Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/08/magazine/book-bans-texas.html

by nobody9999 • 4 years ago

26 72 4 years ago

nobody99993• 4 years ago

cdot2• 4 years ago

I dont have a problem with parents wanting school libraries to only have appropriate books. I think the presentation by the media as "book banning" is pretty ridiculous.

paulgb4• 4 years ago

Do you have a problem with a religious parent deciding the definition of “appropriate” in the context of their religion, and foisting that belief on kids of other religions or no religion?

Dalewyn5• 4 years ago

Haven't really read TFA because I can't be arsed to deal with NYT and ther asinine style of writing, so I'm assuming we're talking about a public school district and its associated public libraries.

Being public libraries, I assume there are official channels with which to convey opinions to the powers that be, and proper procedures that must be followed to permit or not permit books from being included in a library's collection.

What's more, being public, it's reasonable to assume the libraries are funded in majority from taxpayer money.

So personally: If the taxpayers who provide the money for the library are unsatisfied with the library's book selection, file formal complaints, and the books are subsequently removed as applicable, I see no problem.

And ultimately: Taxpayers (aka voters) have the ultimate and absolute authority to just rescind funding for public libraries and/or school districts with objectional collections if they refuse to comply with complaints and other such requests and demands.

makomk• 4 years ago

Any definition of "approprite" is going to be in the context of some set of moral beliefs. Why should we treat religious ones differently than secular ones? For example, there's a secular set of beliefs held by all the righteous Twitter users that have had massive effects on what books are in school libraries or that we're even allowed to buy, why should that be any more acceptable because they're secular in nature?

I know that the people pushing those beliefs consider them the one true, correct set of moral beliefs that every right-thinking person should hold - so much so thatt they reject the idea of naming them, because that would suggest there could be other correct beliefs. That's not very convincing to anyone who doesn't already share their beliefs though (especially given how often and quickly they shift).

albertopv• 4 years ago

I'm a parent, what if these books don't bother me and I want them to stay? Who decide what is appropriate? First they came for the books they thought not appropriate...

SlickNixon4• 4 years ago

first they came...

If they "came for" all the books in a particular library, you (as a parent) could check the book you wanted out from another library, or buy it from a bookstore, or download it from a sketchy drive link you find on google, or recover it from an airdrop of literary material dropped into your occupied zone.

These books are "banned" in the same way that Starbucks red cups are "banned" in July.

that_guy_iain2• 4 years ago

Parents can want only appropriate books. But parents getting to decide what is and what is not appropriate for all children isn't something we should strive for. Some parents think books on sexual health are not appropriate, others think books on race relations are not appropriate, some think books speaking badly about Trump's presidency are not appropriate while books that speak positively on his presidency are. Why should one parent's opinions affect another parent's children?

It is rather concerning to many people that some people want to decide what children can and can not be taught or allowed to find out about.

Dalewyn5• 4 years ago

Why should one parent's opinions affect another parent's children?

When you start dealing with public institutions, aka Other Peoples' Monies(tm), you don't get to say your way or the highway, one way or another.

Anyone is welcome to make their own private school and library as they see fit with their own private money and time. But if you are going to peruse public schools and libraries, opinions from various people (namely the taxpayers, aka voters) have to be gathered and reconciled into a final consensus which may or may not be to your liking.

orwin3• 4 years ago

Okay, if you want to remove books about farts in the kids section (and books about how to get dressed, those are super offensive), why not.

But what is appropriate for teens? Because 1984 is way more traumatizing than a Modern romance or Heavy. The last part, with the psychological torture and mind control? Inappropriate, we should remove it from school libraries and stop the book just before the arrestation. Re-edit the book without the last part, which isn't the part we use to attack our political opponents anyway, we will still be able to misuse the word novlang. Name it "appropriate 1984" and put it back on the shelf. I remember I couldn't eat for a day after i read about the arrestation and the subsequent torture in the book, at 14. Remove that part for teenagers please, its safer. And appropriate.

jleyank2• 4 years ago

Forced positive thinking. Double plus good.

Waterluvian• 4 years ago

Be sure to imagine a world where someone with very very different opinions than yours is the one who decides what “appropriate” is.

lelanthran4• 4 years ago

Be sure to imagine a world where someone with very very different opinions than yours is the one who decides what “appropriate” is.

I assume poster is already living in that world, where what is appropriate is decided by people with very different opinions.

nl• 4 years ago

This was a public (not school) library.

And they were children's books, written to be appropriate for children: “Larry the Farting Leprechaun,” “Gary the Goose and His Gas on the Loose,” “Freddie the Farting Snowman” and “Harvey the Heart Had Too Many Farts,” along with “My Butt Is So Noisy!” and “I Broke My Butt!”

If someone doesn't want their 5 year old to read about farts, then don't borrow the books. If someone else wants their children to enjoy reading funny books let them.

TrueGeek• 4 years ago

And the parents that don’t want their kids reading “Ruby Bridges Goes to School” certainly have their own agenda that says quite a bit about America.

If the school / library bans the book and the answer is “if you want YOUR kid to read it buy it yourself” then now we’ve got the problem of the next generation growing up with some kids learning only half of our history.

nobody99993• 4 years ago

Except TFA isn't about school libraries. It's about public libraries.

vic-traill• 4 years ago

The parents are responsible for what their child reads.

To me, that doesn't translate to defining what other parent's children get to read.

If some folks think fart/butt books are not appropriate for their children, that's fine. They should tell their kids that, and follow up to make sure the child's behaviour reflects that view.

[Edit: fixed typo]

defrost2• 4 years ago

Speaking of book bans and their follow on consequences, in news today:

Five Hong Kong speech therapists jailed over children's books denounced as 'brainwashing exercise'

Five Hong Kong speech therapists were sentenced on Saturday to 19 months in jail for conspiracy to publish seditious children's books, featuring cartoons of sheep and wolves that prosecutors had deemed anti-government.
The five were convicted on Wednesday under a colonial-era sedition law in a case denounced by rights campaigners as a "brazen act of repression", which the Hong Kong government has rejected.
The defendants, who had pleaded not guilty, were accused of publishing three books featuring cartoons of sheep fighting against wolves.

[0] https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/five-hong-kong-speech-th...

[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-10/five-hong-kong-speech...

song• 4 years ago

Here are the books roughly translated in English

- https://ko-fi.com/post/Childrens-picture-book-1--Sheep-Villa...

- https://ko-fi.com/post/Childrens-book-2--Guardians-of-the-Sh...

- https://ko-fi.com/post/Childrens-book-3--The-Twelve-Warriors...

I haven't found the original version in Chinese.

tomohawk• 4 years ago

That's quite a bit different than activist school employees puting pornographic materials in the school libraries for children to read, and then saying parents are 'bullying' them.

Here's a different take than the NYT:

https://texasscorecard.com/state/parents-continue-testifying...

sofixa2• 4 years ago

As per the TFA, the books aren't pornographic and have been in libraries for literally decades.

nicolas_t3• 4 years ago

How is a children book like I Need a New Butt! pornographic?? I mean it's very silly humour for sure but nah, it's not pornographic at all.

defrost2• 4 years ago

Chinese authorities made a call that a book about sheep and wolves was a sedituous political work.

Texas school boards being overtaken with funding from Patriot Mobile, a far-right Christian cell phone company, are making calls that some books are pornographic despite some having been on shelves for decades.

As an Australian parent and grandparent I have no issue with books and songs about butts.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g_DwDvxGCw

Pornography is often in the eye and the mind of the puritan.

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/05/texas-phone-...

kthejoker25• 4 years ago

I'm a parent down here in Texas fighting blowhard book banning parent groups.

First, this "take" is nonsense. Pornography is "I know it when I see it" - so show me the goods, you can't just declare Nabokov's Lolita "obscene" prima facie - and second, TEA (Texas Education Association) already has a policy regarding declaring books "inappropriate" for school libraries.

https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/efb-local-library-...

They are not making this a huge issue (good enough for the NYT) because some bulk book buying system incidentally brought in a book that falls afoul of this policy. The policy worked! The out of policy books were identified and removed.

This is 100% about controlling others and their beliefs on race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, and (based on my own experiences thus far) religion and political affiliation as well.

These people are hypocrites, pure Wilhoit conservatives (an in group that the law protects but does not bind), they're anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers (don't tell me how to parent!) who think their little snowflake will turn gay or racially sensitive or (God forbid) openminded through ... memoir osmosis? ... and so want to ban those books in a library so no one else's kids can read them either (let me tell everyone else how to parent)

Nobody is forcing anyone to read every book in the library. The great thing about libraries is they contain both mirrored and windowed media, and it's up to you the reader to choose the books you want to read and decide for yourself if those ideas are any good or not.

panarky• 4 years ago

Curious how someone can support banning books while simultaneously railing against "cancel culture".

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

mgbmtl• 4 years ago

"Strategies on how to lodge complaints against books are traded on Facebook and shared among branch chapters of parental rights groups. One of the most influential of these groups is the Florida-based Moms for Liberty"

Yet another old-school bullying campaign, amplified by Facebook.

tommica• 4 years ago

"Moms for Liberty to read books, no not that book"

cle5• 4 years ago

It is about the "liberty" for parents to instill their values in their children, on their terms. This is a perfectly reasonable desire from parents, but removing books from libraries is certainly too heavy-handed.

Responsible parents monitor and control the information their kids can access--websites, movies, music, etc. I think a more reasonable approach here would be to advocate for a mechanism in libraries to allow parents to review and control what information their own children have access to, but not others'. (If that doesn't already exist?)

ogogmad• 4 years ago

What's the difference between this and deplatforming? I'm not necessarily against either. How's a media company like Facebook or Twitter different from a library? Both disseminate information. The latter is owned by the public. I'm honestly just asking.

If you think about it, it's not really against free speech, because you can still obtain a book through other means. A lot of people on this website think that social media companies should prevent the spread of disinformation on their platforms, and defend this view against allegations of censorship by saying that since it's a private company censoring someone's speech on their own platform, it's not a violation of free speech.

Also, I'm trying to see where the line should be drawn: Pornography shouldn't be allowed in public libraries, no?

lotsofpulp• 4 years ago

How's a media company like Facebook or Twitter different from a library? Both disseminate information. The latter is owned by the public. I'm honestly just asking.

What are you asking? You answered it.

The latter is owned by the public.

morelisp4• 4 years ago

Pornography shouldn't be allowed in public libraries, no?

Why not? Arguably, a library is the best place to place pornography within a proper context as an entertainment/leisure media with social and cultural repercussions and that necessitates additional education to engage with in a healthy way. And to the extent public libraries are supposed to be a socialized equivalent of private libraries - you don't think rich people have a shelf full of porn?

I think America would have much saner attitudes towards sex if most people's first encounter with porn was in a public and literary context rather than the seedy isolated mess it usually is.

(Note that "allowed" is different than "must be in" - a library may choose not to circulate anything for many reasons including low demand and difficulty of handling/maintaining the materials, both of which I imagine is the case. Nonetheless I also suspect virtually all public libraries have some pornography in their collection and plenty probably also in circulation.)

orwin3• 4 years ago

I get why the discussion is a lot about the books for children and not teens, because those bans in public library seems ridiculous.

But i have an issue with banning the books for teens. I admit i did not read a lot of those in TFA (two, maybe three, i'll have to look at the title translation), but at least i read some, and can compare to a lot of books i read when I was a teen. The comparison makes it even more ridiculous to me.

I have the distinct impression than those moms advocating for the ban just didn't read a lot of books, to be perfectly honest. It's not a dig, i have friends who don't read, and when i first met my now best friend, he had only read a single book in his life, at 15. But if they did, they would know that exposure from books is a lot more soft than from any picture, video, sound or real life. And sometimes, it leads to "wow, that's what he meant" epiphanies, which are the best.

anotherevan• 4 years ago

The Great Bible Battle

https://www.patreon.com/posts/40531144

nicolas_t3• 4 years ago

Thanks for this, that was an entertaining read.

Book Bans Turned a Texas Town Upside Down

Related Stories