Anchor Don Lemon said Thursday on “CNN This Morning” that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) needs to “stop it” while discussing Florida teachers having to remove books from classrooms to comply with a Florida law requiring books be age appropriate.
Lemon said, “What are we doing here? I mean this, I feel like we’re going back, I feel like I’m watching a bad version of like Pleasantville where you’re — I don’t get what’s happening. It feels like the 1950s all over again with, like, book banning. This cancel culture from people who are—I guess they just want our kids to be ignorant and to control the teachers. This is outrageous. I really don’t even know how to explain what’s going on here. It’s just ridiculous.”
Co-host Poppy Harlow said, “I have kids just starting to read, and when I read this in your reporting that teachers can face a felony if they knowingly distribute anything not approved by these DOA-trained professionals, that is stunning. The books are covered with paper, that is happening in American classrooms.”
Reporter Leyla Santiago said, “I should add in Pinellas County one of the things that came out in that school board meeting was recent removal of a book just within the last month, that book was by Toni Morrison, and that became part of that debate that there is a Noble Peace Prize on there whose book was being pulled. But over the side, parents say I’m not comfortable with some of that material, I should know what is in my classroom and is this a book that deserves, in their opinion, further scrutiny.”
Lemon said, “This is not about a voice in education. I think that is a red herring. I understand what you are saying. I think that is a red herring because there are a lot of uncomfortable topics that are in books.”
He continued, “That is how we learn. Things are uncomfortable. History is uncomfortable.”
Lemon added, “Not everything is happy, happy, joy, joy. In order to grow as human beings, and as a country, as a democracy, we have got to be able to face these things that are in our past. Toni Morrison is one of the most decorated authors in the history of this country, in the world. It is outrageous. Ron DeSantis, stop it. You are not helping. You are hurting.”
He concluded, “These things get me riled up, and everybody should be riled up. We have to stand up against this. ”
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