The Maus That Offended

In Tennessee, the McMinn County School Board voted on Jan. 10 to ban a book from the school curriculum citing bad language and nudity.  

The book in question was "Maus", a Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. 

Art Spiegelman wrote and illustrated the story of his Jewish parents living in 1940s Poland and his father's traumatic experience as a survivor of the Holocaust. 

Spiegelman cast anthropomorphic animals in his illustrations with Jews represented as mice and the Nazis as cats. 

It's long been considered a seminal work of graphic art and literature and an important part of teaching about the history of the Holocaust and the people who were devastated by the heinous and torturous crimes of the Nazis.

So the McMinn County School Board decided the book had to go. 

Apparently the instigating factor leading to "Maus" being banned is some offensive language.

At some point, someone says "God damn". 

And some nude women appear. 

Among the ways the Nazis would demean and dehumanize the Jews in the concentration camps was to strip them naked.

And remember that Art Spiegelman drew the Jews as mice.

So it seems that the McMinn County School Board has a problem with naked mice women, I guess?

Look, if Tucker Carlson is going to go off that the green M&M is no longer sexy enough, I suppose there might be concern that the naked mice women in the process of being humiliated and tortured might be titillating to some teenagers?

Man, there must be some truly fucked up pervs on the McMinn County School Board.

Now these same school board censors are tying themselves in knots to say that "Maus" is not being banned for it's subject matter.  

Although banning a book about the holocaust right before International Holocaust Remembrance Day is not a good look.

But the same right wing nut cases who are offended by the Lord's name being taken in vain and the appearance of naked mice women are part of the same toxic soup of right wing ideologues that includes people who are at best implicitly and at worst explicitly anti-Semitic. 

There are a lot of reasons why a lot of right wing people would be happy to see "Maus" toss on a bonfire for reasons beyond god damned naked mice women. 

And there is a growing movement among alleged conservatives to ban books that do anything to offend their sensibilities like being pro-gay and anti-racist.  

And also it seems pro-naked mice women, I suppose?

In human history, we've seen this pattern play out before, people promoting an agenda of hate and fear of others looking to curtail any criticism of that hate and fear by banning books.

In the 1930s, the Nazi Party burned a hell of a lot of books.

Who says history can't repeat itself?