I’m not quite sure what bee got in the burr of ABC News and writer Kiara Alfonseca, but, they decided to take on the the book bans in a neutral manner
How conservative and liberal book bans differ amid rise in literary restrictions
The country saw a growing effort to ban books in schools and libraries nationwide in 2022, and researchers expect to see more efforts to challenge books in 2023 as some Republican-backed laws across the country aim to restrict LGBTQ and racial content in school books.
While activists across the political spectrum have sought to restrict or protest some forms of literature, the vast majority of book challenges are from conservative-leaning groups, researchers say. Only a handful of efforts have also come from liberal sources, mainly targeting books with racist or offensive language.
See, of course it’s your fault
“If you get five people and they walk through a library and they are allowed to remove anything they think might get someone in trouble for it being there — Well, they’re going to start pulling all kinds of stuff, a conservative person and progressive person,” Jonathan Friedman, the director of free expression and education programs at PEN America, told ABC News. “We all have different issues that we think shouldn’t be in books — historic representations of racism, for example, something like Mark Twain is just as likely to [be seen as potentially controversial] as is ‘Gender Queer,'” a coming-of-age memoir about the author’s LGBTQ identity.
There were at least 2,532 book challenges from July 2021 to June 2022, affecting 1,648 book titles, according to a report by the free expression protection group PEN America.
“We’re in danger of removing from libraries, all kinds of materials, some of which are seen as classic forms of literature and some of which are now in danger of not becoming classic works of literature for the future because they’re being censored in this way,” Friedman said.
Yeah, most of those are from liberals
Books targeted by conservative groups were overwhelmingly written by or about people of color and LGBTQ people, according to anti-censorship researchers. According to PEN American and the ALA, many of the challenges reference the sexual content or inherent messaging in the books.
Banned Books Lists from the ALA show that these groups have challenged young adult books such as “The Hate U Give” and “The Bluest Eye,” which discuss racism in the United States, as well as book titles like “Gender Queer” and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” which discuss LGBTQ identities, sexuality and gender.
Meanwhile, liberal efforts criticized or restricted books in the name of anti-racism or progressive ideals.
Books like “Of Mice and Men;” “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” and several Dr. Seuss titles have been challenged in some schools and libraries due to racist language or imagery throughout the years, including the use of the n-word or insensitive imagery of racial stereotypes, according to the ALA.
So, liberals want literature classics removed from schools and libraries because they might get Offended, and, really, many are uber-white liberals being Offended on behalf of blacks. Conservatives want books removed from schools and libraries for two reasons: first, because these unhinged leftist books teach young kids that everything they do, everything they think, everything they are, and all their history is raaaaacist.
The second is because kids do not need to be seeing what are in essence pornography, teaching young kids about anal and oral sex, sex between same sex in a pornographic manner (you can bet parents would not want the same taught about opposite sex, because parents did protest this around 10 years ago), how to be transgender, and all sorts of stuff that is entirely not age appropriate. Children do not need to see this. Children do not need to be exposed to this. They should not be exposed to this. Especially as it’s being done to indoctrinate children, the same as all the CRT stuff.
Read: Say, What’s The Difference In The Books Liberals And Conservatives Are Banning? »