If you were watching the Cobb Board of Education meeting Thursday night, on two occasions the livestream was paused.
That’s because public commenters were reading from sexually explicit books the Cobb County School District has pulled from library shelves.
Earlier on Thursday, Superintendent Chris Ragsdale announced 13 more removals, following seven books that have been pulled in the last school year, due to graphic and obscene content he said are not age-appropriate for minors.
For the last year, some parents have blasted Ragsdale for “banning” books they allege have more to do with minority and LGBTQ students than adult content, and discourage students from embracing a culture of reading.
Recently, other parents and citizens have begun to respond to those charges, and in explicit fashion to match the content at hand.
One of them is East Cobb resident JoEllen Smith, who went up to the dais and handed out a copy of her remarks, topped by a photocopy of a graphic scene from one of the books, “Gender Queer,” depicting two boys engaging in oral sex.
She started her remarks by saying that “the Democratic candidates running for school board are saying the superintendent is banning books. Not true. The books they’re fighting for are kiddie porn, and probably illegal if owned by an adult.
“Here’s from a book that normalizes pedophilia and and incest. A 12-year-old girl has a baby by her father. Here’s the quote.”
At that point, Cobb school board attorney Suzann Wilcox said she could not let those sequences be aired due to federal regulations that “prohibit certain language and material from being broadcast.”
The district livestreams public meetings on its website, and they are shown on two cable systems—Comcast and Charter.
Wilcox said “we’re not going to stop you from reading, but . . . I’m going to give our technical team a moment to adjust and then you can resume.”
While those in attendance in the board meeting room heard the explicit language, here’s what viewers saw, with no audio, for a few moments:
East Cobb News has obtained a copy of the text and the graphic that Smith, a local Republican activist, gave to board members.
Smith’s verbal remarks are from other books that have been removed in Cobb.
While we are not subject to such regulations, we are not reproducing them fully in this post but linking to them here and here, so discretion is advised if you are interested in what was said.
When the livestream resumed, Smith concluded her remarks by saying that “there are hundreds of pro-LBGT books that don’t include kiddie porn. And it’s unfairly conflating homosexuality to pedophilia which is stigmatizing our gay youth.”
That was first instance of remarks not being aired in Cobb since the school book controversy first flared up last year.
Similar actions have taken place at other school board meetings around the country in recent months.
In April, a pastor was reading from “Push”—one of the books recently removed in Cobb—during a Broward Board of Education meeting in Florida when his microphone was cut off.
Last year, the Forsyth County School District was ordered to pay more than $100,000 in legal fees for trying to ban parents from reading from explicit books during school board meetings in 2022.
Before Smith spoke on Thursday, parent Sharon Hudson—a frequent critic of the book removals—chastised Ragsdale for his latest action.
Wearing a “Read Banned Books” shirt, she described herself as a Christian conservative Republican, but said there hasn’t been porn in Cobb schools.
“If he thinks it’s inappropriate, he’ll ban it and continue his reign of censorship,” she said. “No parent or student rights—just his decision of what they can and cannot read.”
Related:
- Kell PTSA holding Krispy Kreme fundraiser through September
- Cobb school district removes 13 more sexually explicit books
- East Cobb schools show gains in 2024 Milestones tests
- Cobb Youth Leadership announces 2024-25 class members
- Cobb school bus safety reminders for motorists and students
- Cobb school board adopts millage rate for FY 2025
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I don’t understand why these group of parents insist on perverting the school system and exposing children to this explicit material.
At this point this is not about the children at all, it’s about pushing their own political and personal agenda on everyone else. And if you disagree with them, be prepared to be labeled a homophobe or anti trans or anti LGBTQ.
This is just common sense, keep this trash away from the kids at school, and just like others have said, if you insist on exposing your kids to this material – do it in your own home, nobody is stopping you.
Please never stop fighting for decency and common sense. Keep this out of our schools.
Agreed!
It’s 2024. School libraries seem archaic. They were hardly used even in the pre-internet days when I was in school. However, they serve as a nice gig for librarians and a good resource for teachers to kill time.
It is 2024. Almost every single one of us, kids included, are walking around with a computer that has ready access to the internet in our pockets. Anyone dumb enough to think a young person, or even an older person, can’t read or look at whatever they want, anytime they want to is a complete fool. Go ahead ban ALL the books. What do you really think that is going to accomplish? Do these morons not understand that a young person, curious and determined, will not find a way? What planet have these mental midgets been residing on? Banning books is one of the most idiotic “remedies” to a non problem in history. All that is really happening here is a few loud voices in the minority are making some noise and trying to score some political points.
Are you kidding me – guess what I do not want my child to have exposure to sexually explicit books at school – you want your kid to read them give him The computer link or buy the book – nobody is stopping anyone from reading the books – but they should not be in the school library for ALL kids to read them.
Could not have said it better!
Some of this is elementary school and many parents do monitor what that age child is watching and has access too.
Thank you for having the courage to print the news article about what the general public did not read about the so-called book banning session at the Cobb Board of Education meeting. Neither the MDJ nor the AJC had the courage to refer specifically to the actual reading. As a teacher of literature for 40+ years, I am strongly against censorship and very much in favor of real discussion and real intellectual diversify. However, the section read is undeniable pornography, unfit for young minds. Anyone who attacks the removal of the book under discussion is not a serious or credible person.
I’m fairly liberal about what people can read. Pretty much anything they like is fine.
But that’s different than what I think a school with minors should have in their libraries. We are talking about school libraries. Explicit language is the issue for me for people who are minors.
If a parent or student wants to read any books with explicit text, they are free to get them elsewhere. Heck, I would be surprised if they were in our public library system. That would be fine. Any student who has to go to the extra effort to find them really is interested and struggling.
When I was a child and wanted to know where babies really came from, having been lied to by my parents and 6 siblings for years, I went to the public library and looked it up. I must have been about 8 yrs old. Got an eyeful of information from medical textbooks.
That taught me to got to the library when I wanted to know something.
I am not a fan in general of banning books, but the two referenced definitely seem completely inappropriate for open access to elementary or middle school kids. High school kids can probably take it, and as noted elsewhere, by this point in their lives, they can access a lot more on their smart devices. “Back in my day,” books like Catcher in the Rye were routinely being banned or targeted by public high schools as inappropriate, but the private high school that I went (needless to say run by Jesuit priests) believed traditional thinking should be challenged and that we should start making our own decisions. I’m glad they did that; sure for awhile, I annoyed my parents with some philosopher stuff I read that went against their beliefs but I grew out of it. And I think I’m better for not closing my mind off to alternate views of the world.