5 ms·

So it's not really fair to say it's a ban. You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. Would you agree for the school to have the bo

by m00x 9mo ago

So it's not really fair to say it's a ban. You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. Would you agree for the school to have the book "The Passing of the Great Race", a famously racist and white supremacist book in your school library?

macintux 9mo ago
For high school students, sure. I'd be very uncomfortable, but know thy enemy.
- antonymoose 9mo ago
  In my state (South Carolina) this is exactly how they handled it. If a parent or activist wishes see a book banned it goes through reviewed based on school-level appropriateness. A book like The Kite Runner with its deprecations of Bacha Bazi are a bit rough for a 5th grader but considered acceptable for a High Schooler given the cultural significance of the work.
giraffe_lady 9mo ago
I don't know, I didn't come in here with particularly strong feelings about what "ban" means or should mean re books but people keep coming at me extremely hot for saying not much about it at all. Personally I think using banned for "actively prevented from accessing in ways other books are not" makes plenty of sense even if you can effectively circumvent those attempts somehow. The strict meaning that people seem to want to apply in here does not seem particularly useful to me. Almost no books have ever been banned by that standard, but there is a clearly organized movement in the US to remove all reference to queerness from public life. Flexible on nomenclature here but that context is very important.
- khaki54 9mo ago
  It may seem like an attack on queer books, but as far as I can tell none of the straight books seem to be trying to explain how minors should get access to adult dating apps to meet older men, or showing obscene graphical depictions of sodomy involving children. I think if librarians were buying "straight" books with the same explicit and adult content and putting them in elementary, middle, and high schools, the same parents would be complaining about those too.
  - jkestner 9mo ago
    What queer book with that content was in libraries?
    - LexiMax 9mo ago
      I suspect that whatever example they had in mind, it's a passage that is descriptive of someone's personal experience while not being prescriptive in telling the reader step-by-step how to follow in their footsteps.
      - deleted 9mo ago
        [deleted]
  - gumby271 9mo ago
    The hell kind of library are you visiting?
everybodyknows 9mo ago
As cryptically referred to by the villain in the perhaps most famous of American novels. Credit Wikipedia: > Grant became a part of popular culture in 1920s America. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald made a lightly disguised reference to Grant in The Great Gatsby. In the book, the character Tom Buchanan reads a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard. ... > ... "Everybody ought to read it", the character said. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."
jfindper 9mo ago
>You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. False.
mcphage 9mo ago
Is it currently there now?
UncleMeat 9mo ago
Good things are good and bad things are bad. I have absolutely no problem saying that bigots who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries are bad people while also thinking that The Turner Diaries shouldn't be in public schools.
- 46996435797643 9mo ago
  [flagged]
  - LexiMax 9mo ago
    A very commonly banned book here in the United States - at least historically - is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There's a specific chapter that my mind has returned to, again and again, in situations where anonymous cowards issue threats from behind the veil of anonymity: https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/book/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/chapter-22 https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/book/the-ad... The older I get, the more I think that there is wisdom in the words of Col. Sherburn on the cowardice of the average person. By the way, I wonder if HN is aware of whose alt account this is. If they are, I wonder if they would punish the original poster for issuing threats on an anonymous account. I...admit that I don't have high hopes, but I live to be surprised.
- pfannkuchen 9mo ago
  > who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries Is this a common stance? I thought it was more like, no books glorifying LGBT lifestyle or teaching it as if it’s not controversial and it’s just a fact of life (as proponents sincerely believe, of course, not saying no one is thinks it is a fact of life, that’s just the part that is controversial). I understand disagreeing with that, but it isn’t the same as opponents pushing for zero gay/etc characters period, right? I haven’t been following this topic too closely though so I might be missing what people are screeching about on the right today.
  - LexiMax 9mo ago

by m00x 9mo ago

macintux 9mo ago

For high school students, sure. I'd be very uncomfortable, but know thy enemy.

antonymoose 9mo ago
In my state (South Carolina) this is exactly how they handled it. If a parent or activist wishes see a book banned it goes through reviewed based on school-level appropriateness. A book like The Kite Runner with its deprecations of Bacha Bazi are a bit rough for a 5th grader but considered acceptable for a High Schooler given the cultural significance of the work.

giraffe_lady 9mo ago

I don't know, I didn't come in here with particularly strong feelings about what "ban" means or should mean re books but people keep coming at me extremely hot for saying not much about it at all. Personally I think using banned for "actively prevented from accessing in ways other books are not" makes plenty of sense even if you can effectively circumvent those attempts somehow. The strict meaning that people seem to want to apply in here does not seem particularly useful to me. Almost no books have ever been banned by that standard, but there is a clearly organized movement in the US to remove all reference to queerness from public life. Flexible on nomenclature here but that context is very important.

khaki54 9mo ago
It may seem like an attack on queer books, but as far as I can tell none of the straight books seem to be trying to explain how minors should get access to adult dating apps to meet older men, or showing obscene graphical depictions of sodomy involving children. I think if librarians were buying "straight" books with the same explicit and adult content and putting them in elementary, middle, and high schools, the same parents would be complaining about those too.
- jkestner 9mo ago
  What queer book with that content was in libraries?
  - LexiMax 9mo ago
    I suspect that whatever example they had in mind, it's a passage that is descriptive of someone's personal experience while not being prescriptive in telling the reader step-by-step how to follow in their footsteps.
    - deleted 9mo ago
      [deleted]
- gumby271 9mo ago
  The hell kind of library are you visiting?

everybodyknows 9mo ago

As cryptically referred to by the villain in the perhaps most famous of American novels. Credit Wikipedia: > Grant became a part of popular culture in 1920s America. Author F. Scott Fitzgerald made a lightly disguised reference to Grant in The Great Gatsby. In the book, the character Tom Buchanan reads a book called The Rise of the Colored Empires by "this man Goddard", a combination of Grant and his colleague Lothrop Stoddard. ... > ... "Everybody ought to read it", the character said. "The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be — will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved."

jfindper 9mo ago

>You can have the book at school, but the school library won't have it. False.

mcphage 9mo ago

Is it currently there now?

UncleMeat 9mo ago

Good things are good and bad things are bad. I have absolutely no problem saying that bigots who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries are bad people while also thinking that The Turner Diaries shouldn't be in public schools.

46996435797643 9mo ago
[flagged]
- LexiMax 9mo ago
  A very commonly banned book here in the United States - at least historically - is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There's a specific chapter that my mind has returned to, again and again, in situations where anonymous cowards issue threats from behind the veil of anonymity: https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/book/the-adventures-of-huckleberry-finn/chapter-22 https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/book/the-ad... The older I get, the more I think that there is wisdom in the words of Col. Sherburn on the cowardice of the average person. By the way, I wonder if HN is aware of whose alt account this is. If they are, I wonder if they would punish the original poster for issuing threats on an anonymous account. I...admit that I don't have high hopes, but I live to be surprised.
pfannkuchen 9mo ago
> who insist that no books containing LGBT characters appear in libraries Is this a common stance? I thought it was more like, no books glorifying LGBT lifestyle or teaching it as if it’s not controversial and it’s just a fact of life (as proponents sincerely believe, of course, not saying no one is thinks it is a fact of life, that’s just the part that is controversial). I understand disagreeing with that, but it isn’t the same as opponents pushing for zero gay/etc characters period, right? I haven’t been following this topic too closely though so I might be missing what people are screeching about on the right today.
- LexiMax 9mo ago