15 ms·

Book ban attempts reach “unparalleled” 20-year high in 2022

69 points by hn2017 4y ago

pessimizer 4y ago
So definitely a high paralleled 20 years ago.
globalreset 4y ago
> The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to self-appointed book police." Does it belong to people selecting books in these school libraries even when it goes against the wishes of the parents? While no one should be able to censor what book adults can read, the school libraries are tricky. It was easier to have a consensus on what society at large was finding acceptable when the viewpoints in society converged. Now on one had we have parents who things taking their kids to drag shows is open-minded and surgical sex change in kids should be unconditionally supported, on the other we have various religious groups with their own dogmas. What we expose the kids to obviously does have an influence (at least statistically) on what they will think in the future. So there's a big political power in controlling it. So do we just limit everything to subset super-majority finds acceptable?
- stonogo 4y ago
  In what period of time did this convergence of societal viewpoints occur? I think one would have to overlook significant subsets of society at any given time to make that claim.
joemazerino 4y ago
Missing is all the bans for classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which enraged history revisionists with older-language. This article tries to frame the data that the majority of book cancellations were targeting LBGTQ books but forgets to mention the banning of classic literature.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  It's because the majority of book cancellations are targeting LGBTQ books or books talking about issues minorities have to deal with. To Kill a Mockingbird is one book out of hundreds being banned. https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/16/22979747/book-bans-are-the-new-front-in-the-culture-wars-whats-really-going-on-maus-to-kill-a-mockingbird https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/16/22979747/book-bans-are-the... > At first blush, the reports could seem sensational, a narrative driven by political campaigns that could be decided in schools. But the growth in efforts to suppress books is real. Last November, the American Library Association warned of “widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. schools and libraries,” while The New York Times reported that the association received “330 reports of book challenges” — attempts to remove books from library shelves and classroom curricula — last fall. For comparison, the association reported about 240 book challenges in the entire year of 2017. ... > Beyond school board meetings, where parents, students or teachers can voice their concerns, the movement to restrict material has spread to state legislatures. One Texas Republican, Matt Krause, recently released a list of 850 books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Krause asked schools to investigate whether they possessed copies.
  - profeaturo 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - tstrimple 4y ago
      Yes, kids learning about gay people is so traumatizing for them that gay rights must be stripped to protect the children. This is totally a rational line of thought often held by people who in no way are bigoted against LGBT folk.
      - profeaturo 4y ago
        [flagged]
      - LocalH 4y ago
pjfin123 4y ago
> Each attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every person's constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore. I don't think school library book banning is the biggest threat to free speech today; it's mass internet censorship.
- yucky 4y ago
  Exactly, I'm more concerned by the books you can't buy on Amazon than the ones you can't check out in a limited space children's library.
  - saghm 4y ago
    What would you propose as a way to fix censorship of books by Amazon? I can't think of anything other than government regulation in some form, so I'm confused about why the government censoring books in public schools wouldn't be equally concerning.
    - yucky 4y ago
      I wouldn't propose anything, when I want a book that Amazon doesn't sell I still know how to get it. The reason I mentioned it in comparison is a school library has a)limited space and b) children who shouldn't be exposed to everything under the sun at an early age. With Amazon, there is no such excuse.
- localplume 4y ago
  [dead]
londgine 4y ago
I recall reading a similarly titled article about how schools are banning books. It ends up that the school just changed their curriculum, so one book was no longer required reading. I think that book was the Holocaust comic book maus. but I may be mistaken.
mrguyorama 4y ago
The idea that "A kid at school should not be aware of anything their parents don't want them to be aware of" is mind numbingly stupid. How many gay kids have grown up under homophobic parents? How many little girls are told to be subservient to men and know their place? How many kids live in a household that consistently talks about "those thugs" and other clear racism? These kids all exist and it is stupid to think we should allow those kinds of parents to teach these things to the next generation as if you have some god given right to be a bad person just because you had unprotected sex. I would also hate if a school wasn't allowed to talk about the holocaust because a german student's dad felt oppressed, and I also hate that the southern states seem to be hell bent on continuing to spread propaganda about the civil war to keep the lost cause myth alive. Just because a parent THINKS "being gay" is sexually suggestive doesn't mean that it IS. The world is full of black people, trans people, women, gay people, weird people, dumb people, straight people, sad people etc, and it is morally reprehensible to not teach kids to respect them as fellow human beings just to please someone who has a closed mind. Some day little timmy might have to go to work with someone who doesn't fit into your tight knit idea of what a normal person is, and we shouldn't saddle timmy with your poor opinions about who deserves the pursuit of happiness. You either think every human deserves a basic amount of respect and dignity or you don't. We literally had to go to court in this country just to teach kids that evolution is a thing. This is just more of the same.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  >“should not be aware of anything their parents don't want them to be aware of” there’s plenty of things you don’t want kids doing or acting out because they aren’t mature enough yet to know what they’re doing, it’s also OK to disagree on topics of morality, freedom goes both ways
- jstarfish 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - 4y ago
akomtu 4y ago
With these lgbt books bans, people express their vague fear of a dark ideology in the far future that will, in short, put animalistic desires on the pedestal.
- fear_and_coffee 4y ago
  [dead]
lancesells 4y ago
Does anyone have the list of books and examples?
- Khaine 4y ago
  According to the interwebs, here are some examples and the reason people want them banned from grade schools: Gender Queer - has images of kids performing oral sex https://theiowastandard.com/shocking-images-from-book-gender-queer-which-is-stocked-in-school-libraries-across-iowa/ https://theiowastandard.com/shocking-images-from-book-gender... All Boys Aren't Blue - includes sex scenes - https://youtu.be/ag-ByyDXhUQ https://youtu.be/ag-ByyDXhUQ Lawn Boy - includes sex scenes https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/video-sucked-eachothers-ds-mother-reads-sexually-explicit-school-book-board-members/ https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/video-sucked-eachot... This Book Is Gay - a book with sections that teach and advise kids about anal sex, oral sex, and hookup apps https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tampa-school-sex-book/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tampa-school-sex-book/
  - silveroriole 4y ago
    Thank you for posting the content of the actual books. It’s kind of funny to me that people upthread are upset about the ‘blowjob’ scene when the characters involved immediately decide it’s not very exciting after all. Not exactly the hedonistic lgbt recruitment pamphlet they were trying to conjure in the imagination. Maybe telling kids that realistically sex is just a bit weird and gross and boring is more effective than banning it, who knows!
    - Khaine 4y ago
      I think people are concerned that that content is not appropriate for grade school children. I think they would raise the same objections if it wasn't about a same sex couple.
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  There are two different sides fighting. On one you have people arguing against "ABC for LGBTQI" targeted at five year olds. On the other side you have people trying to ban classics such as Tintin and Pippi because they use "old" words or stereotypes.
Khaine 4y ago
I'm less concerned about people wanting to ban sexually explicit books from children^, and more concerned about all the cultural vandals altering authors works (i.e. Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, the goosebumps series). ^ Its an entire meme now of parents reading these books out at school board meetings and being cut off due to the inappropriate nature of the works.
NoZebra120vClip 4y ago
The last time I checked, this pearl-clutching over "book bans" was about books being dropped from library shelves or school reading lists, not from the books actually being prohibited for purchase or reading. Come on, folks, censorship is when you use coercive power to completely prevent access to a resource, not when you curate a list and it doesn't happen to make the cut.
LocalH 4y ago
On a related note, I never understood why people of a certain political persuasion tend to be against any mention of sexuality even towards teenagers. I've seen more than one such person say that "14 or 15 year old people shouldn't be talking about sexuality". Apparently we shouldn't ever be talking to people who have gone through or are going through puberty about sexuality. The whole problem is that people have not properly been taught about sex, because educational institutions have for years, in different areas, been hamstrung (like with all the "abstinence-only" education in areas like the bible belt), and parents aren't the best sexual educators (because on a personal level, they don't want to even think about that sort of thing). Cue the trope of the angry father telling the daughter "you're not dating until you're 30". The vast majority of people over the last 60 years have been taught more from some form of pornography (whether it be the stack of Playboys under Dad's bed, or the teenager screwing with the horizontal and vertical hold on their TV to try to watch Skinemax, to today's young people having access to internet porn). Some of us came out ok, but some people (depending on which porn they learned from) didn't. The problem with education being too centralized, is that it results in a choke point for power grabs and indoctrination, if we're not careful. Perhaps sexual education should be totally independent from the rest of secondary education?
- treeman79 4y ago
  [flagged]
Steven420 4y ago
Unfortunately there are lots of good books that are appropriate for kids being banned along with books that are definitely not appropriate for kids. I remember seeing Maus being banned which I consider to be appropriate for kids

69 points by hn2017 4y ago

So definitely a high paralleled 20 years ago.

> The choice of what to read must be left to the reader or, in the case of children, to parents. That choice does not belong to self-appointed book police." Does it belong to people selecting books in these school libraries even when it goes against the wishes of the parents? While no one should be able to censor what book adults can read, the school libraries are tricky. It was easier to have a consensus on what society at large was finding acceptable when the viewpoints in society converged. Now on one had we have parents who things taking their kids to drag shows is open-minded and surgical sex change in kids should be unconditionally supported, on the other we have various religious groups with their own dogmas. What we expose the kids to obviously does have an influence (at least statistically) on what they will think in the future. So there's a big political power in controlling it. So do we just limit everything to subset super-majority finds acceptable?

stonogo 4y ago
In what period of time did this convergence of societal viewpoints occur? I think one would have to overlook significant subsets of society at any given time to make that claim.

joemazerino 4y ago

Missing is all the bans for classics like "To Kill a Mockingbird" which enraged history revisionists with older-language. This article tries to frame the data that the majority of book cancellations were targeting LBGTQ books but forgets to mention the banning of classic literature.

tstrimple 4y ago
It's because the majority of book cancellations are targeting LGBTQ books or books talking about issues minorities have to deal with. To Kill a Mockingbird is one book out of hundreds being banned. https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/16/22979747/book-bans-are-the-new-front-in-the-culture-wars-whats-really-going-on-maus-to-kill-a-mockingbird https://www.deseret.com/2022/3/16/22979747/book-bans-are-the... > At first blush, the reports could seem sensational, a narrative driven by political campaigns that could be decided in schools. But the growth in efforts to suppress books is real. Last November, the American Library Association warned of “widespread efforts to censor books in U.S. schools and libraries,” while The New York Times reported that the association received “330 reports of book challenges” — attempts to remove books from library shelves and classroom curricula — last fall. For comparison, the association reported about 240 book challenges in the entire year of 2017. ... > Beyond school board meetings, where parents, students or teachers can voice their concerns, the movement to restrict material has spread to state legislatures. One Texas Republican, Matt Krause, recently released a list of 850 books that “might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” Krause asked schools to investigate whether they possessed copies.
- profeaturo 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    Yes, kids learning about gay people is so traumatizing for them that gay rights must be stripped to protect the children. This is totally a rational line of thought often held by people who in no way are bigoted against LGBT folk.
    - profeaturo 4y ago
      [flagged]
    - LocalH 4y ago

pjfin123 4y ago

> Each attempt to ban a book by one of these groups represents a direct attack on every person's constitutionally protected right to freely choose what books to read and what ideas to explore. I don't think school library book banning is the biggest threat to free speech today; it's mass internet censorship.

yucky 4y ago
Exactly, I'm more concerned by the books you can't buy on Amazon than the ones you can't check out in a limited space children's library.
- saghm 4y ago
  What would you propose as a way to fix censorship of books by Amazon? I can't think of anything other than government regulation in some form, so I'm confused about why the government censoring books in public schools wouldn't be equally concerning.
  - yucky 4y ago
    I wouldn't propose anything, when I want a book that Amazon doesn't sell I still know how to get it. The reason I mentioned it in comparison is a school library has a)limited space and b) children who shouldn't be exposed to everything under the sun at an early age. With Amazon, there is no such excuse.
localplume 4y ago
[dead]

londgine 4y ago

I recall reading a similarly titled article about how schools are banning books. It ends up that the school just changed their curriculum, so one book was no longer required reading. I think that book was the Holocaust comic book maus. but I may be mistaken.

mrguyorama 4y ago

The idea that "A kid at school should not be aware of anything their parents don't want them to be aware of" is mind numbingly stupid. How many gay kids have grown up under homophobic parents? How many little girls are told to be subservient to men and know their place? How many kids live in a household that consistently talks about "those thugs" and other clear racism? These kids all exist and it is stupid to think we should allow those kinds of parents to teach these things to the next generation as if you have some god given right to be a bad person just because you had unprotected sex. I would also hate if a school wasn't allowed to talk about the holocaust because a german student's dad felt oppressed, and I also hate that the southern states seem to be hell bent on continuing to spread propaganda about the civil war to keep the lost cause myth alive. Just because a parent THINKS "being gay" is sexually suggestive doesn't mean that it IS. The world is full of black people, trans people, women, gay people, weird people, dumb people, straight people, sad people etc, and it is morally reprehensible to not teach kids to respect them as fellow human beings just to please someone who has a closed mind. Some day little timmy might have to go to work with someone who doesn't fit into your tight knit idea of what a normal person is, and we shouldn't saddle timmy with your poor opinions about who deserves the pursuit of happiness. You either think every human deserves a basic amount of respect and dignity or you don't. We literally had to go to court in this country just to teach kids that evolution is a thing. This is just more of the same.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
luxuryballs 4y ago
>“should not be aware of anything their parents don't want them to be aware of” there’s plenty of things you don’t want kids doing or acting out because they aren’t mature enough yet to know what they’re doing, it’s also OK to disagree on topics of morality, freedom goes both ways
jstarfish 4y ago
[flagged]
- 4y ago

akomtu 4y ago

With these lgbt books bans, people express their vague fear of a dark ideology in the far future that will, in short, put animalistic desires on the pedestal.

fear_and_coffee 4y ago
[dead]

lancesells 4y ago

Does anyone have the list of books and examples?

Khaine 4y ago
According to the interwebs, here are some examples and the reason people want them banned from grade schools: Gender Queer - has images of kids performing oral sex https://theiowastandard.com/shocking-images-from-book-gender-queer-which-is-stocked-in-school-libraries-across-iowa/ https://theiowastandard.com/shocking-images-from-book-gender... All Boys Aren't Blue - includes sex scenes - https://youtu.be/ag-ByyDXhUQ https://youtu.be/ag-ByyDXhUQ Lawn Boy - includes sex scenes https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/video-sucked-eachothers-ds-mother-reads-sexually-explicit-school-book-board-members/ https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/09/video-sucked-eachot... This Book Is Gay - a book with sections that teach and advise kids about anal sex, oral sex, and hookup apps https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tampa-school-sex-book/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/tampa-school-sex-book/
- silveroriole 4y ago
  Thank you for posting the content of the actual books. It’s kind of funny to me that people upthread are upset about the ‘blowjob’ scene when the characters involved immediately decide it’s not very exciting after all. Not exactly the hedonistic lgbt recruitment pamphlet they were trying to conjure in the imagination. Maybe telling kids that realistically sex is just a bit weird and gross and boring is more effective than banning it, who knows!
  - Khaine 4y ago
    I think people are concerned that that content is not appropriate for grade school children. I think they would raise the same objections if it wasn't about a same sex couple.
suddenclarity 4y ago
There are two different sides fighting. On one you have people arguing against "ABC for LGBTQI" targeted at five year olds. On the other side you have people trying to ban classics such as Tintin and Pippi because they use "old" words or stereotypes.

Khaine 4y ago

I'm less concerned about people wanting to ban sexually explicit books from children^, and more concerned about all the cultural vandals altering authors works (i.e. Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, the goosebumps series). ^ Its an entire meme now of parents reading these books out at school board meetings and being cut off due to the inappropriate nature of the works.

NoZebra120vClip 4y ago

The last time I checked, this pearl-clutching over "book bans" was about books being dropped from library shelves or school reading lists, not from the books actually being prohibited for purchase or reading. Come on, folks, censorship is when you use coercive power to completely prevent access to a resource, not when you curate a list and it doesn't happen to make the cut.

LocalH 4y ago

On a related note, I never understood why people of a certain political persuasion tend to be against any mention of sexuality even towards teenagers. I've seen more than one such person say that "14 or 15 year old people shouldn't be talking about sexuality". Apparently we shouldn't ever be talking to people who have gone through or are going through puberty about sexuality. The whole problem is that people have not properly been taught about sex, because educational institutions have for years, in different areas, been hamstrung (like with all the "abstinence-only" education in areas like the bible belt), and parents aren't the best sexual educators (because on a personal level, they don't want to even think about that sort of thing). Cue the trope of the angry father telling the daughter "you're not dating until you're 30". The vast majority of people over the last 60 years have been taught more from some form of pornography (whether it be the stack of Playboys under Dad's bed, or the teenager screwing with the horizontal and vertical hold on their TV to try to watch Skinemax, to today's young people having access to internet porn). Some of us came out ok, but some people (depending on which porn they learned from) didn't. The problem with education being too centralized, is that it results in a choke point for power grabs and indoctrination, if we're not careful. Perhaps sexual education should be totally independent from the rest of secondary education?

treeman79 4y ago
[flagged]

Steven420 4y ago

Unfortunately there are lots of good books that are appropriate for kids being banned along with books that are definitely not appropriate for kids. I remember seeing Maus being banned which I consider to be appropriate for kids