Fun in Florida!

From Lisa Tolin's 2-13-23 Pen.org article entitled "Florida Book Bans: Why Are There Empty Shelves in Florida Schools?"

You may have seen pictures of empty bookshelves in Florida classrooms, or heard about book bans across the state.

While efforts to remove books have been intensifying for the past year, what’s happening now is that new laws passed last year in Florida are having a clear chilling effect on classroom teachers and librarians. School districts are interpreting the laws differently, but some teachers have been told they must suspend access to their classroom libraries, so each book can be vetted by a media specialist for approval first. If they don’t comply, they could risk losing their teaching license or even being charged with a felony, if they are found in violation of one of these new laws.

For the most part, nobody knows what is being lost from the shelves, because so many books have been removed at once.

“It’s a bleak situation in parts of Florida. We’ve got teachers teaching on eggshells, in classrooms with no books,” said Jonathan Friedman, PEN America’s director of Free Expression and Education programs [...].

One high school student in Manatee told the New Yorker, “I’m scared they’re going to take my one history book away.” In Duval, a media specialist described to The Independent, a “sad sight” of students walking by an empty, closed library unable to access books, until she reviews 37,000 of them. The process, she explained, is challenging and subjective: “The phrase ‘harmful to children’ is so vague… It used to just encompass pornography. They have now added excessive violence. They’ve added negative language. Just they have snuck so many little things underneath harmful to children, it just seems like they’re trying to catch us making a mistake.”

To read the entire article, click HERE.

From Arno Rosenfeld's 3-7-23 FORWARD article entitled "What Do You Do When Neo-Nazis Start Projecting Swastikas Across Your City?":

When thousands of college football fans flocked to Jacksonville for an annual rivalry game between Florida and Georgia on Halloween weekend, they saw an unprecedented series of antisemitic displays. That Friday, a group of men stood on a freeway overpass with painted banners. “Honk if you know it’s the Jews,” one read.

That same night, an identical message appeared scrolling across a Wells Fargo skyscraper and the Lynch Building, a historic apartment tower, both downtown.

White supremacists had unfurled banners like that before, but what came next was new. As the sold out crowd at TIAA Bank Field started to stream out of the stadium on Saturday, they were greeted by a message more than 10 feet high and roughly the length of a billboard, projected with lasers onto the back of the structure. “Kanye is right about the Jews,” read the flickering, handwritten script.

Jacksonville quickly became the epicenter of antisemitic projections on buildings. “Tom Brady got Jew’d” appeared on a parking garage the following month. In December, projections showed up on a downtown bridge and on a former navy ship docked in the St. Johns River. A towering symbol that combined a swastika and cross was projected in January onto the headquarters of the railroad company CSX, one of Jacksonville’s largest employers.

While the most dramatic incidents made national headlines, the Anti-Defamation League tracked more that escaped coverage. It found at least seven such events in and around Jacksonville — and three more elsewhere in Florida — starting on Oct. 29 and running through January, when the city council outlawed them, according to data shared with the Forward. But the laser projections have since spread throughout Florida.

To read the article, click HERE.

From Vic Micolucci's 3-14-23 News4Jax.com article entitled "Jacksonville Jewish, LGBTQ+, FBI Leaders React to Spike in Hate Crime Reports":

Hate crimes reported in America are showing an alarming rise again, according to a revised report from the FBI documenting 2021 cases.

The report shows a 12% increase in hate crime reports across the nation. Those hate crime reports include 18 murders.

Agents point out that the data isn’t complete, as not all police departments and sheriff’s offices contributed. In Florida, the latest data report shows 116 reports of hate crimes.

From projections on downtown Jacksonville buildings and the stadium to signs on interstates and flyers in yards, North Florida has seen signs of hatred.

News4JAX on Tuesday spoke with Jacksonville Jewish Federation CEO Mariam Feist and asked her if she worries that messages like those are going to amplify the risk of crimes against the Jewish community.

“You always worry about that — less concerned about the actual people in these groups, as compared to someone who feels that what their messages that they’re portraying are a call to action,” Feist said.

Feist said she’s disappointed but not surprised to see the latest FBI report shows an increase in hate crimes.

“All reports have shown that they’re getting worse and especially in different areas, so Florida is a hotspot. Northeast Florida is a hotspot. And the rhetoric is just increasing,” Feist said.

To read the entire article, click HERE. 

From Ken Tran's 3-21-23 USA TODAY article entitled "Florida Bill Would Ban Girls from Talking About Their Periods in School, GOP Lawmaker Says":

As local bills on gender, sexuality and diversity make their way through Florida’s state legislature, new legislation could ban any discussion of menstrual cycles in school before the sixth grade.

That breaks from the advice of medical providers who recommend talking to children about puberty and changes in their bodies before they occur.

First periods typically start between ages 10 and 15 but can begin as young as 9 years old. That means a student could likely be in third grade up to tenth grade, or later when a period begins.

During a subcommittee hearing in the Florida House on Wednesday, Republican state Rep. Stan McClain said his bill would include restrictions on girls talking about their menstrual cycles. The legislation doesn't specifically mention periods or menstruation but McClain told a subcommittee hearing that it would include restrictions on conversations about girls' menstrual cycles.

To read the rest of the article, click HERE.