Color me one disgusted lesbian, retired journalist and former librarian. Between gender ideology, this completely age-inappropriate content and other disgusting culture captures/indoctrinations of TQIA++ two-spirited narcissists, I want to vomit every time I see the alphabet acronym that allegedly -- and wrongly -- includes me and other gay people who are likewise opposed. I swear, I'm developing externalized homophobia.
What is WRONG with these people? Do they care only for their own ideological agenda? (That's rhetorical.)
And one more thing: the books being defended are crappy-quality propaganda, not decent-quality fiction. You'll hear references to LGBTQ "themed" books, as if LGBTQ is a "theme." Is it also a motif? A metaphor? A mood?
In my view, the problem is mainly well-meaning straight progressives -- from Biden on down -- who have aligned themselves with a small number of radical trans activists in obeisance to woke ideology and its mantra of "inclusivity." It seems they've never thought carefully about what homosexuality is, so it's all of a piece to them when "gender identity" is strategically teamed with the historical gay rights movement by gender ideologues.
Like BIPOC as regards race, LGBTQIA +++ is a tidy way of saying, "there's us, and then everyone else but us." Really disheartening, and a bit insulting if you're a gay person, or a racial minority, as they, too, are not all of a piece. Radical trans activists are so small a number that they could never have made the inroads they have without recruiting unthinking straight progressives to their cause.
Maybe it could be an ice cream flavor (served exclusively in a waffle cone) for the genderfluid, who -- according to the people who somehow take this seriously -- possess "a non-fixed gender identity that shifts over time or depending on the situation."
This is actually a much bigger problem than people realize. Frequently the books that are getting "banned" are actually written at a much lower reading level. This means they get listed to go in libraries and areas of the library that serve younger clients than would normally get books with the challenged content.
Second language matters. There are lots of books that are fun, but teachers do not utilize in schools because students can pick up bad writing habits from them. I would say this is another complexity as many of the books challenged could be better challenged on writing quality, especially given we are going through a literacy instruction crisis in public schools across the country. Well written texts are essential for functional literacy.
When I was in college, I had a gay friend who was determined to introduce me to a lot of gay literature. So, he gave me two books which I remember vividly: 'Torch Song Trilogy' and 'Last Summer at Blue Fish Cove.' I read them, and they were quite good. Not real resonate for me, but good books, and I am glad I read them. But note, we were in college! Why try to get explicit books into young hands? It does gays no favor.
The ALA's claim that so many books are banned/censored is certainly an interesting take. Curation is a necessary feature of libraries, particularly school libraries. There are a lot of books that are unavailable while there is abundant availability of books that promote one view of a controversial topic.
In my local library I cannot find any copies of Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan, Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy or Batya Ungar Sargon's Second Class (not even on-order). At the same time there are many copies of White Rural Rage and the books named in this article. I understand that not everything can be purchased in quantities that meet the entire systems need, but the recurrent discourse over book availability is one we need to examine more thoughtfully.
Libraries do not have infinite resources, but to say that something is banned when it is available in the system is untrue. Instead of talking about the ALA bans, let's talk about what happens when you cannot get the book at all, through Marina, through Inter-Library Loans, through state exchange consortiums, or through the LOC. Only then would a book be truly "Banned".
The left's definition of banning books is keeping sexual material away from kids. Meanwhile, they keep conservative literature out of libraries. In their utopia, the only books kids read are "Gender Queer" and "The Little Red Book" so that they become Red Guards: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/struggle-session-parody-3bodyproblem-harvard
"In my local library I cannot find any copies of Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan, Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy or Batya Ungar Sargon's Second Class (not even on-order). At the same time there are many copies of White Rural Rage and the books named in this article"
RHGB: I wonder if we share the same library! In my library and its sister-sites (are we allowed to say that?), I have access to 30 some-odd versions of Ibram X Kendi’s books, and last I checked, ONE copy of Coleman Hughes’ recent release on the concept of being colorblind. Same kind of imbalance when I look at Robin D’Angelo vs Abigail Shrier. Clearly these libraries are choosing what is on their shelves. Are they willing to admit their actions closely resemble what they describe as book banning?
This is an excellent point. It's not so much about book banning, it's about book availability. I remember trying to check out a copy of Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist about 18 months after it came out. I was living in a city of over 700,000 people with over 12 branch libraries. In the entire system, we had ONE copy of Lomborg's book, which The Economist had said was the most important book of the year.
EXACTLY! I belonged to a book club at my local library. After "White Fragility", a Ta-Nehisi Coates book, an Ibram X. Kendi book and another whose author slips my mind all within a six month period, I suggested we may want to read books that offered an opposing perspective otherwise it was little more than indoctrination. The response was that those were all best sellers and the library was trying to provide access to those. I suggested maybe we could read "Maverick" by Jason Riley or "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele or, heck, even Candace Owens book if the only criteria was it be a best seller either by a black person! Of course, I was turned down and promptly quit the book club that I had been attending for more than a decade. All of the members were middle aged or middle aged + white women and a couple of white men. I've tried finding the book, "Start up Nation" about Israel...not there. Tried a number of best selling books by conservatives over the last 6 months...also not there and not on order. It's exhausting and disheartening.
And now my library wants $35MILLION to renovate, just the BRANCH, not the network, primarily to expand meeting space. It’s absurd, and I will be at the public meeting to say so.
Maybe. I have access to three systems and look across them all (digital+audio+physical); the one closest to me did not have the books I mentioned, but I was able to get all but Second Class through ILL.
System 1-5 copies for Coleman, 36+(6 Español) Kendi (How to be antiracist)- 500,000 patrons
System 2-12 copies for Coleman, 57+(7 Español) Kendi- 750,000 patrons
System 3-0 copies for Coleman, 50 for HtbA by Kendi- 250,000 patrons
Former high school English teacher here. Not at all surprising that the ALA is manipulating data in order to stay relevant. Public libraries - at least those here in Chicago - have become mostly after-school babysitting centers and/or homeless person internet and bathroom access points. But it's a little surprising that anyone would be so blinded by progressive ideology that they would defend putting a book with illustrations of oral sex in the YA section of a school library. Wow. But The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? And Gone With the Wind? They've gotta go.
Why the determination to get graphic sexual content to kids so young? Are adults to provide no boundaries? I would prefer not to have Playboy magazine in the school library, but that's not 'banning' Playboy. Every year, I look over the summer reading list the schools publish for my children, and without fail, they are stories that represent the two obsessions of the teachers: racism, and bullying. That they have an agenda when picking books is beyond doubt, but are they that determined to include graphic sexual content?
Progressive teachers' obsession with identity is one of the reasons why I quit teaching. Unsurprisingly, with younger teachers, ideological obsession is inversely proportional to the amount of books they actually read themselves. In my former English department, none of the teachers under 35 had "heard of" Margaret Atwood or Cormac McCarthy. But they sure knew Robin DiAngelo.
There is a guy called Billboard Chris on YouTube. He goes to a park or a college campus, some public place, wearing one of those sandwich board signs that says "Children Can Not Consent To Puberty Blockers". Gets attacked, verbally and physically, a lot. But never fails to try to engage in open conversation.
During one of those conversations, the man he was talking to said "Children are sexual." I am 60, and the only people I have ever heard make that statement were guys from NAMBLA, and now this guy (assuming he's not a guy from NAMBLA). Sexualizing children seems to be one of the goals of the revolution.
Interesting. I recall talking to a friend of mine that is a lawyer, and gay, who took exception to the term 'marriage equality' during the debates about gay marriage. By his read, marriage was already equal and based on a three part test. You could marry anyone you wanted, he said, if a) you were not already married, b) the person you were to marry was the opposite sex, and c) the person you were to marry was of the age of consent. We have now removed the b requirement, but there are surely plenty of people who are fully for getting rid of the a and c parts. If you were interested in a legal relationship with a child, you might first try to get that child interested and adopted to sexual thoughts and patterns. Impossible to ever happen? Well, I'm also 60 and am regularly amazed the things that quickly become normalized in our culture. Who thought back in the dark days of, say, 1980 that in a few decades, it would be perfectly acceptable to allow fully intact men to both compete in women's sports, but also to share their locker rooms? A sitting Supreme Court Justice has stated she can't define what a women is. Marrying a 12 year old? Not impossible to imagine at all.
The Left tries to make content it doesn't like unavailable to anyone anywhere at any price.
The Right doesn't want tax dollars to be used to force feed toxic propaganda to children.
The two are not the same.
What the Lefties call "banned books" are prominently displayed in "Banned Books" sections in bookstores, for Pete's sake.
Also, why is it that whenever a parent tries to read from a "banned book" at a school board meeting, the Lefty organizers stop the parent and accuse the parent of inappropriate content?
Everyone involved in the production of these lists is most likely a Democrat. Should that matter?
If they were all white, it would matter. If they were all male, it would matter. If they were all Jews or all Christians, it would matter. But it never seems to matter when they are all Democrats.
Here's the full text from ALA's Methodology section for their list. The full text doesn't make it any better or worse, in my opinion, but in cases like this I think it's helpful to get the full text of things rather than rely on someone else's summary:
Methodology
ALA compiles data on book challenges from reports filed by library professionals in the field and from news stories published throughout the United States. Because many book challenges are not reported to ALA or covered by the press, the data compiled by ALA represents a snapshot of book censorship.
A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict access to materials or services based upon the objections of a person or group. A challenge to a title may result in access to it being retained, restricted, or withdrawn entirely. Restrictions on access may include relocating the book to a section of the library intended for an older age group than the book is intended for, labeling it with a prejudicial content warning or rating, taking it out of the online catalog so it has to be requested from a staff member, removing it from open and freely browsable stacks, or requiring parental permission to check it out.
Challenges do not simply involve people expressing their point of view, but rather are an attempt to remove materials from curricula or libraries, thereby curtailing the ability of others to access information, views, ideas, expressions, and stories. A formal challenge leads to the reconsideration of the decision to purchase the material or offer the service. This process is governed by a board-approved policy and includes review of the material as a whole to assess if it is aligned with the library or school's mission and meets the criteria delineated in its selection, display, or programming policy (as applicable).
A book is banned when it is entirely removed from a collection in response to a formal or informal challenge.
Any reduction in access to library materials based on an individual or group's believe that they are harmful or offensive is an act of censorship. ALA does not consider weeding of an item based on criteria defined in a library or school district's policy to be a ban, nor do we characterize a temporary reduction in access resulting from the need to review materials to be a ban.
One possibly-relevant factor in what gets reported (since librarians do the reporting): apparently Library "Science" programs were early-adopters of the woke worldview.
That's fair, but most of these books have NOT been removed entirely from the libraries. They are included in some listings of banned books even when they have merely been age restricted. In some cases, the mere fact that they have been challenged gets them on the list, even if ultimately they stayed on the shelf.
True. But the author listed “removing the book entirely” as one of the “things that people are calling a ban.” The way it was worded, it seemed he was implying that the things on the list were not actual bans, just things that people were calling bans. The thrust of the article seemed to be that people were saying that books were being banned, but they really weren’t. And then he goes and includes “removal of the book” on his list of “things people are calling bans”, without noting that this is, in fact, a ban. I expected the list to be followed by a sentence like “only the third thing is an actual ban.” It wasn’t.
Your right Me. It seems that the article is pointing out how the ALA conflates things to inflate numbers to their liking. Then, sadly, the author goes on to do the same thing....
When I was young we had health classes in order to alert us to the danger of ending up with throat cancer. Now we have people wanting to protect a book that teaches kids how to catch it.
I'm really glad to see this. I've been complaining about this dishonest and stupid "banned books" thing for years. Oh wait: dishonest, stupid, and hypocritical, and repellently self-righteous. I refer to their "Banned Books Week" as "Librarians Hate It When You Question Their Judgment Week".
The echo chamber persists - going to B&N and seeing a section labeled Banned Books infuriates me. The sad truth is that many who hollar and scream don’t know the full gist of the story. Uninformed masses inculcated by the thought police.
Age appropriate is necessary. Thank God I had a mother who opted out when I was in school. The context meant more when I was old enough to have a fully functioning frontal cortex.
First off, always check if they have a copy of Fahrenheit 451. If they don't then ask why. If they say it is inappropriate, then the school library definitely has a problem with banning books. If you don't know why, read it and research its history.
"It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick... Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics."
"But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them.'”
‘Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.'”
WSJ ran an article boosting the ALA's propaganda as news and I cancelled my subscription. I've read enough dishonest 'news' like that for a lifetime over the last decade. It's a stunning display of dishonesty to claim these books are being moved from one place to another due to identity politics. These idealogues have captured institutions with zero credibility: academia, NGOs, Hollywood, the DNC, federal bureaucracy... They may have salaries & benefits to leech, but zero social capital.
Color me one disgusted lesbian, retired journalist and former librarian. Between gender ideology, this completely age-inappropriate content and other disgusting culture captures/indoctrinations of TQIA++ two-spirited narcissists, I want to vomit every time I see the alphabet acronym that allegedly -- and wrongly -- includes me and other gay people who are likewise opposed. I swear, I'm developing externalized homophobia.
What is WRONG with these people? Do they care only for their own ideological agenda? (That's rhetorical.)
And one more thing: the books being defended are crappy-quality propaganda, not decent-quality fiction. You'll hear references to LGBTQ "themed" books, as if LGBTQ is a "theme." Is it also a motif? A metaphor? A mood?
In my view, the problem is mainly well-meaning straight progressives -- from Biden on down -- who have aligned themselves with a small number of radical trans activists in obeisance to woke ideology and its mantra of "inclusivity." It seems they've never thought carefully about what homosexuality is, so it's all of a piece to them when "gender identity" is strategically teamed with the historical gay rights movement by gender ideologues.
Like BIPOC as regards race, LGBTQIA +++ is a tidy way of saying, "there's us, and then everyone else but us." Really disheartening, and a bit insulting if you're a gay person, or a racial minority, as they, too, are not all of a piece. Radical trans activists are so small a number that they could never have made the inroads they have without recruiting unthinking straight progressives to their cause.
Maybe it could be an ice cream flavor (served exclusively in a waffle cone) for the genderfluid, who -- according to the people who somehow take this seriously -- possess "a non-fixed gender identity that shifts over time or depending on the situation."
"Maybe it could be an ice cream flavor (served exclusively in a waffle cone) for the genderfluid"
Wonderful.
Glad you enjoyed it! I meant that as a response to the "theme, motif, mood" comment, but it landed lower. Laughter is good.
This is actually a much bigger problem than people realize. Frequently the books that are getting "banned" are actually written at a much lower reading level. This means they get listed to go in libraries and areas of the library that serve younger clients than would normally get books with the challenged content.
Second language matters. There are lots of books that are fun, but teachers do not utilize in schools because students can pick up bad writing habits from them. I would say this is another complexity as many of the books challenged could be better challenged on writing quality, especially given we are going through a literacy instruction crisis in public schools across the country. Well written texts are essential for functional literacy.
When I was in college, I had a gay friend who was determined to introduce me to a lot of gay literature. So, he gave me two books which I remember vividly: 'Torch Song Trilogy' and 'Last Summer at Blue Fish Cove.' I read them, and they were quite good. Not real resonate for me, but good books, and I am glad I read them. But note, we were in college! Why try to get explicit books into young hands? It does gays no favor.
Do they care only for their own ideological agenda?
Yes.
The ALA's claim that so many books are banned/censored is certainly an interesting take. Curation is a necessary feature of libraries, particularly school libraries. There are a lot of books that are unavailable while there is abundant availability of books that promote one view of a controversial topic.
In my local library I cannot find any copies of Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan, Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy or Batya Ungar Sargon's Second Class (not even on-order). At the same time there are many copies of White Rural Rage and the books named in this article. I understand that not everything can be purchased in quantities that meet the entire systems need, but the recurrent discourse over book availability is one we need to examine more thoughtfully.
Libraries do not have infinite resources, but to say that something is banned when it is available in the system is untrue. Instead of talking about the ALA bans, let's talk about what happens when you cannot get the book at all, through Marina, through Inter-Library Loans, through state exchange consortiums, or through the LOC. Only then would a book be truly "Banned".
The left's definition of banning books is keeping sexual material away from kids. Meanwhile, they keep conservative literature out of libraries. In their utopia, the only books kids read are "Gender Queer" and "The Little Red Book" so that they become Red Guards: https://yuribezmenov.substack.com/p/struggle-session-parody-3bodyproblem-harvard
"In my local library I cannot find any copies of Fragile Neighborhoods by Seth Kaplan, Abigail Shrier's Bad Therapy or Batya Ungar Sargon's Second Class (not even on-order). At the same time there are many copies of White Rural Rage and the books named in this article"
Color Me Shocked.
RHGB: I wonder if we share the same library! In my library and its sister-sites (are we allowed to say that?), I have access to 30 some-odd versions of Ibram X Kendi’s books, and last I checked, ONE copy of Coleman Hughes’ recent release on the concept of being colorblind. Same kind of imbalance when I look at Robin D’Angelo vs Abigail Shrier. Clearly these libraries are choosing what is on their shelves. Are they willing to admit their actions closely resemble what they describe as book banning?
This is an excellent point. It's not so much about book banning, it's about book availability. I remember trying to check out a copy of Bjorn Lomborg's The Skeptical Environmentalist about 18 months after it came out. I was living in a city of over 700,000 people with over 12 branch libraries. In the entire system, we had ONE copy of Lomborg's book, which The Economist had said was the most important book of the year.
EXACTLY! I belonged to a book club at my local library. After "White Fragility", a Ta-Nehisi Coates book, an Ibram X. Kendi book and another whose author slips my mind all within a six month period, I suggested we may want to read books that offered an opposing perspective otherwise it was little more than indoctrination. The response was that those were all best sellers and the library was trying to provide access to those. I suggested maybe we could read "Maverick" by Jason Riley or "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele or, heck, even Candace Owens book if the only criteria was it be a best seller either by a black person! Of course, I was turned down and promptly quit the book club that I had been attending for more than a decade. All of the members were middle aged or middle aged + white women and a couple of white men. I've tried finding the book, "Start up Nation" about Israel...not there. Tried a number of best selling books by conservatives over the last 6 months...also not there and not on order. It's exhausting and disheartening.
And now my library wants $35MILLION to renovate, just the BRANCH, not the network, primarily to expand meeting space. It’s absurd, and I will be at the public meeting to say so.
Maybe. I have access to three systems and look across them all (digital+audio+physical); the one closest to me did not have the books I mentioned, but I was able to get all but Second Class through ILL.
System 1-5 copies for Coleman, 36+(6 Español) Kendi (How to be antiracist)- 500,000 patrons
System 2-12 copies for Coleman, 57+(7 Español) Kendi- 750,000 patrons
System 3-0 copies for Coleman, 50 for HtbA by Kendi- 250,000 patrons
Its definitely interesting.
Rating movies is not banning movies. Rating books is not banning books either. Unless you are on the Left.
Former high school English teacher here. Not at all surprising that the ALA is manipulating data in order to stay relevant. Public libraries - at least those here in Chicago - have become mostly after-school babysitting centers and/or homeless person internet and bathroom access points. But it's a little surprising that anyone would be so blinded by progressive ideology that they would defend putting a book with illustrations of oral sex in the YA section of a school library. Wow. But The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn? And Gone With the Wind? They've gotta go.
Why the determination to get graphic sexual content to kids so young? Are adults to provide no boundaries? I would prefer not to have Playboy magazine in the school library, but that's not 'banning' Playboy. Every year, I look over the summer reading list the schools publish for my children, and without fail, they are stories that represent the two obsessions of the teachers: racism, and bullying. That they have an agenda when picking books is beyond doubt, but are they that determined to include graphic sexual content?
Progressive teachers' obsession with identity is one of the reasons why I quit teaching. Unsurprisingly, with younger teachers, ideological obsession is inversely proportional to the amount of books they actually read themselves. In my former English department, none of the teachers under 35 had "heard of" Margaret Atwood or Cormac McCarthy. But they sure knew Robin DiAngelo.
They are the children of year zero, determined to know nothing of the past, good or bad.
There is a guy called Billboard Chris on YouTube. He goes to a park or a college campus, some public place, wearing one of those sandwich board signs that says "Children Can Not Consent To Puberty Blockers". Gets attacked, verbally and physically, a lot. But never fails to try to engage in open conversation.
During one of those conversations, the man he was talking to said "Children are sexual." I am 60, and the only people I have ever heard make that statement were guys from NAMBLA, and now this guy (assuming he's not a guy from NAMBLA). Sexualizing children seems to be one of the goals of the revolution.
Interesting. I recall talking to a friend of mine that is a lawyer, and gay, who took exception to the term 'marriage equality' during the debates about gay marriage. By his read, marriage was already equal and based on a three part test. You could marry anyone you wanted, he said, if a) you were not already married, b) the person you were to marry was the opposite sex, and c) the person you were to marry was of the age of consent. We have now removed the b requirement, but there are surely plenty of people who are fully for getting rid of the a and c parts. If you were interested in a legal relationship with a child, you might first try to get that child interested and adopted to sexual thoughts and patterns. Impossible to ever happen? Well, I'm also 60 and am regularly amazed the things that quickly become normalized in our culture. Who thought back in the dark days of, say, 1980 that in a few decades, it would be perfectly acceptable to allow fully intact men to both compete in women's sports, but also to share their locker rooms? A sitting Supreme Court Justice has stated she can't define what a women is. Marrying a 12 year old? Not impossible to imagine at all.
The Left tries to make content it doesn't like unavailable to anyone anywhere at any price.
The Right doesn't want tax dollars to be used to force feed toxic propaganda to children.
The two are not the same.
What the Lefties call "banned books" are prominently displayed in "Banned Books" sections in bookstores, for Pete's sake.
Also, why is it that whenever a parent tries to read from a "banned book" at a school board meeting, the Lefty organizers stop the parent and accuse the parent of inappropriate content?
For extreme lefties, the only inappropriate content is racist content. Everything else is "affirming" in one way or another.
Also, the definition of "racist" is "not-far-left".
Everyone involved in the production of these lists is most likely a Democrat. Should that matter?
If they were all white, it would matter. If they were all male, it would matter. If they were all Jews or all Christians, it would matter. But it never seems to matter when they are all Democrats.
Death to the Democratic Party of America...!
Here's the full text from ALA's Methodology section for their list. The full text doesn't make it any better or worse, in my opinion, but in cases like this I think it's helpful to get the full text of things rather than rely on someone else's summary:
Methodology
ALA compiles data on book challenges from reports filed by library professionals in the field and from news stories published throughout the United States. Because many book challenges are not reported to ALA or covered by the press, the data compiled by ALA represents a snapshot of book censorship.
A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict access to materials or services based upon the objections of a person or group. A challenge to a title may result in access to it being retained, restricted, or withdrawn entirely. Restrictions on access may include relocating the book to a section of the library intended for an older age group than the book is intended for, labeling it with a prejudicial content warning or rating, taking it out of the online catalog so it has to be requested from a staff member, removing it from open and freely browsable stacks, or requiring parental permission to check it out.
Challenges do not simply involve people expressing their point of view, but rather are an attempt to remove materials from curricula or libraries, thereby curtailing the ability of others to access information, views, ideas, expressions, and stories. A formal challenge leads to the reconsideration of the decision to purchase the material or offer the service. This process is governed by a board-approved policy and includes review of the material as a whole to assess if it is aligned with the library or school's mission and meets the criteria delineated in its selection, display, or programming policy (as applicable).
A book is banned when it is entirely removed from a collection in response to a formal or informal challenge.
Any reduction in access to library materials based on an individual or group's believe that they are harmful or offensive is an act of censorship. ALA does not consider weeding of an item based on criteria defined in a library or school district's policy to be a ban, nor do we characterize a temporary reduction in access resulting from the need to review materials to be a ban.
One possibly-relevant factor in what gets reported (since librarians do the reporting): apparently Library "Science" programs were early-adopters of the woke worldview.
I don’t know, but seems to me that “removing a book entirely from the library” is…a ban. Just me?
That's fair, but most of these books have NOT been removed entirely from the libraries. They are included in some listings of banned books even when they have merely been age restricted. In some cases, the mere fact that they have been challenged gets them on the list, even if ultimately they stayed on the shelf.
True. But the author listed “removing the book entirely” as one of the “things that people are calling a ban.” The way it was worded, it seemed he was implying that the things on the list were not actual bans, just things that people were calling bans. The thrust of the article seemed to be that people were saying that books were being banned, but they really weren’t. And then he goes and includes “removal of the book” on his list of “things people are calling bans”, without noting that this is, in fact, a ban. I expected the list to be followed by a sentence like “only the third thing is an actual ban.” It wasn’t.
Your right Me. It seems that the article is pointing out how the ALA conflates things to inflate numbers to their liking. Then, sadly, the author goes on to do the same thing....
When I was young we had health classes in order to alert us to the danger of ending up with throat cancer. Now we have people wanting to protect a book that teaches kids how to catch it.
I'm really glad to see this. I've been complaining about this dishonest and stupid "banned books" thing for years. Oh wait: dishonest, stupid, and hypocritical, and repellently self-righteous. I refer to their "Banned Books Week" as "Librarians Hate It When You Question Their Judgment Week".
The echo chamber persists - going to B&N and seeing a section labeled Banned Books infuriates me. The sad truth is that many who hollar and scream don’t know the full gist of the story. Uninformed masses inculcated by the thought police.
Age appropriate is necessary. Thank God I had a mother who opted out when I was in school. The context meant more when I was old enough to have a fully functioning frontal cortex.
First off, always check if they have a copy of Fahrenheit 451. If they don't then ask why. If they say it is inappropriate, then the school library definitely has a problem with banning books. If you don't know why, read it and research its history.
"It didn't come from the Government down. There was no dictum, no declaration, no censorship, to start with, no! Technology, mass exploitation, and minority pressure carried the trick... Today, thanks to them, you can stay happy all the time, you are allowed to read comics."
"But you can’t make people listen. They have to come round in their own time, wondering what happened and why the world blew up under them.'”
‘Remember, the firemen are rarely necessary. The public itself stopped reading of its own accord.'”
“A book is a loaded gun."
Its 1958, I want to check out The Untouchables (because of the TV show) from my library. I was to young the librarian told me.
Times have changed.
WSJ ran an article boosting the ALA's propaganda as news and I cancelled my subscription. I've read enough dishonest 'news' like that for a lifetime over the last decade. It's a stunning display of dishonesty to claim these books are being moved from one place to another due to identity politics. These idealogues have captured institutions with zero credibility: academia, NGOs, Hollywood, the DNC, federal bureaucracy... They may have salaries & benefits to leech, but zero social capital.