Joy Reid just got a painful life-lesson about ‘context’

Give Joy Reid credit for having Tiffany Justice on her show this week. Justice, the co-founder of Moms for Liberty, came on to discuss her group’s activism. Among other things, Justice’s group seeks to remove sexually explicit, pornographic and politically incendiary materials from elementary school libraries. 

Reid, as it turns out, finds this repugnant. She was ready to pounce on Justice as an advocate of book-bans, and to hit her with a list of opposition-research talking points about the group and some of its members and leaders. 

But in the end, Reid got a lot more than she had bargained for. Let’s just say that I seriously doubt she’ll have another guest like Justice on her show any time soon.

Home turf gave Reid what she thought would be the upper-hand. In talking about “banning books,” Justice began by pointing out, correctly, that nothing was being “banned.” One can still go to any bookstore or Amazon, or even to a public library, and find all of these books, perhaps even in a misleadingly labeled “Banned Books” display.

No, what we’re talking about here is keeping out of school libraries, where only children get books, books that are obviously inappropriate for children.

During her segment with Justice, Reid talked about one book, “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” accusing Moms for Liberty of taking quotes from it “out of context” then “demanding the school board remove” it.

Justice’s response turned the entire interview on its head.

“What a tragic story of a young man who’s anally raped by his adult family member, so you have incest, rape, pedophilia,” Justice responded. She added that, among other things, the book’s graphic sex scenes included a strap-on dildo. She then asked Reid the key question: “In what context is a strap-on dildo acceptable for public school?”

It may make readers uncomfortable, but this and similar, even more graphic depictions of sexual activities are contained in books currently being marketed to elementary school libraries — and vigorously defended by liberals.

Mind you, some of these liberals may not even be aware of exactly how awful the material is that they are defending. That’s because, when the excuse of “context” is brought up as a justification, it is usually in a cable-news bubble world where everyone on the panel agrees. No one challenges it with facts. That’s what makes this episode of Reid’s show stand out.

Many school boards have expressed outrage and even silenced parents for reading graphic passages from the book “Gender Queer” at public meetings, even though these same school boards insist on giving children access to the very smut they are objecting to. In so doing, they repeatedly make the point on behalf of Moms for Liberty, and of any other parent who recognizes the obvious. 

In this case, Reid hilariously even decided that the material in this book, which she wants to put in front of young children, is too offensive to be posted on her show’s Twitter account. “In what context is a XXXX-XX XXXXX acceptable for public school?” read her self-censored tweet promoting the segment.

By replacing the offending words with X’s, Reid’s team is essentially admitting that its adult audience would be uncomfortable upon hearing this book’s content. This highlights what is obvious to most sentient beings: Children should not be reading about incestuous anal rape and strap-on dildos in their school libraries.

The deliberate exposure of children to pornographic materials is certainly not education. It fits some definitions of child sexual abuse.

In arguing the case against groups like Moms for Liberty, progressives are forced to avoid mentioning what that group is trying to keep out of children’s hands. But Reid walked right into that buzzsaw.

By refusing even to write out an accurate description of what’s in this book on Twitter (which barely even has rules against sexually explicit content), Reid has only made the case once again that there is no context where the sexually explicit writings of adults are appropriate for children.

And she made the case in the most powerful way possible: She did it unwittingly.

Derek Hunter is host of the Derek Hunter Podcast and a former staffer for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.).