Lots of comments in this thread talking about how books aren't being banned, just removed from school libraries, or we're just trying to control the sexual content taught to our kids. No, the books aren't banned. You can still find them in bookstores.
One political party is removing access to books. They're doing it in the easiest place they can. They will never come for you because you have money and are an adult.
But this is fascism and the people in the thread who are defending it are cool with fascism. They like it because it hurts people they don't like. They will defend fascism with their lives, and many of the people you work with are these people.
Both political parties are removing access to books. When this book is widely available in local bookstores and presented in schools whenever other material related to minority sexual and gender identity is discussed, I will gladly change my mind.
https://www.amazon.com/Irreversible-Damage-Transgender-Seduc...
Everybody is a fascist who doesn't want their kids to learn that it's OK to be born different or to learn foundational science that conflicts with their religious dogma. This is different from challenging me about my favorite color.
The irony here is that my university quietly "delisted" a bunch of books from far-right extremists (Ann Coulter, Bill Oreilly, Jordan Peterson) but then launched protests over banned books in schools.
I had a discussion about it with the school librarian.
But I just went to their online catalogue to confirm if that's still the case - of all the authors mentioned, I could only find a single copy of a Jordan Peterson book in a psychology library at a satellite campus. Interestingly, they have a dozen books about Jordan Peterson (both pro and anti, interestingly enough).
Although it's worth pointing out that the article only considered external acts as "banning". Actions of librarians to maintain their collections are not considered censorship and are not publicly tracked anyway.
History curriculum is routinely modified to match the modern ethics. They don't call this banning, but it really is. Out with an old version, in with a new.
Book bans just feel silly and antiquated in the age of the Internet. If kids want to read something, they can get it on their phones—that and probably much worse than anything that would ever end up in any school library.
I feel like banned books act as a litmus test for the broader political and social landscape. If a group were successful in banning works on, say, critical race theory, it might both be a signifier that the broader cultural tolerances are shifting, or if unsuccessful, that there's an eager audience with a clear 'perspective' that can be targetted by politicians.
At the very least, it seems like a punching bag or soap-box for those pushing their own agendas.
There _already_ is and has ben censorship of books in schools for decades upon decades....adult sex novels are not included in the average school library and for good reason, and thats exactly what this is about as well, as you point out.
I'd like a bit more differentiated discussion on this - does LGBTQ actually mean sexual topics or does it include a book where having same-sex parents is shown as normal? From skimming the article that wasn't quite clear to me.
The latter. There's an entirely different category for sexual content. If you look at the bar chart, you'll see that these bans are predominantly targeting books that have LGBTQ characters. And books that have non-white characters.
I think the debate is not whether same-sex parents are depicted, but when they openly manifest their sexuality towards each other (like kissing) - some parents object to this.
No, this is just parents who are afraid of their personal worldview being challenged by their own kids (oh the insolence!).
Nobody came to these parents to tell them "your kid should not be reading X". If parents don't trust/like the curriculum of their local school, AFAIK homeschooling is still an option in the US.
Ah yes, the slipper slope. Let's be honest, librarians and educators have a ton of power and no oversight in indoctrinating children into the views that they want. Now that parents are challenging them, all of sudden, PEN America believes that parents should have no say on the material their kids read.
It's not a slippery slope. That is literally what you are advocating. The same parents who don't want their children to know what Ruby Bridges went through or that gay people exist also don't want their children to learn about evolution.
Why is it that many of the same people complaining about having their speech suppressed online are also pushing to suppress speech in the library? If we must allow all views to be expressed online, regardless of how abhorrent they are, mustn't we also permit all views to be expressed at the library? Online content managers really have no control over how old the consumers of their content are, for all we know, it's kids consuming the racist content online.
At the end of the day, those who fight for "free speech" are really fighting to control which speech is free and which isn't.
Author John Green said it best in a reaction regarding his first novel, Looking for Alaska being targeted for a ban[0]:
> There's this surreality of the organization in question being called "Moms for Liberty" when what they're trying to do is restrict the liberty of other people's kids to read what librarians and teachers deem appropriate for those other people's kids to read
> Surely you don't think anything goes in a children's library?
Children's libraries are curated by librarians and teachers. There's never been a point in history where "anything goes" in a children's library.
And the internet is not for children? That's my point, social media is targeted at kids. Why is it that people scream "free speech" when hateful content is banned online while at the same calling for the banning of books? They're mad that they can't say whatever they want while simultaneously feeling that other people shouldn't.
>The nerve of those people, wanting a say in their children's education.
But they're making a say in my child's education also. Let parents opt their children out of checking books out. Don't ban my kid from reading them too.
I don't want my kids being influenced by hateful content that proliferates on social media. Why is my support for banning hate speech online wrong while banning books in libraries is OK? "Think of the children" only gets thrown around in a school context but kids are some of the biggest users of social media.
Parents can opt their own children out of reading material that conflicts with their beliefs. The issue is that those same parents don't want ANY children reading those books.
> So what makes this different?
You're seriously comparing the banning of books from libraries to kidnapping and brainwashing kids? Nobody is trying to "genocide a culture" here, people just want to have their own views represented and are being denied. That is an absurd comparison to make.
Your article doesn't say that Alameda County banned Gone with the Wind. Alameda County has multiple school districts within it. Which one are you claiming banned the book, and where is the evidence?
I'll be honest. I'm really struggling to charitably interpret the reasons behind why a person might choose to flag this particular post. The article is well researched and contains a potential reading list, for those interested.
To dang et al part of moderation/admin - Does this post really not meet HN guidelines?
Also as a suggestion, whenever a person might choose to flag a post, it would help if there were a drop down menu that listed some options like "Flag it for...<insert frequent reason>", that might indicate to the OP on what the perceived transgression might be; without revealing the name of the flagger, of course.
At the time of writing there is just "flag" or "unflag", which lacks nuance.
It's been ~24 hours, the flagged status hasn't been lifted, and I'm none the wiser on why.
Huckleberry Finn? Anarchist's Cookbook? are we arguing over which books should be banned or that no books should be banned? 'cuz I'm on the "no bans" side, myself. Seems to be the less common position.
Books that are actually banned aren't in school libraries, reading lists, and Amazon won't carry them [1]. But the temptation to feel like a rebel for buying a "banned book", prominently advertised in a large corporate chain bookstore, is just too great.
That is when they're not accusing free speech of being a white supremacist value.
So... this is not a new thing. Schools have always been filtering books in libraries for age appropriateness since forever. My school libraries growing up never had Kama Sutra or Mein Kampf (probably for good reasons).
I don't know what part of the "movement" is growing - is it that more books are being filtered than before, there are more books to sort through but the same ratio is being ratio, or there is just more outside attention on the process?
The page addresses how this is different than filtering books for appropriateness:
> It is important to recognize that books available in schools, whether in a school or classroom library, or as part of a curriculum, were selected by librarians and educators as part of the educational offerings to students. Book bans occur when those choices are overridden by school boards, administrators, teachers, or even politicians, on the basis of a particular book’s content.
I see the words "trauma" "weird" "wrong" "disgusting" "sexually" and others in the many replies below, at the same time as multiple downvotes for saying this directly..
I'm also flabbergasted by that. This movement to ban books is just the pendulum swinging in the other direction, because it was moved too far up to the other side.
Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. This is the good fascism we've been looking for. That durn pendulum of freedom has swung too far in the direction of the gays and the crossdressers. We have to ban books to fix it!
At some point freedom just becomes hedonism. Eventually hedonism starts to enforce hedonistic mantras on the whole society, it becomes yet another flavor of fascism.
Schools are taxpayer run and can't provide every single book. So how do we decided which books are taught? Seems up to elected officials, school boards etc?
One political party is removing access to books. They're doing it in the easiest place they can. They will never come for you because you have money and are an adult.
But this is fascism and the people in the thread who are defending it are cool with fascism. They like it because it hurts people they don't like. They will defend fascism with their lives, and many of the people you work with are these people.