Number of book challenges nationwide doubled from 2021 as book ban movement gathers speed in Republican-led states

Texas made the most attempts to ban or restrict books in 2022, according to a new report from the American Library Association (ALA).

Last year, there were 1,269 documented censorship attempts to restrict 2,571 unique titles – the highest number ever recorded by ALA’s Office of Intellectual Freedom and double the 729 book challenges made in 2021.

Texas made 93 attempts to restrict access to over 2,300 books.

The book ban movement, has been gaining speed in recent years across the US, particularly in Republican-led states, and is becoming a central theme in religious-political activism. Often the books contain issues related to LGBTQ+ communities or race.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Is that a venn diagram or a circle?

      Lately I prefer the term “regressives” as I feel it is more accurate than “conservative”.

      • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Calling Republicans conservatives is just factually inaccurate. I’ve been doing the same for a while now. The current conservative party members are the establishment Democrats.

    • thefartographer@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      Hey! I’m from Texas! And if they’d taught me to read, I’m sure I’d be offended by that second sentence too!

  • the_medium_kahuna@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Librarians and teachers are doing the good work out there. I wish our society (US) would do a better job of recognizing how important they are and just let them do their job without having to deal with all this culture war bullshit

  • Erasmus@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Is there a total list somewhere? I know there is a picture of a bunch of books at the top but are these the ones specifically from Texas?

  • Throwaway@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    Well its the biggest red state, so that lines up. Remember, when a red state school rotates its library collection, its a ban. When a bluevstate does it, its business as usual.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.one
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      1 year ago

      Texas made 93 attempts to restrict access to over 2,300 books.

      That’s not “rotating its library collection.”

    • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      “Overwhelmingly, we’re seeing these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand removal of a long list of books they share on social media.”

      Maybe you should try reading sometime.