Book bannings, burnings, ignorance etc

[krtek a houby]

A thread for this ugly, barbaric and far too familiar practice. We go to the States and Utah send out a message

Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban

State has ordered 13 books by seven authors, six of them women, to be removed from every public school classroom and library

www.theguardian.com

 

[yield]

A thread for this ugly, barbaric and far too familiar practice. We go to the States and Utah send out a message

Utah outlaws books by Judy Blume and Sarah J Maas in first statewide ban

State has ordered 13 books by seven authors, six of them women, to be removed from every public school classroom and library

www.theguardian.com

Books by Margaret Atwood, Judy Blume, Rupi Kaur and Sarah J Maas are among 13 titles that the state of Utah has ordered to be removed from all public school classrooms and libraries.

Weird, I wonder what criteria these predominately female authors fell foul of.

 

[Sue]

Weird, I wonder what criteria these predominately female authors fell foul of.

Well the Judy Blume one is about two (older IIRC) teenagers starting a sexual relationship that's loving and consensual and safe. So pure filth obviously.

The Margatet Attwood (Oryx and Crake) I've also read. It was so shocking I honestly can't remember a great deal about it.

 

[Orang Utan]

Rupi Kaur writes rather insipid poetry of the trite self-empowerment kind that’s popular amongst some teens.
Sarah J Maas is a fantasy writer but pretty strait-laced and heteronormative.
I think they just don’t like brown people and magic that doesn’t come from god or angels or the baby jesus.

 

[krtek a houby]

Now we'll take a quick look at schools in the UK

And what a surprise, it looks like the American reactionary way might be catching on

Dozens of UK school librarians asked to remove LGBTQ+ books, survey finds

Index on Censorship said 53% of librarians polled had been asked to remove books – and that in more than half of those cases books were taken off shelves

www.theguardian.com

Stonewall says:

"It is troubling to see reports that LGBTQ+ books are being removed from school libraries as we know that many students find great importance and reassurance in seeing themselves reflected in books and media”, said a representative from LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall. “Preventing LGBTQ+ young people from seeing themselves represented in inclusive resources and books at school can often make them feel ashamed and feel the need to hide who they are.”

 

[Pickman's model]

No one ever talks about the British book burnings

 

[NoXion]

Now we'll take a quick look at schools in the UK

And what a surprise, it looks like the American reactionary way might be catching on

Dozens of UK school librarians asked to remove LGBTQ+ books, survey finds

Index on Censorship said 53% of librarians polled had been asked to remove books – and that in more than half of those cases books were taken off shelves

www.theguardian.com

Stonewall says:

"It is troubling to see reports that LGBTQ+ books are being removed from school libraries as we know that many students find great importance and reassurance in seeing themselves reflected in books and media”, said a representative from LGBTQ+ rights charity Stonewall. “Preventing LGBTQ+ young people from seeing themselves represented in inclusive resources and books at school can often make them feel ashamed and feel the need to hide who they are.”

Why the fuck are these books being removed, instead of the prissy prudish dickheads being told to go fuck themselves?

 

[Orang Utan]

Why the fuck are these books being removed, instead of the prissy prudish dickheads being told to go fuck themselves?

I’m curious too. IME as a school librarian, there were only a couple of external attempts to interfere, which I didn’t take seriously as one was about Harry Potter and magic being satanic and another from someone who believed the only book anyone should read was the Bible.
I work in a public library now. Complaints about stock are probably mostly directed elsewhere, but recently I was perturbed by someone who grabbed all of the teenage books on sexuality/puberty/adolescent health, sitting all afternoon combing through them and making notes. But all that happened was them asking to speak to the librarian and taking issue with some of the LGBT content, but not asking for any books to be removed. When the librarian tactfully explained the reasons they were in stock, they seemed satisfied and that was that, but I took that as a portent of things to come.

 

[Fozzie Bear]

Far better for kids to get these messages from online sources than the carefully selected material in libraries obviously