Attempts at banning books in the US reach a record high: Report | World news
Requests for books to be removed from US shelves rose to a record high in 2022, with the majority of titles “targeted for censorship” related to LGBTQ issues and minorities, according to data from was released by the American Library Association on Wednesday.
A total of 1,269 individual “challenges” – requests to restrict or remove one or more books – were filed in the United States last year, the NGO said.
This beat the previous record of 729 set a year earlier, according to the group, which began recording such data in 2003.
“Of those titles, the majority were written by or about members of the LGBTQIA community and people of color,” ALA said.
“Overall, we see that these challenges come from organized censorship groups that target local library board meetings to demand the removal of a long list of books they share on social media,” Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom, said in a statement.
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According to ALA, more than 2,500 individual books were “targeted for censorship” last year, to reach 1,900 in 2021.
The majority (86 percent) were children’s books, and more than half (58 percent) were books written or available at school.
“Their idea is to suppress the voices of those who are traditionally excluded from our national conversations, such as people in the LGBTQIA community or people of color.”
Caldwell-Stone called each ban attempt “a direct attack on the right of the defense of the public to freely choose which books and which opinions to explore.”
US conservative leaders have launched a renewed focus on education, seeking to eliminate lessons they say push so-called progressive agendas, particularly on race and gender identity.
In recent years, the classic novel “The Beloved” by African-American novelist Toni Morrison has received special attention.
The 1988 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel explores the devastating and tragic legacy of slavery, telling the story of a free Black woman held captive by memories of her life as a former slave.
