Actor and former host of literacy-themed children's television show Reading Rainbow LeVar Burton did not mince words when he spoke out on the wave of book bans that has swept across red states in recent months.
Appearing on The View last Thursday, Burton candidly called the bans of books that discuss race, sexuality and gender "bullsh*t," leading to a conservative uproar over his supposed "blunder."
So Burton immediately spoke out to clarify there was no "blunder," doubling down on his words on The View with a perfect tweet.
See it below.
Burton spoke plainly and eloquently about the book bans on The View, but for conservative media platform The US Sun, the American version of British right-wing tabloid The Sun, all that was heard was Burton's use of an expletive.
The outlet immediately spun a story about Burton's supposed "blunder" that trended for hours on Twitter, and Burton wasn't having it.
He took to Twitter himself to set the record straight, writing:
"I said what I meant and I meant what I said!"
There was far more to Burton's comments on The View than a mere expletive.
The long-running literacy advocate pointedly underlined for the panel what's actually behind conservatives' more than 1,500 book bans between January 2021 and March of this year, nearly all of them targeting books tackling either race or LGBTQ+ issues.
Burton said:
"It's bullsh*t."
"I’ll be absolutely candid and honest. It’s embarrassing that we are banning books in this country; in this culture; in this day and age..."
The bans have often been launched in response to the right-wing outrage over Critical Race Theory, an academic theory pertaining to institutional and structural racism that conservatives claim, without evidence, is being taught in public schools.
Burton addressed this manufactured controversy in his comments, telling The View panel:
“We have this aversion in this country to knowing about our past. And anything that is unpleasant, we don’t want to do deal with."
Burton then repeated his earlier catchphrase about banned books.
"So read the books they’re banning. That’s where the good stuff is."
"If they don’t want you to read it, there’s a reason why."
On Twitter, people loved what Burton had to say and applauded him for doubling down on it.
An overwhelming majority of Americans agree with Burton that book bans are bullsh*t.
A CBS poll in February found 85% of respondents don't agree with banning books "discussing race and criticizing U.S. history, for depicting slavery in the past or more broadly for political ideas they disagree with."
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