The “Bookbanning” Fraud

Librarians “ban” books all the time

One of the most persistent frauds of last several years is that groups of conservatives have organized to “ban” books. This propagandistic trope emerged chiefly from the efforts of the group Moms4Liberty to expunge pornography from juvenile libraries as age inappropriate.

There is a counter-lobby that believes it is fine to inject pornography into juvenile libraries — “Gender Queer” is a graphic example — and that any attempt to oversee librarian choices that have obviously exhibited grossly bad judgment is “book banning.” Libraries and librarian decision-making are sacrosanct.

Let’s be clear — librarians ban books all the time by virtue of their purchasing decisions. Some books will never appear in the library because individual librarians haven’t purchased them. Meanwhile, other books quite objectionable by virtue of pornographic content find a place on the shelves. Parents and others are supposed to meekly accept these egregious decisions as somehow highly informed and beyond discussion?

I think not.

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