FIGHTING BACK – OVERNIGHT:  Each day brings more examples of our side fighting back against the dictatorial mentality of the WOKE crowd.  We take special pride when students lead the way.  From College Fix: 

Two authors of “canceled” books are calling on young Americans to combat today’s hyper-politicization and intellectual censorship, suggesting the censorship trend is akin to “modern day book burning.”

Abigail Shrier, journalist and author of “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” denounced today’s cancel culture and pessimism as “not American” in a recent talk to Yale University students.

“This generation needs an injection of optimism,” she said during a webinar hosted by the William F. Buckley Jr. Program at Yale.

“They need to know that they can confront ideas they disagree with, too. They’ll be okay. But this whole cowering … is really quite pathetic, and it’s not American,” Shrier said.

Ryan Anderson, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and author of “When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment,” echoed similar sentiments as a fellow speaker at the event, titled “Modern Day Book Burning: The New Digital Censorship.”

“Maybe we’re right, maybe we’re wrong. The only way that you’re gonna show us that we’re wrong, though, is by actually engaging the substance of the book. Not delisting us, that doesn’t persuade either of us,” Anderson said.

“If you’re gonna persuade people that we’re wrong, you actually have to make a substantive argument.”

Anderson’s and Shrier’s books were published in 2018 and 2020, respectively. Both critiqued the transgender movement and its effect on individuals, especially children.

Less than six months after publication, Target stopped selling Shrier’s book in response to two Twitter complaints. Anderson’s book was removed from Amazon two months ago.

The two authors criticized higher education in particular for its lack of intellectual diversity.
“The whole point of a liberal education is to liberate you from preconceived opinion. It would be liberating, this form of education, because you would hear lots of different viewpoints,” Anderson said.

“There’s something about the approach to modern day book burning in which it seems like, ‘Well, why would anyone wanna buy this book except for people who agree with it?’ There’s a vision of what books are all about, and what reading is about, and what education is about, that looks much more to me like indoctrination,” he said.

College campuses have been criticized in recent years for their lack of open political diversity. Conservative students in particular have complained about free speech violations and the perceived need to “self-censor” their opinions.

“The young people today need to take [this] back. They need to take back the ability to explore ideas and have friendship and conversation even with people they share nothing in common with,” Shrier said.

COMMENT:   Read the rest.  Situation critical.   The cancel culture extends down to elementary school, but the backlash is in full swing.  Local elections are toppling school board members who advance the woke philosophy, especially Critical Race Theory.  Companies that went full woke are unwoking themselves in the face of public protest.  Even a columnist at the very woke New York Times braved a column challenging critical race theory.

There is hope.

May 3 2021