Just before he set off for a two week vacation in Central and South America, Governor Gavin Newsom decided to take a jab at red states by taking and tweeting a photo of him reading books that have been banned by those states. In the picture, Newsom was reading Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” which has been banned in some schools due to its graphic nature. In the stack of books next to him was “To Kill a Mockingbird”, “1984”, and “Maus”. However, many noticed that one of those books has been banned in a California school.
“To Kill a Mockingbird” was recently banned in September 2020 by Burbank Unified School District in Los Angeles. It wasn’t just “To Kill a Mockingbird” that was banned by that district, also banned were “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, “Of Mice and Men”, “The Cay”, and “Roll My Thunder, Hear My Cry”. The district banned the books after complaints from Black parents over racial slurs in those books. The move was heavily opposed by groups like PEN America, who gathered 890 signatures to reverse the ban.
After the tweet by Newsom, many criticized his photo since it included a book banned in his state. Christina Pushaw, Press Secretary to Florida Governor Ron Desantis, tweeted out a criticism of Newsom, “The woke progressives in California (Newsom voters) banned To Kill A Mockingbird for “anti racism” purposes”. Newsmax host and lawyer Jenna Ellis tweeted, “This is more poorly staged than the Oscars.”
Instead of trying to score political points on twitter, Newsom should be working to fix the number of problems that have plagued the state since his election.
Photo Cred: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
