Banded Books in School

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When I was in high school my English teacher (Mr Frye) made me read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It was one of the hardest, most awkward experiences of my young life. I was so homophobic back then I had to take a two month break from it before I went back to it. And as I look back, it was probably one of the most enriching moments of my scholastic life.

We have to stop being afraid to be exposed to diverse stories. How can he be empathetic to our fellow humans if we from a young age think it's dirty and wrong to be them? Lgbtq+ persons love like heterosexual people love. Muslims hope and live like Christians. Russians want a fair and safe life like Americans. And the only way we can be receptive to these realities is to be exposed to them at young ages.

Banded books create a pure nationalistic view of the world that only serves to let people who don't fit that image know there is no place for them.