavery. He said it suggests that slavery didnt really happen, wasnt an evil thing that happened in the country or as bad as it was in other countries.

Nichols, who also serves as vice chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, said he puts Olsen in the same box as those who deny the Holocaust, Sept. 11 terror attacks or Sandy Hook elementary school shooting.

His defense of slave owners does nothing to promote a better view of the foundations of this country, Nichols said.

He said throughout history there have always been sympathizers of folks who have tried to qualify some atrocity by saying it wasnt as bad as portrayed, or maybe it didnt happen.

Nichols said if Olsen believes slavery isnt being taught properly, perhaps the Legislature should require every student to complete a full course on the issue so that everyone can understand the full context of enslaved peoples around the world.

And, he said American slavery cant be taught without referencing race.

The teaching of slavery, the teaching of how slavery and discrimination has impacted this country to this day, is not to suggest that it is the fault of anybody living today or anything like that, Nichols said. It is, however, to help us all understand why we have gaps in achievement and opportunity in this country. Because it wasnt just about slavery.

At 38, Nichols, who is Black, said hes the first in his family to be born with all the rights that Americans are supposed to have.

Nichols also said its possible that Olsens bill has broad support among Republican lawmakers, but hopes it doesnt.

Things, although painful, can teach us a whole lot about what we have to do differently as a society, he said.

Janelle Stecklein covers the Oklahoma Statehouse for CNHI's newspapers and websites. Reach her at jstecklein@cnhinews.com.

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Bill would legislate how slavery is taught, critic calls it "outright censorship" - Claremore Daily Progress

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