“Banned”, Really?

The argument over what counts as a “banned” book distracts from a more troubling question: whose perspectives are libraries making available to readers?

“Words are wise men's counters, they do but reckon by them: but they are the money of fools” – Thomas Hobbes

A few days ago, I walked into my local public library to pick up some books and I saw the seasonal display of so-called “banned” books. I laughed out loud, and then I took photographs so that I would have a record of every book that the library calls “banned”, since none of them are.

Then I went online and I saw the same old tedious argument by redefinition going on around the word “banned”.

There are two competing definitions of this word “banned”, and while the verbal combatants thrust their competing definitions at each other like two hoplite phalanxes in a permanent deadlock, the real problem of ongoing systemic censorship in public libraries is obscured by this relentless rain of verbal chaff.

Here are the definitions:

1. This is the ALA’s definition, which is often the one appealed to. It has an extraordinarily expansive definition of “banned”, which defies common sense.

“A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.”

2. The second definition is a restrictive definition with a common-sense ordinary meaning and no official wording; your best source is probably an older dictionary of reasonable quality. A book is “banned” if the government of a geographic region has made it illegal to possess, sell, or publish a book in that region. This is an excellent definition, because it is common or ordinary, and because it has for centuries been a common practice of governments to ban books in this sense and to cruelly punish those who possess them.

These definitions are mutually exclusive. If a book is “banned” by Definition (1) it cannot be “banned” by Definition (2), and vice-versa. If it is illegal for a person to possess some book (2), no government library will carry it, and so it cannot be removed from that library (1). Hence the argument of definitions.

I prefer using common ordinary words with their common ordinary meaning. Definition (1) is obviously meant to confuse and obfuscate. Definition (2) is precise, clear, and useful. I’m sticking with Definition (2).

Those “banned” (1) books I saw in the library can’t possibly be banned (2), they are in the library!

It seems that those who use this excellent Definition (2), possibly because they are so exhausted by the people endlessly reiterating Definition (1), are not prepared to think further. Having played the word game to what they feel is a tie, they are unwilling to enter the reality game; they are unwilling to acknowledge that it even exists. But the reality game does exist, and it’s just as important as the word game, because it is reality.

The reality is one of systematic bias throughout the publishing industry and in public and school libraries throughout the United States. Rather than describing the many mechanisms of this systematic bias, since there are many articles that cover it, some referenced in my previous article for FAIR, I’ll talk about just one “banned” book in my library’s display of “Banned” books, “The 1619 Project”.

First, the basics. We know this book is not banned, because the library is displaying it. Has someone somewhere objected to its presence in some government run library? I think that’s very likely; it probably is “banned” in the sense of Definition (1). Perhaps it has even been removed from a school library somewhere. I’m unwilling to be distracted by this possibility because what I care about is the extreme political bias displayed in my local public library system’s collection.

It turns out that there are “counterweight” books available, books that seek to counteract the narrative of “The 1619 Project”, but in my local library system of about 35 libraries they are mostly unavailable. The library catalogs throughout my state are dominated by one point of view; the political bias is extreme.

There are 45 copies of “The 1619 Project” in my local public library system, counting every format. This is more than one per library. What about Mary Grabar’s “Debunking the 1619 Project” which offers an explicit counter-narrative? It is available as an audiobook on Hoopla, that is it. What about “The New York Times’ 1619 Project and the Racialist Falsification of History”? There is an ebook on Hoopla that I can check out. “1620” by Peter Wood? I can check it out from Hoopla either as an audiobook or as an ebook. “The 1619 Project Myth” by Philip W. Magness? Hoopla offers it, but my library has removed the book from the list of books it is offering through Hoopla, so it is not available to me. The public libraries are promoting one point of view aggressively, and the other point of view is being hidden from the sight of patrons.

I experience forebodings, because the public libraries are always hinting that they’ll drop Hoopla from their offerings. If my public library drops Hoopla then not one of these books is available to me in any format whatsoever from my local library system; the bias within the system is not just enormous, it is infinite.

Here is my challenge to readers who believe that since they know what a banned book is their work is done. Go into your local library and look at the books in your local library’s “banned” books display. We already know that there will be lots of copies of that book available throughout your library system. Now see if you can think of a book that presents some different point of view. Can you get that book from your local public library system? Likely not, or only with great difficulty.

Be an active patron and citizen and request that your library purchase the book. If it doesn’t, let FAIR know all about the circumstances using the FAIR Incident Report Form, as without evidence there can be no accountability.

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