MSNBC host Joy Reid challenged a critic to prove that public school libraries contain pornographic materials, despite well-publicized incidents of parents broadcasting images of hardcore porn made available to minors in their district’s school libraries.
Reid began by mischaracterizing a proposed Oklahoma Senate Bill 1142, which would give parents greater authority to remove “books that are of a sexual nature” and “make their primary subject … sexual activity” or “gender identity” from school libraries. Reid falsely claimed the law was designed to ban “books that don’t present white historical people as heroes.”
When a Twitter reader asked if Reid had seen some of the pornographic material in public school libraries, Reid challenged her: “Can you name some of the titles you’re talking about and the offending passages? I highly doubt libraries are stocked with pornography, but happy to hear your intel.”
Can you name some of the titles you’re talking about and the offending passages? I highly doubt libraries are stocked with pornography, but happy to hear your intel. https://t.co/Dctr0DmpK1
— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) December 30, 2021
The user then named a number of books including Jack of Hearts (and Other Parts), Gender Queer (illustrated), All Boys Aren’t Blue, and Tricks. As of this writing, Reid has not responded.
The issue of school libraries furnishing minors with sexually explicit images figured prominently in the Virginia governor’s race. A concerned mother, Stacy Langton, told the Fairfax County (Virginia) School Board about two such books in her district: “One book describes a fourth-grade boy performing oral sex on an adult male. The other book has detailed illustrations of a man having sex with a boy. The illustrations include fellatio, sex toys, masturbation, and violent nudity.”
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe is a graphic novel that contains multiple, explicit depictions of homosexual oral sex. When Asra Nomani of Parents Defending Education posted a video of Langton’s speech, which contains pictures of the pornographic cartoons, Twitter covered up the video with the warning, “The following media includes potentially sensitive content” — precisely the same way Twitter treats hardcore pornography.
At last night's @FCPSNews school board meeting, brave mom Stacy Langton revealed porn + pedophilia in library books. The board cut her mic + fled but I was able to record Stacy. Parents yelled, "Shame!" at the board for turning the county into #Fairfaxxx. No rest for @defendinged pic.twitter.com/efbT6c79H2
— Asra Q. Nomani 🐻 (@AsraNomani) September 24, 2021
There’s no porn/pedophilia in…Oh, wait
FCPS public school libraries, paid for with Fairfax County taxpayer dollars
But, learning loss recovery? Or virtual learning for children sent home on “pause”, or as an option? Move along…
(Don’t read this, really. It’s beyond sick) pic.twitter.com/m0GF1HXie1
— Elizabeth L. Schultz – “domestic terrorist” (@Think_Schultz) September 24, 2021
As Twitter’s policy on “adult content” states:
Adult content is any consensually produced and distributed media that is pornographic or intended to cause sexual arousal. Some examples include, but are not limited to, depictions of:
- full or partial nudity, including close-ups of genitals, buttocks, or breasts (excluding content related to breastfeeding);
- simulated sexual acts; and
- sexual intercourse or other sexual acts – this also applies to cartoons, hentai, or anime involving humans or depictions of animals with human-like features.
Cartoons of a grown man engaging in mutual masturbation with a much younger man (or boy), and pictures of teenagers performing oral sex on other males, would qualify.
Twitter also has a policy prohibiting “sexualized violence,” such as “inflicting physical harm on an individual within an intimate setting.” A picture of a spear poking through a man’s anus into his abdomen (as a metaphor for the pain of homosexual anal intercourse) may qualify for that description, as well.
Kobabe’s book is not the only such case, though it may be the most explicit. Langton also drew attention to the book Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison, which features one boy fondly reminiscing about his own sexual abuse: “What if I told you I touched another guy’s d***? … What if I told you I sucked it? … I was ten years old but it’s true. I put Doug Goble’s d*** in my mouth.” Doug Goble is a grown man, “the real estate guy,” who also performed fellatio on the 10-year-old boy. “And you know what? … It wasn’t terrible,” the child says of his own prepubescent statutory rape.
“These books are in stock and available in the libraries of Robinson [Secondary School], Langley, and Annandale High School,” Langton told the school board. As she described the images and read aloud from the books, board members interrupted her, chided her not to read the passages aloud in front of children, then cut off her microphone.
Parents in Olathe, Kansas, also rose up in indignation in November when they learned the local middle school carried All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson. The book, which is recommended for children ages 10-12, says, “He reached his hand down and pulled out my d***. He quickly went to giving me h**d.” Another passage reads:
For the first few minutes, we dry humped and grinded. I was behind him with my stomach on his back as we kissed…he pulled out some condom and some lube….I had never done it before…I had one point of reference, though, and that was seven-plus years of watching pornography. Although the porn was heterosexual, it was enough of a reference point to get the job done.
When Johnson’s book became an issue in the schools of Katy, Texas, a local TV station noted that “[t]he material, too graphic for ABC13 to broadcast or publish, is available in Katy ISD high school libraries.”
Exposure to pornography at any age is harmful, as porn use is associated with depression, inability to think clearly, sexual aggression, coercion into unwanted sexual acts, promiscuity, and participating in risky sex acts. Exposing children to pornographic images arguably constitutes contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
Books such as Kobabe’s helped make parental control over education the central issue of the Virginia governor’s race. Yet Reid chose to cover the victory of Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears, a black woman, as a triumph of white supremacy and ducked Sears’ requests for an interview.
Reid has misled her viewers about the content of books before. When she interviewed Ibram X. Kendi in June, she falsely accused Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) of “misquoting you or giving the wrong context,” when the senator accurately quoted Kendi’s endorsement of racial discrimination against Caucasians.
Joy Reid’s hyperfocus on race may have caused her to miss the details of the issues she has covered repeatedly on her show. Or Reid may have been trolling someone on Twitter. Either way, she ignored the facts, feigned ignorance of the facts, or possessed bona fide ignorance of the facts of a story she covered incessantly. Whatever the case, it speaks poorly of her (and her network’s) journalistic quality, authority, and integrity.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.