53% More Book Banning Incidents In US Schools This Year

vikingpower writes "Isabel Allende's The House of The Spirits. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man. What do these titles have in common? They are banned at a school in the U.S. Yes, in 2013. A project named The Kids' Right to Read Project (by the National Coalition Against Censorship ) investigated three times the average number of incidents, adding to an overall rise in cases for the entire year, according to KRRP coordinator Acacia O'Connor. To date, KRRP has confronted 49 incidents in 29 states this year, a 53% increase in activity from 2012. During the second half of 2013, the project battled 31 new incidents, compared to only 14 in the same period last year. 'It has been a sprint since the beginning of the school year,' O'Connor said. 'We would settle one issue and wake up the next morning to find out another book was on the chopping block. The NCAC also offers a Book Censorship Toolkit on its website."

Comments

The 21st Century is

[Anonymous Coward]

the new 15th Century.

Re:The 21st Century is

[lgw]

Ellison's Invisible Man is banned? Dammit, I was forced to read that (very slow-paced book about racism) in high school. Hours of my life I'll never get back! Why couldn't you have banned it earlier? Whyyyy?

Actually, that one baffles me: unlike, say, Huck Finn, Invisible Man is primarily about racism: of course it depicts racism and racial stereotypes; illustrating just how messed up we were was the point of the story (the man was "invisible" in the sense that no one ever noticed he was a person, deserving basic consideration).

Re:The 21st Century is

[SuricouRaven]

Politics, probably. There's a lot of backlash against political correctness - some people would see reading such a book in schools as 'liberal indoctrination' intended to make white people feel guilty about being white.

Re:The 21st Century is

[jythie]

It is hard to say, but keep in mind a lot of regions are going through a 'poor abused white man, any mention or discussion of racism is just libs trying to take down white people!'. There were several attempts to get teachers fired this year because they made 'white male students' uncomfortable.

Re:The 21st Century is

[lgw]

I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.

Re:The 21st Century is

[Penguinisto]

Gotta agree with sibling... most school districts are far more enamored with stomping out all hallmarks of what most of us refer to as the real world.

Can't have harsh terminology, can't have depicted violence... hell, they can't even stand to have some wayward little boy kissing a girl, or pointing a finger at a classmate while saying "bang".

With all the zero tolerance BS going around? I can almost assure you that the censorship isn't coming from some drooling caricature of the "Right Wing" (cue ominous music), but more a result of overly-anxious officials scouring the libraries to expunge anything that could remotely intrude on what they assert is the "best" way to teach a child.

Re:The 21st Century is

[EdIII]

Why wouldn't it make us uncomfortable?

That teacher made no effort to make the distinction between the actions of people in the past, and the young white men in the room. That's a huge effin problem. Let's discuss racism, and stereotypes, and prejudice, but do it in a way that is not racist in of itself.

Do you think it was only white men that had slaves and were racist? Puhleeeze.

Black people can be the most racist people on the planet now. Look at genocide happening in Africa. Christians and Muslims in Syria. Racism, slavery, and those associated evils are not the exclusive domain of white men. Black people sold each other into slavery in Africa. People tend to forget that. Slaves were picked up at the coast, but it was not white men hunting them to bring them to port.

That's what is so damn offensive about those "libs", "teachers", whatever dealing with children. I just call them arrogant racist assholes.

I was passionate about history, but I would have been deeply hurt and offended if there was too much emphasis on white men being the problem, and not enough attention paid towards creating a distinction that the young white men in the room are not inherently evil.

It's fucking hurtful. It creates a divide. It perpetuates the problem.

I totally understand the thinking behind the book ban. The "white man" is unfairly demonized well after we are supposed to getting rid of this shit. Does anyone think it's a really good idea to create judgement and negative emotions in a young person solely based on the color of their skin?

Children should not suffer the sins of the parents. I am not my parents.

Re:The 21st Century is

[mhajicek]

Banned in a school \= banned in the US.

Re:The 21st Century is

[darnkitten]

Have you tried it in audio format? Sometimes a good reader will make all the difference.

Re:The 21st Century is

[darnkitten]

Politics, probably. There's a lot of backlash against political correctness - some people would see reading such a book in schools as 'liberal indoctrination' intended to make white people feel guilty about being white.

I'd give you odds it's the reverse - that someone searched through an eBook library and banned every one with racial epithets regardless of context.

Usually, anymore, it is an organization that specializes in book or curriculum challenges. It will have a list of "objectionable" materials; downloadable complaints; challenges with page numbers and everything included; and all the press releases needed. The parent/teacher/administrator/pastor/insert authority figure does not even have to read the book.

Check out the Parents Action League's Book Alert Page (sorry, can't remember how to insert a link) for an example.

Re:The 21st Century is

[rmdingler]

Morgan Freeman sounds good narrating my grocery list.

Re:The 21st Century is

[tpstigers]

"The "white man" is unfairly demonized"

No. It is, in fact, pretty fair.

Re:The 21st Century is

[stdarg]

No, it's not.

Re:The 21st Century is

[KermodeBear]

What? Black slave owners? I don't believe it! Surely this is just another lie from the white devils! ...Oh, wait a minute...

Re:The 21st Century is

[Pseudonym Authority]

With all the zero tolerance BS going around?

Zero tolerance = zero thinking. It's a way to remove the responsibility out of school administrators and pin it on some other government body, probably one with lawyers. It's a "Just following orders" for education.

Re:The 21st Century is

[Pumpkin Tuna]

If you can come up from your fantasy of PC guvvmint censors, you will realize that these are "challenged" books. This means someone NOT in the local school district's governing body or staff (usually a parent or community member) demanded that the book be removed. And yes, this is almost ALWAYS from the "right wing."

Re:The 21st Century is

[LWATCDR]

While I am a really tired of PC I do not think that is the reason.
Of course my school didn't ban books. It had a far better solution. In my Jr. High School they had a small book shelf that had books that required parents permission. One of the books on that shelf was Brave New World which I will never understand being restricted since it was anti drug and anti casual sex. It was not a problem for me since my parents gave me permission to read what ever.
In High School they put the books like Catch 22 and Slaughter House 5 in the "young adults room". You had to be in 11th or 12th grade to go in but for some reason it was never open. They where always using it for projects and such. Very effective way to not have the books cause a problem.

Re:The 21st Century is

[EdIII]

Bullshit.

When you are trying to teach something in a room with young people, and you bring up history in such a way that you label and isolate some young people in the room based on skin color, THAT NEEDS TO CHANGE

More racism does not cure racism.

For all of those that do feel oppressed, taking it out on young white men by telling them that they are evil and do evil things, is not a very smart way to move forward in society.

From those labels comes sadness & resentment. From that you get depression and anger. From that you get young people abused, taken advantage of, and then tattooed, shaved, and handed a neo-nazi jacket.

Talk about uncomfortable things all you want. For those children that is part of growing up and I would not want to shelter them. Just don't isolate a group of them and make them feel bad about something they have no power to change.

We can't change the past. We are not responsible for the entirety of the present. We can't change our skin color. Michael Jackson was a one-off.

Re:The 21st Century is

[EdIII]

So the young white men that you have in class rooms, representing the opportunity for change, should just have to endure your racist offensive bullshit?

You're teaching them:

1) I'm white. I can't change that though.
2) Everybody hates me because of what I represent. I can't change their incorrect perceptions.
3) White people do evil shit. Doesn't matter that I don't have those negative feelings at all. I look white and have a penis, therefore I'm responsible for all the oppression and social inequality. I was born evil and I'm the Devil.
4) Black people apparently do a tremendous amount of evil offensive shit. From murders, treating women offensively, idolatry of the dollar, etc. They aren't personally responsible though. They have plenty of excuses of why that is, and I need to not say anything judgmental towards them to further the white man's oppression.

You didn't even listen to him did you?

You're own hatred and racism is being used to breed more of it. Everything that you ostensibly hate about racism, you push onto an innocent young child.

Because. Of. The. Color. Of. His. Skin.

Yeah... that's going to end well.

P.S - Instead of slamming young white men about how they are evil and deserve to be demonized.... why don't you spend even more effort showing them the success stories of "other" people? Show a diverse range of examples that serve to eliminate the illusory divide between us, and at the same time, heal the rift between everyone. Raise young white men to know that racism is simply stupid and illogical and that the color of one's skin in no way determines their potential worth to society.

Re:The 21st Century is

[MightyMartian]

I'm sorry. I don't actually believe there is a thing called "cultural Marxism". That's just another meaningless descriptor brought to you by the sick twisted minds that insist climatologists are communists and a functional useful government is impossible and no one of wealth owes the civilization in a damned thing.

Re:The 21st Century is

[EdIII]

You misunderstand like most other people here. It's not about covering up history. It's 100% about the delivery and the attitudes of those that would impart the information to our youth.

First, teach about how we made useless, baseless, and extremely harmful distinctions between people based on their skin color, religion, gender, etc. You don't need to single out white people to do it at all. We can reference a huge amount of history and disparate races and cultures. The Greeks, Romans, Celts, large parts of Africa, the Dutch slave trade, indentured servitude laws, religious persecution in Europe, the Inquisition, the Mongols, and yes, slavery in the US. Teach that slavery and racism are not the exclusive domain of white men, but very old practices that we no longer tolerate in evolved societies.

Secondly, emphasize that this is not how we do it today. It's 100% not acceptable behavior at all. All forms of racism, including gender related behavior. That they may notice some older people still doing it, but that they are not as mature, and yes, have fallen victim to old bad habits. Make it abundantly clear that the children in the room don't bear any of the responsibility and blame for what happened in the past, and they're our future. The best way to stamp out racism is to refuse to participate. Literally, stop thinking about it and it will stop.

Thirdly, be proactive in NOT making racial distinctions as much as possible. When you do reference it, be sure to reference it as something from the past. Anytime you speak about a contemporary person, don't mention race. Children don't need to know Obama is black and the first black President. Why? There should be no value whatsoever in the information, and to find value, means to find value in those racially supported distinctions. All they need to know is that he was/is President, and was a complete and utter fucking disappointment, which had nothing to do with his skin color. That's left up to history to judge though. I have my own opinions about that total pussy.

Fourthly, and this isn't hard, fill text books with examples of great people from all over the world and different cultures. When you show children that our greatest and most revered people came from so many different backgrounds, and look so different, it subtly reinforces the idea that skin color really doesn't matter. You and I know that it doesn't. We need to show them that great people come from all walks of life equally.

Fifth.... DON'T BRING THE DIRTY LAUNDRY AND NEGATIVE FILTH FROM YOUR OWN PAST AND LIFE EXPERIENCES INTO THE CLASSROOM TO INFECT AND TAINT THE YOUTH OF TOMORROW.

I'm sorry. I just can't fucking stand it. When I hear about some liberal piece of shit trash woman (yes, she is black) shit talking and going on and on about the "white man" in a classroom in 2013 with children in there it drives me insane. How dare she harm those young children and inflict her own bullshit on them.

I learned about the word nigger when I was almost a teenager, and it was the most confusing day of my life. I actually told the boy that it was okay. I was a nigger too, as I thought it meant something like nerd. I grew up not understanding anything about skin color, or racism. The more people wanted to teach me, the more I found them having resentment towards white men in the present and then, as ridiculous as it sounds, conflating it and associating it with me.

Then I learned about the complete logical fallacy that was Affirmative Action. Why I was being punished because of my skin color? Why does Greg get all of these things, not because of his accomplishments, but because of his skin color?

No. I refuse to participate in the rest of many people's delusions. I will teach kids about the logical fallacy that is racism and I will do it in such a way that I don't associate them with events of the past.

Racism does not cure racism.

Re:The 21st Century is

[Anubis IV]

Exactly the same for me. I was going to post that too. I remember suffering through that book and coming out the other end glad that I was done and wouldn't have to read it again. Same goes for several other books I was forced to read.

Even so, I'm glad to hear that these are isolated incidents of banned books, and that even the ones I may not like are not being banned in any sort of appreciable way. 49 cases across the entire nation is not exactly a huge deal, considering that's several orders of magnitude lower than the number of schools we have, even if it is a 53% increase over last year.

Re:The 21st Century is

[tlambert]

I'm sorry. I don't actually believe there is a thing called "cultural Marxism".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Marxism

Actually, it dates back to at least 1933, although I'm going to guess that given the context, the GP is probably referring to Antonio Gramsci and the Frankfurt School and its influence in Britain during the 1960's during "The Cultural Revlution", which drove a lot of the adoption of the P.C. mindset in institutions of higher learning.

BTW: the adoption of the term and its application by conservatives pretty much owes itself to the William S. Lind book "Who stole our culture?", and is rarely used by conservative thinkers outside his clique.

Re:The 21st Century is

[tlambert]

While I am a really tired of PC I do not think that is the reason.
Of course my school didn't ban books. It had a far better solution. In my Jr. High School they had a small book shelf that had books that required parents permission. One of the books on that shelf was Brave New World which I will never understand being restricted since it was anti drug and anti casual sex. It was not a problem for me since my parents gave me permission to read what ever.

Uh... Brave New World is all about sex, drugs, and shallow relationships. One of the plot points centered around one of the characters mis-dialing her birth control device (her "Malthusian belt"), and any message to the contrary was only by way of negative examples. It was also about the consequence to a society which had effectively "banned God". Another plot point revolves around Shakespeare's works having gotten banned, and so anyone whose into banning books in the first place would probably have as much love for their act being vilified as they do for Fahrenheit 451. I could see both sides coming down hard on that one (Liberals for the pro-religion message, conservatives for the sex and Soma, both for the anti-banning message).

I read Silas Marner in 3rd grade, only finding out afterward that I wasn't supposed to have been allowed that book at that age, and went on to strike a deal with the bookmobile lady to let me check out more books at higher levels of difficulty than I was "supposed to be reading", since I went through about one a day over the summer, and the bookmobile was a once a week thing. I still average a book a day, but make most of that up on the weekends. I'm betting Silas Marner's plot pisses off Objectivists.

There really is no excuse for the banning of books, and most of the reasoning for bans involves politics and criticism of government officials.

Re:The 21st Century is

[SuricouRaven]

Brave New World ran into the problem of trying to write a dystopia which, upon further consideration, actually looks like a very nice world to live in. Sure, it may be a bit oppressive to some... but the standard of living is ridiculously luxurious, crime is all but unheard of, unemployment is barely even imaginable and overall the people are very happy there.

Reverse psychology?

[Anonymous Coward]

Best way to make people want something is to ban it.

Ban or Censor?

[Mr D from 63]

There is a difference. Its a shame the words are interchanged just to outrage the reader.

Lots of books should be censored from our public schools for a variety of inappropriate content. More books are being published every year, so that list should grow. Kids can get any of those books via their parents if they want. As for the particular books on the list, well, each case must be discussed separately.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[Shadow of Eternity]

The difference is whether or not you agree with the people doing the banning.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Kids can get any of those books via their parents if they want.

Yeah, that's privilege speaking.

The people who most rely on public institutions are the ones who are least able to replace them with their own money. Average middle-class kid and just get his mom to order the book on amazon. Average lower-class kid's mom is working 60 hours a week just to pay the rent and keep food on the table. She doesn't even have a computer to order from amazon and couldn't afford to if she did.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[nurb432]

I happen to agree, and as long as its still available to parents and older children i'm not so sure either term applies.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[DarkOx]

I don't know if by censor you mean make some redacted version of the work available or make the entire work unavailable.

If its the latter I am not sure I agree with you but many will. On the whole there is not bright line for what is vulgar, what is culture, and what is appropriate for a given age reader but people have been searching for one almost as long as people have been writing books and its a moving target. I would argue that parents, relatives, and nannies need to spend enough time with their children to know what they are reading and put in the correct context for them. If its not possible for some caring responsible to be in a position to do that than we need to be rethinking other aspects of our society before we worry about who is reading what books.

If its the former than I shutter to think what will happen to you when you take the black market to the Bible, Qu'arn, Upanishads, and just about every other holy book. My guess is angry mobs will descend upon you. If you are going to censor content though you pretty much will have to maul those works because they contain examples of just about everything anyone anywhere has thought might be inappropriate to write about.

No I don't think we need to go out of our way to stock school libraries with whatever it is people find 'edgy' this decade but I also don't think we ought to worry much about it either. Why? Because: We ought to consider that there is no safer way than a book where a young person can get exposure to some of these edgy and more radical ideas, let alone feelings and thoughts around 'adult' activities.

They are going to hear about or see this stuff happening somewhere sometime whatever it is, drugs, sex, explosives, other religions, and they will be curious. Much of that curiosity might very well be satisfied by just reading about it and at least there the worst that can happen to your delicate little snowflake is probably a paper cut.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[liquid_schwartz]

GLAAD loves banning / censoring speech. Hardly a Christan organization though.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[bickerdyke]

If it was a money problem, public libraries would offer a convinient solution.

The true luxury that "privileged" kids have are parents who manage to get them intrested in reading.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[Mr D from 63]

Since none of these books is banned from the public library, I'd say its a bit of a needless side-track to the discussion. Kids that are brought up in challenged environments have a wide number of factors that will limit their ability to succeed in life. Ready access to a few particular books in the school library is very low on the list of things to worry about for those kids.

Re:Ban or Censor?

[Penguinisto]

Let's call a spade a spade. Only the Christians support this. Even they'd admit. Hell, they're proud of it.

...really? I was reading a large number of books as a kid in Catholic School that would qualify as censorship material today.

(...as a near-universal example, start with The Bible - specifically, Song of Solomon.)

More people have died

[WOOFYGOOFY]

More people have been persecuted, hounded, ruined, tortured, burned, murdered, and just exterminated en-masse because of a book called the Bible than any other document in human history including Mein Kampf and Das Capital put together.

Just sayin' .

Re:More people have died

[YumoolaJohn]

I'm not sure either of those things is true. People would have done 'kind'/'evil' things regardless of whether these fairy tail books were around or not, in all likelihood.

Re:More people have died

[sconeu]

This "Bible" book condones a hell of a lot of stuff:

• Incest (Lot & his daughters)
• Terrorism (see the 10 plagues)
• Biological warfare (again, see the 10 plagues)
• Genocide
• Rape

It clearly should be banned.

Re:More people have died

[WOOFYGOOFY]

Actually I'm going to have to throw the Koran in there to really seal it up, owing to the efficiency of 20th century killing machines. BUT even at that, it's merely because the American Indians and Mexican Aztecs who died from infectious diseases aren't normally counted as having been "killed" by Cortez and the Manifest Destiny Christians .

But this is wrong. Anne Frank died of typhus, not in the gas chambers but she is rightly counted as having been killed by Nazis anyway.

Face it - religious wars and the books that inspire those wars have killed more people than other book or ideology.

Re:More people have died

[gewalker]

Highest estimate I was able to find at all related to the Bible related deaths was 17 million in a quick search.

How about Das Capital and everything related to it? 100 million give or take.

The 100 million deaths related to Communism being attributed to Das Kapital is certainly at least as valid as counting the Crusades and the Inquisition as being a result of the Bible -- Nothing in the Bible can accurately be attributed as a direct cause of these 2 events. Just as in the case of Das Kapital was not the direct cause of the many atrocities of communism.

The Bible is at best 2nd place is the history of killing people because of a book.

It may be in third place if you count Mein Kampf related deaths at about 15 million (6 million Jews + 9 million war deaths), as the 17 million for the Bible may be a bit high on the as accurate numbers for Bible related deaths are hard not available.

Re:More people have died

[WOOFYGOOFY]

I don't buy it. People will do for each other out of a natural inborn sense of decency. No religious exhortations needed. Christians didn't invent civilization, civil law, democracy , representative government, the concept of Rights or the concept of a shared, general welfare. These are the things that keep us from sliding back down in barbarism.

OTOH as is widely evident, nations founded on religious "values" are only too happy to slide back into barbarism. There is a direct, inverse relationship between how religious a nation is and how equitable and egalitarian it is. That's not for nothing. The more religious the state, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia , Yemen Pakistan India the worse off religious minorities and women in those nations have it- they're just much less equitable to their populations.

Even amongst developed countries this relationship holds. Canada is more equitable than the US and Denmark and the Netherlands are even more equitable than Canada. Religion is the go-to reason why some people should be privileged over others, why some people should be displaced, disenfranchised even killed. It's just a historical fact.

If you want to tell me that ystic Sufis, Sikhs and Zen Buddhists are peaceble grass munching bunny-people then I'm not interested in arguing about THAT kind of religious endeavor which may even have something positive to contribute to society. But evangelical Christians for instance, believe that it ultimately doesn't matter what you DO in this life, good or bad, because either your name was written in the Book of Life at the start of all time or it wasn't and if it was, you're going to heaven and if not, fuck you, you're going to hell and that's all there is to morality. They don't say this explicitly but it's a basic tenant of their sick fundamentalism. I am sure in other religions there are correspondingly demented core beliefs. See www.religionofpeace.com for details .

This may be new to some readers. Book:

God is not Great- Chris Hitchens

Point is, the people doing this banning are fundamentalist or evangelical Christians whose own book has caused untold real world suffering, unlike , say Tropic of Cancer or House of Spirits, for instance.

See the point?

Re:More people have died

[WOOFYGOOFY]

100 million American Indians dead between Cortez and the American Indian genocide. Plus, lower population then, so greater relative percentage. If you go by percentage of population, it's a total wipe out in favor of religion. .

Re:More people have died

[Mr D from 63]

So, in your opinion, everything bad a person does is based on religion, and everything good is human nature? I think there is plenty of "evil" in human nature as well as "good". I am athiest, so I could care less if we are talking Christians or Buddhists, or assigning blame to one religion or another, but to choose to only assign the negative to religious influence seems to be more a matter of convenience to your own arguments.

Religions have cropped up in almost all societies. There is a reason for that, and its not "evil". It is because there was a need. Its an interesting exercise to think about that societal need. Much more interesting than just blindly casting fault on religions for many of our problems.

Re:More people have died

[cold fjord]

More people have been persecuted, hounded, ruined, tortured, burned, murdered, and just exterminated en-masse because of a book called the Bible than any other document in human history including Mein Kampf and Das Capital put together.

Just sayin' .

As long as your meaning is, "They were persecuted for believing in Judaism or Christianity," or for owning a Torah or Bible, very possibly.

Beginnings of Christian Martyrdom

In their very deaths they were made the subjects of sport: for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts, and worried to death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to, and when the day waned, burned to serve for the evening lights. Nero offered his own garden players for the spectacle, and exhibited a Circensian game, indiscriminately mingling with the common people in the dress of a charioteer, or else standing in his chariot. For this cause a feeling of compassion arose towards the sufferers, though guilty and deserving of exemplary capital punishment, because they seemed not to be cut off for the public good, but were victims of the ferocity of one man."

WHEN EUROPEANS WERE SLAVES

A new study suggests that a million or more European Christians were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa between 1530 and 1780 – a far greater number than had ever been estimated before.

League of Militant Atheists
North Korea Ranked No. 1 for Christian Persecution
Persecuted and forgotten: Egypt's Christians
A Global Slaughter of Christians, but America’s Churches Stay Silent
Christian Persecution in China Despite Supposed Religious 'Freedom'
The Case Against the Nazis; How Hitler's Forces Planned To Destroy German Christianity

UNDERSTANDING ANTI-SEMITISM AND ITS HISTORY

The list is obviously much longer.

Since someone is practically certain to object along two lines, lets dispose of them now.

Yes, the Spanish Inquisition was terrible, it was also limited in scope.
The Crusades were a long delayed response to Muslim invasion of the Holy Land.

Re:More people have died

[lgw]

nations founded on religious "values" are only too happy to slide back into barbarism. There is a direct, inverse relationship between how religious a nation is and how equitable and egalitarian it is.

Your knowledge of history is sadly lacking. The truth in Western culture is that for about 1000 years, the Church and the State balanced on another well. There were vile, hateful people in both, but each acted as a check on the worst excesses of the other. The dual power structure really helped protect the common man (OTOH, he did pay taxes to both, and each family owed a son to each).

But evangelical Christians for instance, believe that it ultimately doesn't matter what you DO in this life, good or bad, because either your name was written in the Book of Life at the start of all time or it wasn't and if it was

You're knowledge of Christian sects is worse. "Evangelicals" are mostly about religion-as-popular-entertainment. You don't get 10000+ member mage-churches by spending time on Calvin and Luther and sin, but by putting on elaborate and entertaining stage productions each week, carefuly tuned to make people feel better for having attended, not making anyone feel bad or guilty. You may be thinking of "fundamentalists", may of whom believe just what your wrote - they're at the opposite end of the spectrum of modern Christian sects from the evangelicals.

Re:More people have died

[operagost]

The Bible doesn't say anything about wiping out Native Americans.

Information is dangerous

[Maquis196]

Words can hurt you, won't someone please think of the children!

Less than 50 incidents for the whole country?

[jandrese]

This headline seems rather sensational since the numbers are so small. The US has roughly 100,000 public schools. The fact that only 49 of them (well, probably some of these are full districts, so the number of schools will be greater) are banning books should be celebrated. This is people fighting the good fight against highly local ignoramuses, not some big national problem. I'm glad they're doing what they're doing, but I'm more glad that it's almost unnecessary.

Re:Less than 50 incidents for the whole country?

[Idarubicin]

The fact that only 49 of them (well, probably some of these are full districts, so the number of schools will be greater) are banning books should be celebrated.

The concern I would have here is that we have no way of knowing what fraction of all book bannings come to the attention of NCAC. Particularly if a ban is implemented by a single school, banning a book from the curriculum may only directly affect one or two classrooms' worth of children. Not all of those students (or even their parents) may necessarily be aware that a ban has been applied. In subsequent years, no one may have any inkling that the ban exists; the book will have silently disappeared from the curriculum. The syllabus doesn't usually include a list of the books that aren't being taught. So for those reasons, I suspect that the number given - 49 instances - represents a very significant under-reporting.

On the other hand, that same under-reporting gives me a (small) measure of comfort with respect to the other number in the summary: the purported 53% year-over-year increase in bannings. Without ready access to more data, it's entirely possible that the increase in cases is not due to an increase in bannings (undoubtedly a bad thing) but due to an increase in awareness regarding the NCAC and their Kids' Right to Read Project which would make these incidents more likely to be reported and challenged when they do occur (which would be a good thing).

Re:Less than 50 incidents for the whole country?

[darnkitten]

Part of the problem in this discussion is that we are dealing with almost NO concrete information.

The article on which the NPR "article" is based tells of 49 "incidents" this year with no additional details--we may presume that it has to do with children, based on the project name. They say that they investigated "three times the average number" in November, without revealing the number. They do give concrete numbers for this school year so far (31 compared to 14 last year), but give no context. The ALA reported 464 challenges in 2012 (referenced by turning in circles, above), but we don't know how these organizations relate or how this statistic relates to the KRRP statistics.

We don't know what percentage of challenges were successful, only that there was [a] "notable increase in positive outcomes to book challenges." They indicate clusters of challenges around racial and LGBT subjects, and suggest coordination, but give no corroborating evidence, and no links to the underlying data.

We are left with the vague impression that we should panic and with a link to their websites, where you have to hunt around to find any information related to the articles in question.

Yes, this IS slashdot, but doesn't it strike anyone as odd that we've been discussing/arguing/namecalling based on what is essentially a poorly-written press release?

OTT headline?

[YrWrstNtmr]

"53% More Banning Incidents"

No, they're investigated 53% more requests. The linked article says nothing about how many were actually banned.
And the majority of requests were from parents or library patrons, not school districts or state/local govts.

49 cases. Is that idiocy? Are these idiots? Sure. But good grief....49 cases out of how many million kids and parents?

Alternate non-OTT headline - "0.002% of parents in the US have requested a book be banned in their local school library."
You could find a greater percentage of people complaining about just about anything.

Re:OTT headline?

[Gh0st_Preacher]

Actually decided to brave the comments section to post just this - the headline is wrong. This system (at least where I live in Northern California) works something like this: 1. Parent finds "objectionable material" in a book their child was assigned. 2. Parent ignores the packet they got before the school year started that tells them the reading list and letting them know that if they don't approve of any book/material for their child, they can work with the teacher for an alternative. 3. Parent goes to local school district and files an official complaint. 4. After processing said complaint, the district must pull all copies of said book while it is under "review". 5. Parent feels morally justified. 6. Book returns to shelves for the whole cycle to restart. That's probably the kind of "incident" the article was originally referencing.

Re:School officials will likely confiscate it

[SuricouRaven]

That's because they are. Try keeping a class focused on their lesson when half of them have a phone hidden under the desk to check their facebook page.

bad reportage/bad stats/just plain bad

[turkeydance]

and we take their word for it.

Yawn

[sideslash]

Schools in general act "in loco parentis", and decide what material young people should be exposed to in order to have a good education. Schools may make good or bad choices, but they do make choices. I am not surprised that a book is banned at a school library. It is no more or less appropriate than a ban on taking kids to a field trip to a strip club. I as a parent would happily ban my children from attendance at a strip club, and a school (acting, again, in loco parentis) may do the same if it decides it's best.

Don't like that? Then homeschool your kids and be responsible for their welfare yourself.

For what it's worth, I homeschool my own kids. I won't show slasher movies to a 3 year old. I expect an 18 year old to be prepared to be an adult. At some point in there a transformation has taken place; every child is different, but parents can and do mess it up by exposing their kids to junk when they're not ready for it. Such junk could be bad friends (learning to be racists/dishonest/etc.) or (yes, Slashdot) bad media for their age and emotional maturity.

Banned? Not so fast...

[kenh]

It appears that dropping a book from the curriculum now passes as being 'banned'?

So when the new Norton Anthology of American Literature is published, are we now saying that the previous version/edition was 'banned'? Of course not, but if a school district decides to drop, for example Huck Finn, BUT the district keeps the book in the school library, is it considered 'banned'? By this group, the answer is yes.

Re:Myth of PC

[Sigma 7]

.and the liberals want to push their own narratives and have done so, largely because the schools are government funded to begin with.

I think such censorship is probably because of parents that think their special snowflakes shouldn't be exposed to such hateful material.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - banned because of the n-word, and changing it to slave made the book fine for reading. I find it very hard to believe a liberal agenda would be to deny well-known past history, especially when they replace it with something worse (i.e. "nigger" means the person could legally leave, while "slave" does not.)

The Catcher in the Rye - single use of the f-word.

Bridge to Terabithia - banned because of disrespect to adults. I've seen greater disrespect from shows where kids are highly effective at knocking out international criminal organizations as those imply that adults are useless (and practically waving a big flag in front of the radar).

authors

[LMariachi]

"Isabel Allende's The House of The Spirits. Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian. Alice Walker's The Color Purple. Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man. What do these titles have in common?"

None of the authors are white?

and more it does not explicitely condamn

[aepervius]

Like slavery. In the old testament it even states how to handle a slave, and in the new it does not even condamn it really. If anybody really wanted evidence that the bible are a product of human within their time, then just look at what it excplicitely support or does not bother condamning, which we find today abbhorrent. It becomes quickly clear that the bible is nowhere near the moral guidance it is purported to be.

Re:Myth of PC

[ultranova]

The neocons want to push the bible as their narrative.

Well, their version of it, anyway.