Ron DeSantis is on the defensive following the almost inevitable next
step in his book banning campaign.
Which is that, books have been banned that even right wingers can't defend
the banning of particularly a biography of baseball star Roberto Clemente.
So Clementi's book apparently was flagged for being taken off because it references
racism that he dealt with as a Black Puerto Rican baseball player.
Has been removed from the district libraries for
months pending review in compliance with the state's newly passed STOP WOKE Act.
So because he mentions racism, he did a CRT obviously.
And so the book must burn, that's the policy except that the DeSantis doesn't
like it because it's absurd that you would have to take this book down.
Let's stop for a brief second to point out that it's equally absurd to strip
the libraries in curriculum of any number of different African American scholars,
queer scholars, all of that.
But this is one that they can't defend and so
he's lashing out saying that this is an outlandish stunt.
DeSantis we know hates outlandish stunts, he's not a fan of them.
He claims it has nothing to do with the new laws.
I will remind you, he just signed this week into law a new version of his
program where he spends millions and millions of Floridians dollars to
take migrants from like Texas and shipped them to Wisconsin.
So again, shut up about the stunts.
Anyway, he says they're manufacturing the Roberto Clemente thing to create
a narrative.
Again, this entire thing, the entire STOP WOKE Act,
the entire thing of banning the books is to create a narrative.
So how dare they get in on the fun I suppose.
So anyway, Anna he's on the defensive,
I think this is the first of many instances of this.
They're gonna take all sorts of books out and
people are rightly going to be freaked out about it.
>> Ronnie, Ronnie Ronnie Ronnie every once in a while you
run into a brick wall when you don't really understand
your own constituents we're talking about Florida.
We're talking about an autobiography by a star baseball player, a legend.
Okay, I'm very familiar with the Latino community in Miami in particular.
Okay Cubans [CROSSTALK].
Yes and they love baseball, I mean it is part of their culture.
My husband who's Cuban was a professional baseball player.
It is a huge part of their lives.
So when books like that start to get banned and
burned all of a sudden it awakens people to how insane this form of censorship is.
And hopefully they understand it's insane when it comes to books written by
black authors, books written by members of the LGBTQ community.
Okay, censorship destroys education and
I think that's also part of the objective for these conservatives.
It's much easier to control an ignorant public that doesn't have
the education necessary to actually fight back against tyranny,
fight back against authoritarian regimes.
So I love the fact that he's now trying to find a scapegoat for
what happened when the fish rots from the head down.
>> Yeah, it rots from the meatball down anyway.
Yeah, first of all, I don't accept that this is a purposeful stunt or whatever.
I think they flagged literally everything that references racism, gender identity,
basically any interesting or controversial topic.
And they're getting rid of it because they're worried about being fired because
that's what the law is.
But even if they did good,
I want the librarians of Florida to use whatever tools they have and
these are apparently the tools they have to point out how ridiculous this is.
As Anna said, when you open the door to this fascist control of literature and
education, people need to know about it.
They need to understand how serious this is.
Apparently 1.6 million titles are under review
because of this and that sounds bad.
But bear in mind that school teachers and librarians had nothing, but
time leading up to this, they had just so much free time.
Why shouldn't they review literally millions of books to make sure that they
won't hurt anyone's opinion or anyone's feelings who hasn't even read them and
never would also remind you, by the way is.
Sorry. >> Sorry about that, John, I just wanted
to say it is kind of interesting because a theory or a prediction I have.
Is that all of this government attention on banning books
might make reading cool, it might.
>> I hope so.
>> Yeah, because I mean,
nothing makes something cooler than the government trying to ban it.
So [LAUGH] we'll see.
>> If this leads to just endless Gen-Z tick talks of books that
they're in the process of reading, I would love it.
I think I tweeted like a week ago, can Gen-Z please bring back bookstores, they
bring back retro stuff, wired headphones and pocket cameras and everything.
Bring back the bookstore so I can get out of this news thing and
just open up a cafe combined to the bookstore.
>> John what if what if you and I start doing like dramatic readings of some of
the books that have been banned in Florida.
>> That's not a bad idea.
>> That should be fun.
>> I don't so I actually do do dramatic readings already,
but they're of the ridiculous fantasy stories that I write.
I do them on my Patreon every month.
>> Doesn't matter, I mean, you have practice so that I can.
>> You know what I could do.
I could start putting more sexual content into my stories so they get banned and
then peanut butter and chocolate.
Anyway, but I do like that idea.
There should be dramatic excerpts read on TikTok anyway.
By the way, I want to read one more thing.
Where is it?
So DeSantis is saying blah, blah, blah.
We're not doing this.
And then this guy, Manny Diaz, Florida's Commissioner of education.
He says, Florida does not ban books.
What the hell are you talking about?
Do you know what your job is?
Do you know what state you're in?
Do you know who you work for?
They very much do and as if to put the cherry on the sundae of that,
we don't ban books, Marjorie Greene and Ron DeSantis are co sponsoring a bill to
seek a federal ban of certain books from schools.
>> My God.
>> Ruben, people don't burn this book.
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