1,626 Books Were Banned Across America Last Year We Reviewed All of Them

https://yarn.joinstatecraft.com/books

by armanhq • 3 years ago

59 85 3 years ago

yarn.joinstatecraft.com

dshacker• 3 years ago

This is really interesting, I really like that the dataset is embedded in the page. Is there a general place where banned books are reported?

JumpCrisscross7• 3 years ago

Book banning seems like a strange red line to have forgotten. If your kid is going to be corrupted by going into a library and finding a book that's naughtier than your taste, they're probably ahead of their similarly-corruptible peers who aren't in a library at all.

thfuran• 3 years ago

I'm not in favor of banning books, but "it's not the worst thing that could possibly happen" isn't exactly a strong argument for supporting something.

JumpCrisscross7• 3 years ago

"it's not the worst thing that could possibly happen" isn't exactly a strong argument for supporting something

Point is if your kid has the initiative to go into a library and find a book, they're probably fine. If they're not, they're going to get far worse from the internet and their peers-the library isn't your problem. Raising them to believe libraries are unsafe is more likely to backfire in the specific aims you're pursuing.

(Going out on a limb and assuming most of the people pursuing these book bans don't have kids in school and, if they do, they aren't in the top 90% of students checking out books from any library.)

shakow2• 3 years ago

Book banning seems like a strange red line to have forgotten

Has book banning ever been a red line? Many Western countries, from Canada to France through US and New Zealand have banned many books for most of their existence.

krapp3• 3 years ago

Until relatively recently in the US, "banning books" was widely considered one of those morally reprehensible things that only authoritarian governments did, and people were outraged that the US did it at all.

It is legitimately weird how quickly that seems to have changed within the culture in the light of the moral panic over transgender "groomers" and the antiwoke movement. That, and the sentiment that the government should regulate or nationalize social media, or even make it illegal... and half the country seems to be in a competition to see how fascist they can become before the Supreme Court actually calls them out. It's like someone flipped a switch and suddenly all this dystopian shit was just ok with everyone.

systemtest2• 3 years ago

Reformed Protestant schools in The Netherlands have banned books with curse words, heavy language, sex, occultism and magic. You are not going to find any Harry Potter books there.

School books, the ones you learn from during the curriculum, are also heavily edited so that Christian school still buy them. Bikinis, short skirts, tattoos, female pastors, dinosaurs, astrology, everything is left out of the books out of fear that Christian schools will not buy them. Publishers are very careful with what they put in their books.

https://www-bnnvara-nl.translate.goog/joop/artikelen/uitgeve...

burnished• 3 years ago

Their findings are that the book bannings are really for the purpose of

Virtue signal by people in positions of institutional power to voting-age parents interested in school choice, parental rights, and wedge social issues to the detriment of non-voting age students Reject and exclude topics that challenge a perceived status quo from the public discourse (e.g. non-heteronormativity, non-cis identity, non-traditional gender roles, and non-Judeo-Christian books are targeted

and that

Fortunately, book bans are widely unpopular amongst parents across the ideological spectrum.

It would make sense though given that reading can be transformative for some people but realistically I think most folks are worried about everyday problems like teen pregnancy and substance abuse or getting into fights - and to your point if they are off reading unbearable moral philosophy in some library they aren't out screwing around.

jiveturkey42• 3 years ago

"Banned in the United States" does not mean the same thing as "Removed from Middle School Libraries"

arcticbull2• 3 years ago

Hm, seems pretty similar to me. Especially when the article itself identifies only 1.6% of the books as having a 17+ rating.

[edit] Anyone who believes in freedom of expression and the first amendment should recognize this as a negative step, and a clear thin-edge issue. These are ideological decisions made by partisans with the goal being to shape the corpus of thinking of youth. "Will someone think of the children" is a well worn path. There's plenty of books about this kind of thing, like The Giver, but you know, it's probably on the list.

didgetmaster• 3 years ago

Hmmm...so it only counted 1.6% of the books as explicit because they had "publisher-provided" maturity ratings of 17+.

I wonder how many books that had explicit material within them were not properly labeled as such by their publishers? This seems like a very subjective standard that would be very easy to manipulate.

constantcrying9• 3 years ago

These are ideological decisions made by partisans with the goal being to shape the corpus of thinking of youth.

You support neo-nazi propaganda not being in school libraries, so certainly you too believe that it is the duty of school libraries to curate the content. It is just incredibly dishonest to pretend that you are upset at this for any reason other than that you want these particular books available to children, which is exactly as partisan as demanding their absence.

paulddraper6• 3 years ago

Especially when the article itself identifies only 1.6% of the books as having a 17+ rating.

You presume those ratings mean something.

"Getting It: A Guide to Hot, Healthy Hookups and Shame-Free Sex. An empowering guide to casual sex and hooking up from sex educator and Girl Sex 101 author Allison Moon."

I'm sure that's entirely age appropriate for my 13-year-old daughter to be reading from the high-school library.

systemtest2• 3 years ago

Removed from one percent of middle school libraries (138 out of ~13000 school districts).

epgui• 3 years ago

Perhaps not, but for people in most other countries, the idea that some public schools will just ban whatever they want in an ad hoc fashion amounts to the same thing as saying that it’s the government doing it.

From an international-vs-US perspective, education being state-run or locally-governed is really more of a technicality than anything, because education policy is largely a national concern.

In many (or most?) other developed countries, there is a public-private divide where there is a pretty well established expectation that the government doesn’t ban things it deems “merely immoral”, an expectation exemplified by the separation of church and state. Private institutions on the other hand are given more leeway on that front, because their services are opt-in.

paulddraper6• 3 years ago

public schools will just ban whatever they want in an ad hoc fashion amounts to the same thing as saying that it’s the government doing it.

There's a huge difference between "we're not going to stock this in the school library" and people not being allowed to read it.

education policy is largely a national concern

Education is entirely controlled by the states, except that federal funding comes with some strings attached.

doingmaths7• 3 years ago

"Books banned in the US" has two correct readings (regarding banned books by governments):

1) "Books that were banned, somewhere within the US"

2) "Books that were banned, across the US"

In this case, at the behest of state and municipal governments, there are books that fit into reading one.

xyzzyz8• 3 years ago

Every single book is “banned” from “somewhere” in the US, so your 1) is true, but vacuously so.

JumpCrisscross7• 3 years ago

This is an impractical delineation. If any unit of government is treating any book as contraband, everyone be worried.

The actual levels are books being:

1) removed from classroom curriculum;

2) removed from a school library;

3) confiscated from students at school;

4) removed from a public library; and

5) confiscated from adults anywhere.

One seems unproblematic in general. Five is universally alarming. Two is largely what is being discussed, though it has a habit of sliding into Four. Three is a strange one; I haven't thought about it.

maxerickson• 3 years ago

What are you quoting?

smrtinsert• 3 years ago

Do you mean, "banned across America"?

npstr2• 3 years ago

it’s important to note that they are to the end of positive social change

The end does not justify the means. Name me one single objectively bad political movement which internally thought of themselves as bad or negative. There isn't one. They all claim and for the largest part of their membership believe to serve the greater good. Therefore I find this argument of the author extremely weak. Surely they can come up with some less naive arguments?

femiagbabiaka4• 3 years ago

To move away from sophistry and towards some concrete understanding, which of the sample books they provided for that blurb would you say is "true negative"? Others which aren't explicitly highlighted would also be acceptable.

- Enough! 20 Protesters Who Changed America

- Gays and Mental Health: Fighting Depression, Saying No to Suicide

- I am Martin Luther King, Jr.

- Peaceful Fights for Equal Rights

- Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality

npstr2• 3 years ago

I did not communicate my point well enough. I'm sure a lot of these "bans" are not well justified, and good arguments can be found against them. Why use something weak like "we are the good guys and the ends justify the means"?

gmiller1234562• 3 years ago

Sadly, the word "ban" has been used all too inapropriatley lately. And this website doesn't seem to help as nowhere did I see exactly what they meant by banned, who banned them, or exactly what the ban entails.

femiagbabiaka4• 3 years ago

Banning, in this case, means removal from libraries. Sometimes it is by state order, sometimes it is via independent action taken by the school district (although that is usually also in an attempt to adhere with state board of education guidelines).

The linked data source cited for this article provides ban classifications for each and every book they list as banned.

gmiller1234562• 3 years ago

Where did you see that? I saw where they explicitly state that is not what they mean:

Namely, they are not and have not been about the physical removal of a book from a shelf.

hotpotamus• 3 years ago

It is fascinating to watch the progress from "don't be hysterical, no one is going to ban books" to "we're offended that you're calling it a ban".

constantcrying9• 3 years ago

We Reviewed All of Them

Am I blind? Where are the reviews? The website is also utterly broken on my device...

What I always find interesting is what exactly "banned" means. Certainly there is no government which punishes distribution, printing or reading of those books.

doingmaths7• 3 years ago

Certainly there is no government which punishes distribution, printing or reading of those books.

Yes, state and municipal level governments have banned books in the US?

Here's a list of some example laws in, e.g., education: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tj5WQVBmB6SQg-zP_M8u...

constantcrying9• 3 years ago

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Tj5WQVBmB6SQg-zP_M8u...

Why are you posting google doc links? These things are made to track you. Do not ever click such a link or share it. Absolutely one of the worst ways to share information.

In any case, when was the last time a book printer faced criminal charges for printing a book? A book reader for reading a book? A shop for selling a book?

xyzzyz8• 3 years ago

None of these laws punishes possession, printing and reading any books, and the only distribution restrictions are about some public libraries (typically school ones), which are directed to not stock these books, but otherwise there are no restrictions on distribution of these books.

panick21_• 3 years ago

Its kind of funny to ban books when so few specially kids actually read. Clearly these policies are far more symbolic, an act of signaling.

People feel powerless and have no actual control, but going after the local book-shelf gives a feeling of accomplishment.

Not at easy to ban content from TikTok or Youtube.

sys32768• 3 years ago

~975 are "Banned Pending Investigation" which is hyperbole for "Under Review".

teachrdan5• 3 years ago

If the books are unavailable while under review, then they are effectively banned.

xyzzyz8• 3 years ago

Irregular bans are ideologically driven.
They are supplemental to and fall outside of the standard book exclusion process at schools and libraries. Standard exclusions prevent books that promote violent, hateful, or mature/17+” topics from being placed on school bookshelves while irregular bans do not have robust processes and can be influenced by interest groups or local officials.

Seems like when the book is removed from library using an opaque, bureaucratic process, it’s called “standard exclusion”, and when it is removed using different, more public and democratic process, it’s called “banning”. Otherwise, there is no difference in the actual outcome: whether it is “standard exclusion” or “banning”, the end result is simply that book is removed from library (or prevented from being added) all the same.

Therefore, I agree that the “bans” are “ideologically driven”, because the reason this democratic process of excluding books from libraries is called “banning” is indeed very much ideological.

This might also be useful to non-Americans, who aren’t necessarily intimately familiar with US politics and language games: no book have actually been banned in US in the standard meaning of this word. Every single book on the banned list is completely legal and typically easy to obtain and possess. Even in the schools where these “banned” books were removed from libraries, I believe that the students are entirely free to possess and read these “banned” books: I never heard of schools actually treating these books as contraband. This whole “banning” narrative is simply describing removal of books from libraries through democratic instead of bureaucratic process, and the choice of the word is meant to invoke mental connotations of some sort of authoritarian/totalitarian state.

JumpCrisscross7• 3 years ago

whole “banning” narrative is simply describing removal of books from libraries through democratic instead of bureaucratic process

Put another way, through a political versus administrative process. That's rightfully problematic. It's not a ban, but we purposely ring-fence libraries from politics.

xyzzyz8• 3 years ago

I do not believe there is any sort of “ring fence” between schools and politics. The entire point of public school boards and elections thereto is to enable voters to exercise the political control over the branch of government that is providing public educational service. If your argument indeed is that the public schools should be fully and wholly independently ran by nonelected bureaucrats entirely as they please, with no input from voters whatsoever, while being publicly funded, then well, let me just say that I am adamantly opposed to that, and so is most everyone else. You cannot just claim that “we ring fence schools from politics” and expect people to acquiesce to relinquishing control of the public service they fund and make use of.

paulddraper6• 3 years ago

Irregular bans are ideologically driven.
Standard exclusions prevent books that promote violent, hateful, or mature/17+” topics from being placed on school bookshelves while irregular bans do not have robust processes and can be influenced by interest groups or local officials.

Overgeneralized.

For example, Lord of the Flies is on the list. The standard "violence" filters weren't enough to filter that one out, apparently.

One of the books is literally titled "Sex & Violence." Again, "standard exclusions" didn't filter that out.

mynameishere• 3 years ago

I wonder what the methodology is. If I mail a copy of "The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History" to some NYC school, and they decline to devote library space to it, does that mean it's "banned"? Or does it require an existing inclusion, and subsequent politically-motivated "banning" by upset parties?

Glancing at the list, it looks like quite a bit of the usual leftist propaganda, but also some bland stuff like "14 Cows for America". No one is really "banning" that in a sincere way. You want "banned" look for some David Irving down at your public school library.

friend_and_foe• 3 years ago

I wonder how the authors feel about restrictions on books such as The Bell Curve or others. I don't particularly like or agree with those sorts of ideas, but I am curious of there is a double standard or if these people are generally interested in and/or opposed to the banning of books generally.

aSithLord• 3 years ago

nothing is being "banned". every one of these books can be purchased.

tmaly• 3 years ago

The graphic is cool, but I would like to see some visual information that could give me a category of why the book was banned.

Are half the books banned for references to sexual material? It is hard to tell.

1,626 Books Were Banned Across America Last Year We Reviewed All of Them

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