Florida’s ‘Anti-Woke’ Censorship

Radio Télévision Suisse | 13min
Postprodution script

00:00:01,580 VO: -It's a busy day in this bookstore from Brevard County, Florida. The customers came to buy books to give to children who don't have any. Michelle Davis owns the bookstore. She created this bookstore to make it a showcase of African-American literature. In the children's section, there are books that have been removed from school libraries.

00:00:30,200 Michelle: I don’t understand why this book is banned, I truly don’t. This book is a phenomenal book, but people are gonna be like that. Did you find out the reason why?

Girl: I have no idea.

Michelle: Me either.

00:00:45,489 VO: -A censorship that Mr. Davis has difficulty in understanding.

00:00:49,170 Michelle: What are you afraid of? That is the question: what are you afraid of that they wrote? It’s as simple as that. Why are you banning these books that have no reason to be banned.

0’54 Michelle Davis, Owner, ‘Essence of Knowledge’ bookshop

00:01:02,765 VO: -The suppression of books: a trend that is spreading throughout the country. Books that talk about race, sexual orientation or gender. Schools and libraries have become the new battleground between conservatives and progressives. Their weapons are control and censorship.

1’24 Title: Florida’s ‘Anti-Woke’ Censorship

00:01:30,840 VO: We’re heading to Fort Worth, Texas, a city of cowboys, which hosts the Convention of Texas librarians. They came to do their shopping and talk about the problem of censorship. The conference discusses this topic.

00:01:49,990 Nadine to crowd: The urge to censor is the strongest human drive. It’s even stronger than the sex drive.

00:02:01,318 VO: -Suppressing books is a weapon used regardless no matter what political party initiates it.

00:02:06,160 Nadine: A lot of people use the slogan ‘Freedom of speech for me not for thee’. And the truth is that both the left and the right are engaging in various forms of speech suppression, of ideas they disagree with. Particularly about the highly contested and extremely important topics of race and gender.

2’11 Nadine Strossen, Lawyer & civil rights activist

00:02:28,150 VO: -Wendy Woodland is head of communication of the Texas Librarians Association. The current situation worries her.

00:02:38,070 Wendy: This latest effort towards censorship and book banning is really unprecedented. We’ve spoken to librarians who’ve been doing this twenty, thirty years and they’ve never seen anything like this co-ordinated massive attack on hundreds of books on lists.

2’45 Wendy Woodland, Head of Communications, Texas Librarians Association

00:02:53,365 VO: -By 2020, 273 books had been subject to a withdrawal request. 1,597 in 2021. Some congress editors have entire tables dedicated to banned books. One of them tells about the difficulty of growing up when you're black and gay.

00:03:09,190 Molly: So, unfortunately all of these great books are facing challenges across the country. This book, All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson is the third most banned book in America last year. It’sb een banned in 20 states now, I believe. It’s 2022; I can’t believe we’re still talking about this level of book banning and censorship.

3’18 Molly Ellis, Head of Publicity, Macmillan publishers

00:03:31,458 VO: -In the forefront of the fight for censorship is the very conservative Governor of Florida, Ron deSantis. He has declared war on what he calls the woke culture and intends to take advantage of the situation to take over the White House in 2024. He signed the HB 1557 law in March, and also coined the "Don't say gay" initiative. He advocates refraining from any discussion relating to gender or sexual orientation in primary grades.

3’35 Video: CPAC

3’48 Video: Office of Governor of Florida

00:04:03,699 VO: Randy Fine, the Brevard County Republican Representative in the Florida Assembly, is holding office. He is one of the members of the HB 1557 law, that brought him to the forefront of politics too.

00:04:19,210 Randy: I’ve been on Swedish, Swiss, Canadian and French TV all about this in the last two weeks, so.

4’23 Randy Fine, Republican representative, Florida Assembly

00:04:27,501 VO: -For him, the enemy is identified in political terms.

00:04:43,230 Randy: We’ve had thirty years of the left working very very hard to turn schools into indoctrination factories. Those days are over, and the people who want to do that should maybe move somewhere else.

00:04:43,738 VO: -The controversy reaches all levels of government. On the other side of Florida, in Sarasota, parents of students are about to attend the School Board meeting, the institution that manages the schools and their programs. Alexis Spiegelman signs up for the right to speak.

00:05:04,080 Alexis: What time are they opening the doors today?

Security guard: To seat everyone in general it’ll be 5.40.

00:05:10,030 VO: -She is the president of Moms For Liberty, created last year, with a very specific goal.

00:05:19,010 Alexis: We’re there to unify, educate, and empower parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government.

5’23 Alexis Spiegelman, President, Moms for Liberty, Sarasota

00:05:28,151 VO: -Last year, Moms for Liberty, which has 85,000 members, was fighting against the wearing of masks. This year, the group is focused on school programs, that they feel are X-rated.

00:05:42,130 Alexis: It’s just absolute vulgarity, pornographic. They have bestiality, sodomy, incest, all kinds of perversion, and it’s just inappropriate for schools.

00:05:58,143 VO: -The police came in force as the doors open, since recent meetings have been eventful. Parents, like Alexis Spiegelman are convinced that the school has become a place of indoctrination driven by the proponents of Marxist conspiracy.

00:06:13,190 Alexis: Just go look up the 45 goals of Communism. It was entered into the Congressional Record in like 1973 or is it 63? But they took over school boards, took over both political parties, took over the news, started dividing the family, making promiscuity and sexual perversion normal. Every single thing that you see there is happening right now.

00:06:42,180 VO: -The meeting begins in a very solemn way, but very quickly, the atmosphere becomes stormy.

00:06:47,210 Heckler: That’s all you do is walk out when asked for answers, because you don’t have any.

00:06:59,220 VO: -The members of the board are subjected to repeated assaults from the parents, who end up saying an Our Father aloud.

00:07:06,010 Parents recite Lord’s Prayer.

00:07:18,230 School board member: The warning has been given twice. If it’s disrupted one more time, I will clear the room.

00:07:27,160 VO: -The meeting is suspended. But the Moms for Liberty don't intend to stop there.

00:07:35,040 Man: In a worst case scenario, we all have guns, it’s America.

Alexis: We have our Second Amendment.

Man: We’re kidding, but we do.

Woman: We have the right to petition our government and we’re not going anywhere.

00:07:47,811 VO: -These more and more widespread comments are causing some concern to teachers in Florida. Back to Brevard County. This is where Erin Dunne lives. She was a music teacher in elementary school before she had to resign because of COVID. She is running for election to the school board. Her positions against HB 1557 have earned her violent attacks.

00:08:14,070 Erin: I was accused of pushing paedophilia into our schools. Which is… completely insane. And so, the idea that those of us who are trying to do our best to make sure all kids are included and all families are represented, are trying to do something like that is scary.

8’18 Erin Dunne, Music teacher & Brevard school board candidate

00:08:36,940 VO: -This created a heavy atmosphere in the classrooms. Teachers have to navigate a law so vague they don't even know what they have a right to talk about.

00:08:46,210 Erin: I know teachers who have taken pictures off their desks of their families, because they are afraid that children will ask them about their families. And if they’re in a gay relationship, when they answer students’ questions, especially in the younger grades, some students may go back to their parents and talk about what was being discussed.

00:09:09,900 VO: -Parents who want to be in control on what is said in school.

00:09:16,010 Erin: We have parents who should make sure their students are successful, should work with teachers, should ask questions. Teachers should be reaching back out to our families. So when it works, it’s like magic. When it works, it’s exactly what we need our schools to be. But when we have a small group trying to push their agenda, and trying to change our curriculum, and trying to leave certain students out of the equation, that’s where we have a huge problem.

00:09:46,902 VO: -But some parents decided to fight back to give independence back to the schools. Kim Hough, mother of two, opposes HB 1557. She also entered the school board election battle. In today's atmosphere, it almost feels like going to war.

00:10:08:12 Kim: I have stepped into this thinking that I have to defend from warring parents against our public education. And that’s why this has become so competitive, or so like you’re trying to get people to vote for you like you’re going to be a member of Congress.

Kim to a neighbour: I’m running for school board.

10’14 Kim Hough, Brevard school board candidate

00:10:30,510 VO: -Her position is simple: trusting the teachers in public schools.

00:10:35,200 Kim: I think politicians are making decisions based on politics rather than what’s really happening in our schools. Nobody is telling a child that they should change their gender. Nobody is telling a child that maybe they should be gay. And nobody is indoctrinating children to hate this country.

00:11:01,558 VO: -A message that opponents of HB 1557 want to be heard. Today in Brevard, the mood is festive and the message could not be clearer.

00:11:16,140 Drag queen: We say gay! We say gay!

00:11:27,550 VO: -This demonstration is organized to denounce HB 1557, that would threaten the rights of LGBT persons. Jabari Hosey is the founder of Families for a Safe School. He created the group in response to the conservative positions taken in Florida.

00:11:44,070 Jabari: Our schools are a little bit at risk. At risk of discrimination, there’s a risk with this ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill that puts kids in a mental state that could be dangerous. Yeah, so we want to make sure kids, and their families, and staff, are protected.

11’49 Jabari Hosey, President, Families for a Safe School

00:12:02,522 VO: -Here, they don't believe in the governor's good faith, even as he claims to protect the children. Students or teachers describe a different reality: the law would like to erase everything that is not heterosexual.

00:12:26,050 River: A lot of people do not understand the difference between acknowledging identity and teaching sex. Our teachers are not teaching sex in primary grades. But to acknowledge that a child has two dads or a child has two moms, or a child feels that they are a member of the LGBT community, is enough to get them in a lot of trouble right now, because parents equate that with teaching sex, which it is not.

12’33 River Cloum, Teacher

00:12:56,393 VO: -With the mid-term elections at the end of the year, the war for books will intensify. A war that will leave lasting traces on American culture.

13’10 Credits:

Aviva Fried
Christèle Jaime
Gabriela Ackermann
Pierre Bader