Since everything is so good right now, I thought why not talk about a topic we can all disagree on: book bans. especially: the different and mutually repugnant flavors of conservative and liberal book bans.
Let’s look at both and find out how they are different and how they are similar.
You are reading: List of books banned by liberals
spoiler: they look alike because they’re both stupid.
what is a book ban?
A book ban is any action you take with the intended or unintended effect of creating a barrier between the book and its reader.
then, to avoid the sales of a book? that’s a ban. preventing the distribution of a book? prohibition. take a children’s book and put it in the adult section? prohibition. a bookstore that refuses to publish a title for reasons other than lack of interest or availability? prohibition.
Are you refusing to add Fifty Shades of Gray to a high school library’s collection? not a ban. share your opinion that a book is not very good? not a ban. a publisher that no longer prints an unpopular and undesirable book? not a ban.
I know, there are a few other behaviors that would and would not be bans, but most of them are covered here. we are ready to go.
conservatives
likes to ban entire topics instead of certain books. you take a shotgun approach, shooting down anything that discusses race, even if it’s as simple as “it’s not much fun being the only black kid in school,” anything with a gay character, even if they don’t engage in any sort of of sexual activity, or anything that can have a single sentence about masturbating.
As with most things in life, his book bans can be summed up in a single simpsons moment:
the weakness of your bans is the same as the weakness of your policy: you don’t know when to say “nothing for me, thanks, but go ahead”. you’re not imaginative enough to consider that while your child might not be ready for a book, that might be because you’ve stunted him. maybe the way you are raising your child is not the number 1, best way of all time. maybe it’s not the worst way either, but you won’t even explore other ways, and you’re passing on that lack of intellectual curiosity to your kids. instead of raising independent freethinkers, you’re raising kids who depend on mom and dad to tell them what’s right and what’s wrong in every setting.
let me give you this message: no one, when asked when they knew they were gay, replies: “oh, I wasn’t gay, but then I read a teen novel about two gay characters, and even though I wasn’t attracted to own genre before i thought it sounded like a good idea so i put a spin on it no one does drugs because a novel brought to their attention the choice of drugs no one put down the latest harry potter book and then sacrificed a goat on it forest. No one living on the streets will cite a book as the turning point where it all went wrong.
See Also: John Grisham Books In Publication & Chronological Order – Book Series
If you were to talk to a gay person, a drug user, or even someone who just doesn’t attend church weekly, you’ll know that easy access to books isn’t the problem.
liberals
What grosses me out about you is that you’ll be wearing $28 enamel pins that will proudly scream “I read banned books,” while participating in a strike where you’re effectively banning a book.
I’ve heard a lot of great phrases about liberal book bans, like “it’s not censorship, it’s creating friction” or “it’s not a ban, it’s a financial consequence for bad behavior.” “There are other books by unproblematic authors that do the same job.” “We can’t erase a book from existence, we are just a small shop.”
At least conservatives have the fortitude to admit that they are talking about throwing books into the fire as a method of protecting their values. I prefer an honest idiot to a clever liar.
just own it. recognize that you can’t brag about intellectual freedom and banned books at the same time that books are banned. maybe you feel it’s justified, and maybe it is. I’m not here to argue with that, I’m here to say that you have to accept that you’re banning books as a means to an end. you are sacrificing one ideal, intellectual freedom, for another. if your weapon of choice is banning books, treat that shit like an atomic weapon, acknowledge what you’re doing, make peace with it, and respect the terrifying power of that weapon. just don’t be surprised by the consequences when the winds turn and the tactics you used are used to censor the books you really love. And don’t pretend that what you’re doing is no big deal.
His bans also seem to have more to do with the writer’s behavior than with the content of particular books. Sherman Alexie and Junot Diaz are writers whose books were hyped for a long time and have since been withdrawn from circulation in many places. Andy Ngo and Woody Allen’s books were banned almost entirely by people who hadn’t read them and based the bans on the behavior of writers prior to that point. It’s not about the books, it’s about the author’s behavior in the world outside the books. you found a way to punish the writer, and it feels so good that it justifies punishing curious readers and taking away their chance to judge for themselves. those people are just the eggs you have to crack to make your utopian omelette, right?
The nastiest facet of your bans is that, while conservatives always cry for children, you target books aimed at adults, which means you’re treating adults like children. it means that your prohibitions come with this moral and intellectual superiority. you discovered that this book was bad or inaccurate or that the author was a bad person, and in your infinite wisdom you are rescuing me from having to make the same discovery. You act like I’m supposed to be thankful my hero. my savior.
what both agree on
both are hypocrites. Liberals supposedly don’t like censorship, but they’ll accept it when there’s a bad guy who needs to be punished. Conservatives, they don’t think the government should meddle in their affairs, but they look to the school board and Congress to protect their children from critical race theory.
Both are under the mistaken impression that book bans are an effective way to stop a book from spreading. many writers have bought… maybe not a house, but a very nice coffee table thanks to the increase in sales that came from the book ban.
both fail to recognize that books reflect reality more than they shape it, and banning a book to solve a problem is like hitting a mirror to clear up your acne.
Both of them don’t understand that books are like a way of practice for life. they are a safe way to explore and confront aggressive, bad, stupid and wacky ideas. Neither of them take into account that we will all encounter these things in life, and encountering them first in a book gives readers a chance to think about how they would react, what they might do, and the kind of people they want to be when they do. do. You are called to make a difficult decision.
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You rarely read the material before you participate in the ban. It would help if you did. At least you’d look less silly.
They both get their book news from the same super biased sources that get their regular news. both are acting in hot shots designed to get clicks and irritate them.
oh, and shit, they both get compared to Nazis way too often. Did you know that Nazi scientists tried to create conjoined twins by sewing two brothers together? like, more than once? comparing someone who attends a pta meeting or someone who organizes a walkout at a publishing house to a person who strapped a child to a chair with a device that hit his head with a hammer repeatedly until he went completely insane is. .. let’s call it “an understated scope.”
the tips part
my advice to conservatives:
Pick up your children’s assigned books, read them with your children, and talk about them together. ask your kids open-ended questions like, “How did this part make you feel?” or “what do you think you would do in this situation?” talk about whether or not a book reflects your values, and if not, why and how? I’m hesitant to say this, but books you have a moral disagreement with can be great tools for reaffirming your family’s ideals.
If you think a curriculum is leaning towards only one version of the policy, please explain and suggest some replacements or add-ons to balance the curriculum rather than simply requiring the removal of materials and creating a loophole. perhaps request that a reading assignment come with a list of choices instead of a single prescribed book. and, shit, you always talk about being resilient and entrepreneurial and all that. if your child is ruined by a book, then your child wouldn’t make it anyway.
my advice to liberals:
Your way forward is to write, publish, and market books that reflect your values, order copies from your local bookstores, read, rate, and write reviews of books that you think do a good job. I’m talking about the way you handled the dirty American situation: you didn’t try to ban the book. he recognized that the problem is not american dirt, it is an industry, and american dirt is an example. banning American filth would not have solved, or even addressed, the problem.
the sales of books on social justice in 2020 were huge, a giant. when ta-nehisi coates wrote black panther, sales were mind-boggling. they are not the underdogs in the world of books, they are winning the culture war in the world of books, which means they have the luxury of choice. you can fight for the things you love instead of fighting the things you hate.
My advice to people who don’t practice book bans:
stay away from these other jerks.
getting hate: why we should resist it with free speech, not censorship by nadine strossen at bookshop or amazon
get the case against free speech: the first amendment, fascism, and the future of dissent by pe moskowitz on bookshop or amazon
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