Moms for Liberty, a group devoted to keeping children from reading books they fear could lead to them understanding the concept of irony, are clutching their collective pearls again — and this time it’s not because someone else’s kid found out that gay people exist!
After a week of bad publicity over the fact that two of their members were caught posing with a bunch of Proud Boys doing White Power hand gestures, the Moms Against Childhood Literacy are hoping to pick up some goodwill by sounding the alarm that a Black man is out to get them.
That Black man? LeVar Burton, the host of Reading Rainbow who is pretty much tied with Dolly Parton for most universally beloved human in the entire United States, if not the world.
So what did Burton do to upset them so? He opened the National Book Awards with a joke.
“Before we get going, are there any Moms for Liberty in the house?” he asked. “No? Good. Then hands will not need to be thrown tonight.”
Now, no one in their right mind would hear that and legitimately believe that Geordi LaForge was legitimately gonna go and beat up a bunch of Talbots-clad Stepford Wives just because they hate books, right? Alas, “not getting jokes” is a known side effect of not reading anything but the Bible and Kirk Cameron children’s books.
“American moms weep as a childhood favorite, Reading Rainbow, calls for physical attacks against us because we are protecting the innocence of our children,” the saccharine censorship enthusiasts wrote on social media. “LeVar Burton, why have you sunk so low? Threatening physical violence against women?”
Yes, surely that will make people forget all about this:
Not to mention that time they “accidentally” quoted Hitler, quite approvingly, in one of their newsletters. As if “He who OWNS the youth GAINS the future” would not be a creepy thing to say even if it weren’t a quote from Hitler. Imagine going around talking about “groomers” while also talking about how you want to OWN everyone else’s children so you can control the future.
Truly, this is a wasted opportunity. One might think that being so awful that LeVar Burton of all people is coming for you might be something of a wakeup call. Unfortunately the Moms did not see it that way and neither did their weird followers, who immediately started claiming that LeVar Burton is a “groomer” who wants all of the children to see “porn.” (Porn is what they call books that mention LGBTQ+ people.)
As much as I may or may not have had recurring nightmares my whole life about the diner Burton went to where everyone was a terrifying goat person and everything on the menu was literal trash, I think I can say pretty confidently that LeVar Burton does not want to harm any children or even beat up a bunch of ladies just because they hate books.
