Jump to content
Join the Unexplained Mysteries community today! It's free and setting up an account only takes a moment.
- Sign In or Create Account -

Organised attempts to ban, and even burn, library books


Eldorado

Recommended Posts

The American Library Association has reported a troubling rise in organised attempts to ban – and in some cases even burn – library books.

According to the ALA, the majority of these groups pushing to ban and destroy books are driven by conservative campaigners.

“It’s a volume of challenges I’ve never seen in my time at the ALA – the last 20 years. We’ve never had a time when we’ve gotten four or five reports a day for days on end, sometimes as many as eight in a day,” ALA director Deborah Caldwell-Stone told The Guardian.

“Social media is amplifying local challenges and they’re going viral, but we’ve also been observing a number of organisations activating local members to go to school board meetings and challenge books. We’re seeing what appears to be a campaign to remove books, particularly books dealing with LGBTQIA themes and books dealing with racism.”

MSN

  • Confused 1
  • Sad 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
11 minutes ago, jeem said:

Now where that happened before?

America usually. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In The Netherlands librarians have removed books mentioning Black Pete, claiming that it is a racist figure. Whereas in fact he represents the dark days of winter. Idiots.

 

I suspect that many of the people who participate in the hate campaign against Black Pete are narcissists; and that many others are sociopaths.

  • Like 5
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Eldorado said:

The American Library Association has reported a troubling rise in organised attempts to ban – and in some cases even burn – library books.

According to the ALA, the majority of these groups pushing to ban and destroy books are driven by conservative campaigners.

“It’s a volume of challenges I’ve never seen in my time at the ALA – the last 20 years. We’ve never had a time when we’ve gotten four or five reports a day for days on end, sometimes as many as eight in a day,” ALA director Deborah Caldwell-Stone told The Guardian.

“Social media is amplifying local challenges and they’re going viral, but we’ve also been observing a number of organisations activating local members to go to school board meetings and challenge books. We’re seeing what appears to be a campaign to remove books, particularly books dealing with LGBTQIA themes and books dealing with racism.”

MSN

I am German American and never forget what I going to say, first they burn books, and next they will burn people!:wacko:

  • Like 1
  • Haha 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

"What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one."

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It’s a very biased article IMOO. 
 

I think it’s perhaps a tad more justified to believe a school-age child shouldn’t have access to certain content in their school library, than someone who believes the general population should be prevented from accessing certain content. While I do not speak for this site, UM a would seem to agree about the principle of age appropriate material. Some of the content in the center of the school library controversy has been posted here and subsequently removed for being inappropriate for the site’s younger audience. I believe UM’s position on this is rational and justified. I also think it would be a gross mischaracterization to accuse UM of book banning or burning or of having an anti-LGBT bias for not permitting the content. But that is in essence what the article is doing to parents advocating for clean themes in school library content, 

Conversely, the left is fine with pornographic images and themes in school libraries. However, they certainly don’t what adults having access to ideas they disagree with. Antifa thugs have used violent protest  in attempts to derail and prevent conservative speakers like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens from speaking on Collage campuses. They have petitioned distributors and libraries to remove titles from their shelves. Even classics that be been a around for decades are not safe from the leftist mob. They topple statues of historical figures and demand comedy specials be deplatformed with equal zeal. 

On one had we have parents who are advocating for what they believe is appropriate for their children. On the other hand we have tyrants who believe they know what is appropriate for YOU.

Quote

University of California at Berkeley professor Grace Lavery was so outraged by author Abigail Shrier’s latest book, “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters,” that she went beyond the usual calls to ban the book. Lavery advocated burning Shrier’s book.

“I DO encourage followers to steal Abigail Shrier’s book and burn it on a pyre,” Lavery tweeted last month…..

…..Staffers at the Canadian branch of Penguin Random House recently confronted management over the company’s publication of libertarian Jordan Peterson’s new book, “Beyond Order,” a sequel to his earlier bestseller, “12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.”

What were their objections to the book? Peterson, who has criticized the notion of white privilege and contends that masculinity is under attack, was accused of “white supremacy,” “hate speech” and “transphobia.” These are simply our generation’s synonyms for their predecessors’ boogeyman labels “heretic,” “witch” and “communist.”….…..

……No, the culprits are progressives and leftist elites in publishing, the media, Silicon Valley, academia, entertainment and government. They so lack confidence in the logic and persuasiveness of their own arguments that in fear they increasingly try to ban whatever bothers them.

The classic “To Kill a Mockingbird” and other books about racial issues were banned from the curriculum in the Burbank (California) Unified School District last month.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/opinion/commentary/ct-opinion-left-cancel-culture-books-hanson-20201204-jib62lsznvh3zfo2vvcidilblm-story.html

Edited by el midgetron
  • Like 1
  • Thanks 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

16 hours ago, Golden Duck said:

How do you burn PDF files?

They would obviously want to ban it on the internet as well.

I still remember the good old days when they tried to ban the smurfs for equally imagined outrageous reasons.  Forty years later they can't even remember why and theink people who tried were foolish.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 11/26/2021 at 3:58 AM, Eldorado said:

According to the ALA, the majority of these groups pushing to ban and destroy books are driven by conservative campaigners.

In Kentucky they even tried to ban Uncle Tom's Cabin (located near Owensboro).

Doug

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, Doug1066 said:
On 11/26/2021 at 4:58 AM, Eldorado said:

According to the ALA, the majority of these groups pushing to ban and destroy books are driven by conservative campaigners.

In Kentucky they even tried to ban Uncle Tom's Cabin (located near Owensboro).

Doug, it was the left that wanted Uncle Tom's Cabin banned, not the right. I don't know how you got it so backwards. They were called racist books because of the N word.

 

During a virtual meeting on Sept. 9, middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received a bit of surprising news: Until further notice, they would not be allowed to teach some of the books on their curriculum.

Five novels had been challenged in Burbank: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” and Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Medal-winning young-adult classic “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”

The challenges came from four parents (three of them Black) for alleged potential harm to the public-school district’s roughly 400 Black students. All but “Huckleberry Finn” have been required reading in the BUSD.

The ongoing case has drawn the attention of free-speech organizations across the country, which are decrying it as the latest act of school censorship. The charge against these books — racism — has been invoked in the past, but in contrast to earlier fights across the country, this one is heavily inflected by an atmosphere of urgent reckoning, as both opponents and defenders of the novels claim the mantle of antiracism.

The debate within the district comes after a summer of mass protests calling for an end to the unjust treatment of Black people. As a result, many institutions and school districts like BUSD are taking a hard look at themselves, their policies, curriculums and practices, in many cases publishing antiracist statements. And while book banning has a long history in America, the situation in Burbank — once a sundown town that practiced racial segregation — is freshly complicated.

cont...

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-11-12/burbank-unified-challenges-books-including-to-kill-a-mockingbird

Edited by Michelle
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 
1 hour ago, Michelle said:

Doug, it was the left that wanted Uncle Tom's Cabin banned, not the right. I don't know how you got it so backwards. They were called racist books because of the N word.

 

During a virtual meeting on Sept. 9, middle and high school English teachers in the Burbank Unified School District received a bit of surprising news: Until further notice, they would not be allowed to teach some of the books on their curriculum.

Five novels had been challenged in Burbank: Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men,” Theodore Taylor’s “The Cay” and Mildred D. Taylor’s Newbery Medal-winning young-adult classic “Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.”

The challenges came from four parents (three of them Black) for alleged potential harm to the public-school district’s roughly 400 Black students. All but “Huckleberry Finn” have been required reading in the BUSD.

The ongoing case has drawn the attention of free-speech organizations across the country, which are decrying it as the latest act of school censorship. The charge against these books — racism — has been invoked in the past, but in contrast to earlier fights across the country, this one is heavily inflected by an atmosphere of urgent reckoning, as both opponents and defenders of the novels claim the mantle of antiracism.

The debate within the district comes after a summer of mass protests calling for an end to the unjust treatment of Black people. As a result, many institutions and school districts like BUSD are taking a hard look at themselves, their policies, curriculums and practices, in many cases publishing antiracist statements. And while book banning has a long history in America, the situation in Burbank — once a sundown town that practiced racial segregation — is freshly complicated.

cont...

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-11-12/burbank-unified-challenges-books-including-to-kill-a-mockingbird

...it is equally erroneous to hold that the common four-letter words are necessarily indecent in every context...and hold to that they can never be indecent at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.