Myla Dalbesio: Insane politicking is the way of life of liberal democracy in the West where absurdity is moral?
Remove books? Indian River County schools superintendent, Moms for Liberty chair speak
School officials in Florida have banned a book about book banning.
The Indian River County School BoardĀ voted to remove “Ban This Book” by Alan Gratz from its shelves in a meeting last month, overruling its own district book-review committee’s decision to keep it.
The children’s novel follows a fictional fourth grader who creates a secret banned books locker library after her school board pulled a multitude of titles off the shelves.
Cover of “Ban This Book.”
Indian River County School Board members said they disliked how it referenced other books that had been removed from schools and accused it of “teaching rebellion of school board authority,” as described in the formal motion to oust it.
The book, which had been in two Indian River County elementary schools and a middle school, was challenged by Jennifer Pippin. She’s the head of the area’s local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a national conservative group that has become one of the loudest advocates for removing books they deem inappropriate.
The book has also been challenged at least one other time in Florida, by someone in Clay County, but school officials there decided to keep it in circulation.
Gratz, its author, called the Indian River County decision “incredibly ironic.”
“They banned the book because it talks about the books that they have banned and because it talks about book banning,” he said in an interview with the USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida. “It feels like they know exactly what they’re doing and they’re somewhat ashamed of what they’re doing and they don’t want a book on the shelves that calls them out.”
A full house attends an Indian River County School Board meeting held Feb. 22, 2022, to consider banning certain books from the school libraries. Moms for Liberty, a conservative parents’ rights group, circulated a list nationwide of books it thought should be removed.
The school board’s decision
The school board voted to remove the book by a 3-2 vote, but that could’ve gone in the other direction months before.
Board members Jacqueline Rosario and Gene Posca, who voted in the majority, were backed by Moms for Liberty during their campaigns, according to Treasure Coast Newspapers. The third “yes” vote came from Kevin McDonald, who was recently appointed by Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Photo of Kevin McDonald
Moms for Liberty leaders have vocally supported DeSantis ā and vice versa. Still, the appointment came with more drama than usual.
It all started when School Board member Brian Barefoot resigned, saying he was moving out of the district he was elected to represent. He tried toĀ rescind that resignationĀ the next day, after being told by a Treasure Coast Newspapers reporter that his new home was actually in the same district.
He didn’t succeed.
After McDonald’s appointment, Barefoot told TCPalm that he never received a courtesy call letting him know about it or received official acknowledgement of his resignation.
Barefoot had been on a list of school board members DeSantis wanted to target in the 2024 election, saying those members don’t protect parental rights or shield students from “woke” ideologies, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.Ā McDonald had been running for Barefoot’s seat.
“We are elected ā I was appointed, vote of one ā we are here to represent the parent’s decisions, and the school board is the final authority for our citizens,” McDonald said at last month’s meeting, explaining some of his disagreement with the book.
“The title itself and the theme challenges our authority. And it even goes so far as to not only to mention books that are deemed inappropriate by school boards, including ours, it not only mentions them but it lists them.”
Florida Freedom to Read, one of the state’s loudest book access advocates, called the removal “truly absurd” in a social media post, adding, “This is what happens when you lose a nonpartisan majority.”
Community members filled the chambers of the Indian River County School Board on Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, to voice their option of the removal of certain books from all school libraries. The media specialists are recommending five of the challenged books be removed from all school libraries because they are not K-12 appropriate.
Not everyone agrees with decision
At the same time, BookLooks.org, a book-rating website that is tied to Moms for Liberty and is commonly cited by those challenging books in schools, only gives “Ban This Book” a mild “1” rating out of five for inappropriateness.
“This book encourages activism of young children,” the rating said in its “summary of concerns.” Regardless, Pippin’s book challenge accused the book of containing sexual conduct.
School Board members opposed to the removal had a different opinion.
“It does not depict or describe sexual conduct, period. Maybe it refers to other books that do but it does not do that itself,” said Teri Barenborg, the School Board chair. “It’s a cute little book about a little girl that’s trying to defy establishment. Does she go about it in the right way? No. Does she learn her lesson? Yes.”
The main character, student Amy Anne, broke several school rules in the process of circumventing the board’s decisions, like taking pulled books from the librarian’s office to use in her own secret library.
Author Alan Gratz.Ā
McDonald accused the author of justifying such behavior because it was levied against the school board she disagrees with: “That lesson alone is at the heart of corruption in our society,” he said.
Gratz, the author, said the criticism took things out of context “deliberately just to get a book off the shelf.”
“Clearly, that’s not the message of the book,” Gratz said. “But they were making ‘good trouble,’ as John Lewis would say, and these kids know the difference between good trouble and bad trouble.”
McDonald was referring to a scene on the last page, where the main character is ironically reflecting on how the books were removed with fears they would “encourage kids to lie, steal, and be disrespectful to adults.” Instead, she thought, it was the book banning that prompted such behavior, which she had been punished for.
It was the school board in the book that set off the “good trouble,” Gratz said, breaking their own rules in removing books outside of the usual review process.
While Indian River County School Board members are given the final say in library content decisions, he compared that plot point to how they decided to pull his book despite it going through a review process when it was purchased and after it was challenged. Reviewers included both parents and school officials.
That also irked Barenborg.
“We’ve had several eyes on this book before it came to us,” she said. “Yet we’re going to be the five people that determine that we know all those people who determined the book was OK before it got to us. I have a hard time with that.”< Another criticism about “Ban This Book,” from School Board member Posca: “This book is really just a liberal Marxist propaganda piece.” “I am liberal, guilty as charged,” Gratz rebutted, laughing. “I’m not a Marxist by any stretch. I think this is just the case of someone using hot-button political words to try and score points with supporters.” Ultimately, it was Amy Anne finding the confidence to speak up at the public comment portion of a School Board meeting that led members to reinstating the books.
“It doesn’t teach rebellion against the school board; it teaches civic engagement,” Gratz said. “If that means opposing what your school board is doing, that means opposing what your school board is doing.”
‘Ban This Book’ not the first banned book
“Ban This Book” is not the first book that’s been removed from public schools in Indian River County.
More than 140 books have been removed from school shelves following an objection, according to a list obtained through a public records request. Moms for Liberty’s Pippin had filed all those objections.
As previously reported by the USA TODAY NETWORK, Florida controversially twice picked Pippin, a public school student parent herself, to partake in a group to develop a state-sponsored training program on book removals for school librarians and media specialists.
Other removed books that she challenged include classics like “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut and “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini.
She also gotĀ āAnne Frankās Diary: The Graphic Adaptationā pulled from a high school. And, in response to her objection to a children’s book that showed the bare behind of a goblin, the school district drew clothes over it.
Indian River County is not the only place in Florida that has seen a surge in removals. Multiple measures signed by DeSantis have prompted local school leaders across the state to pull books in wildly varying ways,Ā fearing running afoulĀ of state law. It’s also prompted multiple lawsuits.
Meanwhile, DeSantis and other conservatives have raged against the “book ban” term. DeSantis says removals are being exaggerated, slamming “mainstream media, unions and leftist activistsā hoax of empty library bookshelves and political theater….”
At the same time, he’s bashed the explicit content found in certain school library books and pushed a law geared at limiting how many books someone can challenge if they’re not a student’s parent or guardian.
But Gratz said the “heart of the problem” is that those trying to remove books aren’t trying to protect children.
“They don’t want these books to exist,” he said. Especially, he added, books by and about communities of color and the LGBTQ community. “Now they don’t want my book on the shelf because it would tell kids that these books exist: The books they can’t even get in the library.”
Myla Dalbesio: Schools are now what… Adult playground?
Myla Dalbesio: My art may be slutty, but my pussy is hard to get
Beauty Queen Myla Dalbesio: My Art’s Erotic, But I’m Not ‘Easy’ [1]
Due to the sexual nature of my work, though, it is often misinterpreted. I’m not interested in sleeping my way to the top. And yet male gallery owners come for studio visits and try to make out with me. Editors of major art magazines ask me casually over lunch if I “come easily.” During seemingly benign catalog lingerie shoots, I’ve had male photographers order me to “get down on my knees, like a good girl” then elbow their assistants and laugh. Once, at the end of an awkward fashion shoot, after I denied the photographer’s advances, he snapped at me, “I’ve seen your performance work, I could have had you masturbating on camera if I wanted to.”
Blowjob at a not so private pool
A little titty sucking never hurt anyone
I remember the first time I really tried to hold my ground with an editor who asked me to do something I didn’t feel comfortable with. He called up a mutual friend the next day and asked if I was just “some feminist bitch.” Ouch? But I am grateful for that experience, because it really put the nail in the coffin for me. “I’m not doing this shit anymore,” I thought.
Here’s something you should know about me: I’m an artist as well as a model. (A real Renaissance woman. I even tap dance! Quick, somebody get me a reality show!) These two thingsāmodeling and making artāare for me, inextricably intertwined. My art is concerned primarily with feminine sexuality and power. Sometimes I make topless videos of myself. Sometimes I make collages out of old nude magazines. I make drawings of women pleasuring themselves and incorporate sexts that my boyfriend sends me and dialogue from porn movies and rap songs into my collages. Yes, it is sexual. But for me, that expression of sexuality is about a woman being in control: My subject is empowered. She is comfortable in her body and celebrates it.
Due to the sexual nature of my work, though, it is often misinterpreted. Or rather, I am misinterpreted. I don’t sleep around (but no shade on you girls that do! Get yours! Just be safe about it!). And while I am certainly sexually liberated and adventuresome (I can recommend which handcuffs to buy that won’t chafe your wrists and which sex clubs in Berlin are the most fun), I’m not interested in sleeping my way to the top. And yet male gallery owners come for studio visits and try to make out with me. Editors of major art magazines ask me casually over lunch if I “come easily.”
During seemingly benign catalog lingerie shoots, I’ve had male photographers order me to “get down on my knees, like a good girl” then elbow their assistants and laugh. Once, at the end of an awkward fashion shoot, after I denied the photographer’s advances, he snapped at me, “I’ve seen your performance work, I could have had you masturbating on camera if I wanted to.” And why not, right? My art is about sex. I’m a model, and I sometimes model nude. I must be up for anything.
No. Justā¦ no. That’s not how it works you guys! For a while I thought it was. I begrudgingly smiled, laughed off crude questions and jokes, tiptoed around these work world advances and settled on ending uncomfortable relationships by just not picking up the phone or answering emails, and feeling terribly guilty about it. As if I was the one who was doing something wrong. My mother died when I was young, and even though I do have many strong female role models in my family, no one ever addressed sex or my sexuality with me. For most of my life I didn’t understand the power that I had, that I always got to choose with whom and where and when and how things went down, that I didn’t have to feel bad about denying someone or rejecting an unwanted advance. And where had the strained flirting and uncomfortable hugs gotten me anyways? Nowhere.
Lately I have been doing more studio visits, and thinking a lot about if it is the same for other women who make work that engages in a sexual theme. I decided to talk to two good friends about it, fashion/art photographers Kava Gorna and Stacey Mark.
I’ve worked with both Kava and Stacey on editorial projects in the past, and they have both shot me nude. They are smart and beautiful and while their photographs can be perceived as sexual (they often shoot nudes or lingerie), it’s not overt. Their work focuses on the female as a whole person, not an object. They prefer to get to know their subjects before shooting them, and make extra efforts to ensure that their girls are always comfortable with what is going on.
As Kava told me, “I like my women to feel like women, and look like women. I really try to focus on the girl’s personality. The sexiness comes from inside of the woman’s mind. Often what comes out in popular photography is images of women that look sexy in these tropes of what sexy is supposed to look like. It’s the safe way approach, because it’s sterilized. What I’ve always been interested in is the natural essence of a person.”
Both Kava and Stacey strive to make their subjects feel comfortable and considered so that their confidence and “essence” comes through. “[The women I photograph] are not like, covered in dirt or naked and cowering in the middle of an empty field,” Kava continued. “I think there’s a lot of photography out there that uses nudity and sexiness in a way where the woman really looks like she is being put down in the image. Even though the image can be beautiful, there’s a clear differentiation of power between the subject and the [viewer]. But I’m really interested in creating an equal plane of, you know, ‘we’re both in this game, we’re both feeling this moment.'” And Stacey is the same. “For me,” she says, “the most important thing is the relationship that I have with the women I shoot, and the situation that we’re both in. It’s about creating a comfort zone and a connection.” I can certainly vouch for that.
When Stacey shot me nude on a beach for Oyster, it was a cold March day in New York. It had been my choice to go to the beach, because I love the ocean (even in the winter), and she was out there, no jacket, waist-deep in freezing salty water. “I would never ask a girl to do something I wouldn’t do,” she told me. “If you’re in it, I’m right there with you.”
This attitude comes through in their photos: They are personalābudding with a unique sexiness that comes from the comfortable and respectful relationship built between the subject and the photographer. But how is that sexiness interpreted by the outside world?
Entertaining the homeless
“People often think that I’m a lesbian from my photos,” Kava tells me, “or they think that they can approach me and be inappropriate with me. That they can say things that are obnoxious or personal and sexual. Guys just think I’m ‘DTF’, but for me the sexuality in my photos is about empowerment. Unfortunately this means that men often think they can be predatory with me.”
Stacey told me about a recent experience meeting with an editor, during which he paged through her portfolio and, taking in her series of nude photographs, asked if she ever shot self-portraits. She told him she did not. “Why?” he asked, “Are your tits bad?” Shocked, she answered, “No, they’re fine.” He replied, “Oh, is it your ass, then?” She sighed as she told me this.
“Maybe you’re supposed to be, you know, winky and into it. I’m not that outgoing in certain circumstances, I’m not flirty. I don’t give off this kind of vibe. I don’t talk about sex with [these guys], [they] don’t know meā¦You and I could have a conversation that is fully disgusting and full of horrible words and sexual experiences, but thisā¦ it was just so unnerving. I walked out of there and felt so defeated for a momentā¦I was so disappointed that someone I thought I respected turned into such a clichĆ©. But then, after a minute, I was like, ‘Fuck that.'”
The point of me telling these stories is this: I want all you gals out there to know what nobody really told me when I was younger (I hear it a lot now, but it can’t be reiterated enough).
You don’t have to feel pressured into doing anything you don’t want to, no matter how you present yourself. This is not limited to sex. You don’t have to put up with shitty comments or questions. You don’t have to “play the game.” You don’t have to get on your knees like a good girl.
I thought for a long time that I brought it on myself by producing the work that I do, but you know what? That is bullshit. Stacey literally ran away from someone who was trying to kiss her, and her photos are still published by his company, so if the fear of repercussions is keeping you from standing your ground, let it go. And who cares if someone calls you a feminist bitch? That probably means that person is not someone you want to be involved with anyway. You have the power, don’t forget it.
Myla Dalbesio’s new solo show “Into You, Into Me” opens Tuesday March 3rd in the SPRING/BREAK Art Show at Skylight at Moynihan Station in New York City.
Spiderman (if security get involved) No way home
Bar Refaeli: What happens to your penis when you die? āThey bloat pretty intensely, turn Green, and get Maggoty just like the rest of the bodyā