Forum - View topicNEWS: Judge Declares Texas' Sexual Explicitness Book Rating Law Unconstitutional
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2964 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Posts that violated our rules were removed from this discussion.
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catandmouse
Posts: 217 |
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Whatever they want to accomplish should be clearer and should have one or a few people checking for content, because as soon as they leave it open for many people to interpret, things get messy because not everyone shares the same opinions of what they find offensive or not. For example, a lote of the shonen jump series are aimed at elementary school kids/middle schoolers in Japan, yet most of those same stories published here in the US are aimed at older middle schoolers/high school. It’s a matter of perspective, what someone finds offensive may not faze someone else.
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FeelMyBlade
Posts: 142 |
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Those books are banned in many school districts, though. To Kill a Mockingbird remains one of the most contested books in American schools and curriculum. Context doesn't matter. People just look at superficial things. To Kill a Mockingbird is labeled as bad because it has the n word in it. Therefore, it's a bad book and must go away. I haven't read most of these new books popping up, but if they're actually illustrated graphic novels rather than text books then I think that's a pretty big difference. Showing images of sex and nudity is a lot different than just reading a text passage about something and I can see where the issues lie with those. The only one of these books I've read was Not My Idea, and yeah, I can see why people don't like it. |
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kotomikun
Posts: 1205 |
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Well, that was what we used to assume; but the extremely obviously political book bans recently make me wonder to what extent these have always been politically-driven. Trying to keep kids from learning rude words is a farce--they know them already, and take particular interest in anything adults try to hide from them. But frequently-banned books tend to have criticism for certain parts of history or authoritarianism, or just encourage critical thinking generally. Concepts which are much harder to pick up on your own, compared to random words that make adults angry for reasons you don't fully understand; and a certain party benefits from people knowing less about these subjects. Knowledge is power, and limiting people's knowledge is an essential part of controlling them, especially in regards to literal descriptions of the scheme you're running. They act like the sex stuff in Brave New World offends them, but they're much more concerned about how it describes the exact dystopia they hope to build, where no one possesses more information or intellect than absolutely necessary to carry out their role in the hierarchy, and entertainment and drugs suppress any hint of rebellion. We're much closer to that book's world now than we were when it was written. |
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onpufan
 Posts: 130 |
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I'm not sure I would call that a farce. I think people genuinely do feel uncomfortable when presented with certain words and topics. You can argue that their feelings don't matter or take priority over education, but I'm not inclined to think a lot of them are not faking being hurt by something. Usually when a literary classic get pulled it's because people just don't like hearing certain words or topics. One of the common citations about banning Huckleberry Finn is because it has the N word in it over 200 times. If something making someone uncomfortable is political then I guess you can call it politically motivated. I don't think schools or libraries were involved, but when those Dr. Seuss books were banned and it was announced they wont be published anymore it was due to them being 'hurtful' to certain groups. If the main reason to ban some of these newer books is because the way they talk about white people are hurtful then I guess it counts as political since it's all about people feeling uncomfortable and wronged. I don't think they're being dishonest. I imagine no one likes reading or hearing how they're bad people based on immutable traits or their identity. I assume the reason this is even being reported on an anime website is became some manga end up being pulled from libraries. Although it seems like when this topic pops up people immediately jump over to talk about American issues like race and gender and it's never actually about the one or two manga that get caught up in this stuff. Heck, it even seems like a lot of people tend to agree that maybe kids shouldn't be reading a lot of these manga to begin with and are fine with this stuff not being in school libraries. And of course we live in a time where anime, manga and light novels are still being censored in the west as well and actually see some people siding with those decisions to localize away certain elements in anime, light-novels, video games, and other Japanese media for the west. So it is interesting to see the dichotomy of how people think censorship is okay in some areas but not others, or what constitutes censorship at all. |
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Vanadise
 Posts: 506 |
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There is a very, very big distinction between a privately-owned publisher deciding what kind of content they want to sell vs. a government agency saying that it is illegal for libraries to have certain material. They're both technically censorship but I don't think it's hypocritical to think the first situation is ok and the second situation is bad. |
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Blanchimont
 Posts: 3464 Location: Finland |
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And both Florida and Texas fail spectacularly on both points, trying to ban books in school and public libraries(government trying to exert censorship=bad), and trying to sue social media platforms over their moderation(social media=private=they have the right to curate the content on their platforms). Hope judges thwart both attempts with a big, heavy, hammer, conclusively... |
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kurichan69
 Posts: 114 Location: Seattle, WA |
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Pedantic comment: In the US we do not say Year 10, we say 10th grade, which is not a freshman. Freshman would be 9th grade in a 4 year high school (freshman, sophomore, junior, senior). |
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Rentwo
 Posts: 184 |
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All the books that have actually been removed from schools are being done so because the school district themselves are doing it, not because the government told them to do so. Zero legislation exists that says it's illegal for libraries to carry certain books, even in Florida. All these book 'bans' have been have been school districts or libraries themselves willingly choosing to remove things from their curriculum or shelves. The only actual legislation that has ever been passed on books has been ones to give parents and the public more access and transparency to the process. If you actually read the bills being passed in Florida, it's stuff like HB 1467 that says things like the public should have access to their lists of books they plan on teaching or stocking and requiring certain meetings relating to instructional materials to be publicly noticed and open to the general public to witness These laws are literally about giving more power to the public, not the government. Not a single book is banned statewide in Florida by the government. All cases of Huck Finn or Gender Queer being dropped from school libraries is because the individual school district itself decided to do so, so going by your logic it should be okay. |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1329 |
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Uh, school districts are, virtually by definition, part of the government. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2356 |
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There's a meaningful distinction to be made between state legislature and local government, though, even if it's not government versus private.
I'd personally rather see these kinds of decisions mostly left to educators, especially local librarians and/or whatever organizations exist for articulating standards librarians try to follow. |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1329 |
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The previous poster was responding to the distinction between government and private publishers by claiming it's not "the government" — only to low-key acknowledge that it's the school districts, not educators, removing the books. District bans are still government bans.
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NeverConvex
Subscriber Posts: 2356 |
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Yeah, I know. I explicitly agreed (/agree) that it was still governmental; my post wasn't saying, "No! Your post is incorrect!" It was me reacting to your point and adding my own perspective on what distinctions I think are important concerning which bodies are making these decisions; namely, how centralized or decentralized power is in them, whether they consist of educational professionals or politicians or parents, and, though I consider it least interesting of the list, whether they're government organizations or not.
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Ponz@123
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I remember my english class having one book with a teen who was an inadequate apprentice to a highly regarded pianist. And it covered his coming of age and sexual awakening. That was in year 10 (Freshmen in America, Fourth Form in UK).
https://hdstreamz.uno https://krnl.fun/ Last edited by Ponz@123 on Wed Dec 20, 2023 4:29 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Traptrix Lover
Posts: 92 |
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When I was in middle school (8th grade) parents complained about us having to read The Giver because one student showed her parents that one graphic passage about the murdering of an infant child because it upset her. I don't think it was pulled although it's not like I kept up with that stuff after I left there to go to high school the following year. We still finished the book, but maybe they picked a new book for 8th grade English the following year.
I think a lot of point of contention is people not really understanding the details of what's going on. As someone mentioned earlier, a personal descision for a company to not to carry a certain book isn't really censorship by the legal definition. Most of the books being dropped from schools are being done so because the school board decided they were no longer comfortable with having them in their cirriculum or in their libraries. It probably doesn't help the word 'banned' is pretty sensationalist and has extreme connotations. No book is actually banned, despite so many news sites reporting about "book bans". You can still buy all these books in stores and own them legally just fine. I wouldn't say a library choosing not to stock And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street or Gender Queer is it being 'banned', as if it's now some kind of contraband that will get you arrested if you're caught with it. But I get politicians and news sites have to sensationalise things for clicks so saying we have actual book bans like it's 1942 Germany is more effective at whipping people up into a furor than just saying "local school district drops title from it's required reading cirriculum" Also, most cases of books being dropped from schools tend to be the result of parents and students complaining, not politicians complaining. In that regard, they're really just listening to their community. If a ton of your students and parents are upset over a book, I don't think listening to them is necessarily wrong to do. Schools listening to their students and community just seems like a natural thing to do. According to ALA, 58% of the books that are challenged come from complaints from students and parents. Only 3% come from politicians/elected officials. 3% is the same amount being challenged by librarians and teachers themselves. |
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