Today is the first day of
Banned Books Week, an event to recognize the dangers of censorship, especially in the form of book restrictions and bans.
I believe books are one of the greatest inventions in the history of mankind. Books are where authors can teach their knowledge and give their opinions, share new ideas, and take us to worlds that exist only in our collective imagination. But not everybody believes those are good things. There are people who believe certain knowledge should be restricted, that certain ideas are dangerous for people to know, and that there are some worlds that people shouldn't have access to.
Throughout history, their reaction to knowledge and ideas that scare them have been to try to restrict or ban the books that contain them. And today is no different...if anything, the pressure to ban books that express certain thoughts and ideas is greater than ever. Just last month, voters in Jamestown Township in Michigan
voted to defund their library entirely after it refused to remove all books with LGBTQ+ themes from its shelves entirely. And if you check out the American Library Association's
top ten list of challenged books for the last year, you'll see that half of them are due LGBTQ+ content that was challenged under the guise of being 'sexually explicit'.
2021 Most Challenged Library Books
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images
Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for depictions of abuse and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, violence, and because it was thought to promote an anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references and use of a derogatory term
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and degrading to women
The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Banned and challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit
This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
Reasons: Banned, challenged, relocated, and restricted for providing sexual education and LGBTQIA+ content.
Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin
Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.
This isn't an issue that just concerns authors, publishers, and librarians, because it's not the books themselves that are being challenged. It's the ideas that they contain: the idea that LGBTQ+ identities are normal and acceptable, the idea that there are legitimate issues concerning policing and race, and overall the idea that there are dark and scary aspects of life and humanity that need light to shine on them. These are ideas that our community stands for, but beyond that they're attacks on civil and respectble debate and exchange of information.
And the fact of the matter is, the books that people most want to suppress are often the ones that need to be read the most.
So in recognition of Banned Books Week, I would like to issue the
Banned Book Challenge to our community. For the remainder of the year, I will award 1 krone to anybody for each book from this list that they read and discuss here on the forums...in a reply to this topic, or as a new topic. And if you've read any of these books in the past and can discuss it already, I'll reward the krone for that too.
Let's delve into these topics that scare people most, learn a few things, and have fun while doing it.
