Was Amanda Gorman actually banned in Miami Lakes?

Tom Tordillo
2 min readMay 24, 2023

To protect America from the “Wokeness Cancellation Crisis,” some Florida parent may have filed forms banning Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb” from a Florida school.

Or did they ban something else by Oprah Winfrey?

The Miami Herald credits this work of civic duty to “Daily Salinas,” a parent of two students at Bob Graham Education Center in Miami Lakes, Florida.

In an interview with the Herald on Monday, Salinas said she “is not for eliminating or censoring any books.” Instead, she wants materials to be appropriate and for students “to know the truth” about Cuba, she said in Spanish

Sommer Brugal, “Miami-Dade K-8 bars elementary students from 4 library titles following parent complaint,” Miami Herald (May 23, 2023)

My Spanish is pretty limited, but is there a Spanish term for “banning a book” that also means “not banning a book”? Maybe “disappearing” the book, which would avoid a ban, but not like misattributing a book.

More importantly, what is a “hate massage” and why is that in this poem? How did they get their ‘massage’ onto page 12–13?

What’s an indirect massage, anyway? Where do I go to get one?

If a parent believes that a book contains some dangerous, indoctrinating sort of “massage,” do we ban the book “just in case,” or do we send the parent back for “reeducation” until they can pass a basic spelling and grammar test, and THEN let them start banning books?

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Tom Tordillo

Necromancer unleashing zombie hordes from Project Gutenberg to work literary atrocities. Also father/lawyer/commentator/ironic.