Lots of comments in this thread talking about how books aren't being banned, just removed from school libraries, or we're just trying to control the sexual content taught to our kids. No, the books aren't banned. You can still find them in bookstores.<p>One political party is removing access to books. They're doing it in the easiest place they can. They will never come for you because you have money and are an adult.<p>But this is fascism and the people in the thread who are defending it are cool with fascism. They like it because it hurts people they don't like. They will defend fascism with their lives, and many of the people you work with are these people.
Book bans just feel silly and antiquated in the age of the Internet. If kids want to read something, they can get it on their phones—that and probably much worse than anything that would ever end up in any school library.
Why is it that many of the same people complaining about having their speech suppressed online are also pushing to suppress speech in the library? If we must allow all views to be expressed online, regardless of how abhorrent they are, mustn't we also permit all views to be expressed at the library? Online content managers really have no control over how old the consumers of their content are, for all we know, it's kids consuming the racist content online.<p>At the end of the day, those who fight for "free speech" are really fighting to control which speech is free and which isn't.<p>Author John Green said it best in a reaction regarding his first novel, Looking for Alaska being targeted for a ban[0]:<p>> There's this surreality of the organization in question being called "Moms for Liberty" when what they're trying to do is restrict the liberty of other people's kids to read what librarians and teachers deem appropriate for those other people's kids to read<p>0: <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@literallyjohngreen/video/7141804014793968942?is_from_webapp=v1&item_id=7141804014793968942" rel="nofollow">https://www.tiktok.com/@literallyjohngreen/video/71418040147...</a>
The list of banned books is incomplete.<p>For instance, <i>Gone with the Wind</i> was banned in ~~Alameda~~ Anaheim[0], but California is listed as having no banned books.<p>Students should have access to any books they are likely to have heard of or are of educational value.<p>[0] <a href="https://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2013/04/07/banned-books-awareness-gone-with-the-wind/" rel="nofollow">https://bbark.deepforestproductions.com/column/2013/04/07/ba...</a>
I'll be honest. I'm really struggling to charitably interpret the reasons behind why a person might choose to flag this <i>particular</i> post. The article is well researched and contains a potential reading list, for those interested.<p>To dang et al part of moderation/admin - Does this post <i>really</i> not meet HN guidelines?
Also as a suggestion, whenever a person might choose to flag a post, it would help if there were a drop down menu that listed some options like "Flag it for...<insert frequent reason>", that might indicate to the OP on what the perceived transgression might be; without revealing the name of the flagger, of course.
At the time of writing there is just "flag" or "unflag", which lacks nuance.
It's been ~24 hours, the flagged status hasn't been lifted, and I'm none the wiser on why.
Huckleberry Finn? Anarchist's Cookbook? are we arguing over <i>which</i> books should be banned or that <i>no</i> books should be banned? 'cuz I'm on the "no bans" side, myself. Seems to be the less common position.
Books that are <i>actually</i> banned aren't in school libraries, reading lists, and Amazon won't carry them [1]. But the temptation to feel like a rebel for buying a "banned book", prominently advertised in a large corporate chain bookstore, is just too great.<p>That is when they're not accusing free speech of being a white supremacist value.<p>[1] <a href="https://truthout.org/articles/after-activist-pressure-amazon-purges-dozens-of-far-right-books/" rel="nofollow">https://truthout.org/articles/after-activist-pressure-amazon...</a>
So... this is not a new thing. Schools have always been filtering books in libraries for age appropriateness since forever. My school libraries growing up never had Kama Sutra or Mein Kampf (probably for good reasons).<p>I don't know what part of the "movement" is growing - is it that more books are being filtered than before, there are more books to sort through but the same ratio is being ratio, or there is just more outside attention on the process?
Related discussion from yesterday: "US librarians face unprecedented attacks amid rightwing book bans", <i>The Guardian</i>. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915214" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32915214</a>
The Great Bible Battle<p><a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/40531144" rel="nofollow">https://www.patreon.com/posts/40531144</a>
Schools are taxpayer run and can't provide every single book. So how do we decided which books are taught? Seems up to elected officials, school boards etc?