#BannedBooksWeek | Nerd Church - On Censorship

24th-30th September 2017 is Banned Books Week, as set up by the American Library Association (ALA.)



I'm all for intellectual freedom my nerdlets; I'm against censorship in general.

The fact is that the bookish diversity movement is often criticised for censorship when really, all we're doing is giving our views on books which may have bigoted content.

Preventing us from giving those opinions is the very censorship that people claim to be against.

Meanwhile, books featuring diverse characters or written by diverse authors appear on the top 10 'most challenged' list in the USA again and again.

I know the stats for Banned Books Week are focussed on the USA, and that there are rich and varied cultural and/or censorship issues elsewhere.

But the American Library Association (ALA) is where all my resources are coming from here guys - cos I'm British, and I wish we had this level of info on this stuff.

And, let's face it, what America does affects EVERYWHERE ELSE. *Glares at current president*

I have always been in favour of giving you the facts to make up your own minds: that means acknowledging when books are viewed negatively, as well as when they are viewed positively.

I'm not your mother. I'm not going to stop you reading anything.

But I want you to not be close-minded when it comes to problems with books.

It's only through criticism and thinking things through that we can evolve, both as people and as a society.

As such, the attitude I go into EVERY review with is: 'cards on the table.'

What are the things you need to know to decide whether this sounds like the book for you? Is there context that you need in order to understand the issues and opinions at play?

And, most importantly, if I don't mention a point, is there the chance that you might get hurt?

I wrestled with a lot of these issues when reviewing Such a Good Girl by Amanda K Morgan. I decided that I couldn't in good conscience recommend it - but neither did I ignore its good points.

The big picture and the small details are equally important my nerdlets.









I do my utmost to hide nothing from you.

I hope I do ok in that - please tell me if I don't.

I've always operated on a policy of honesty here. That means if I disagree with an opinion, I'm going to say it.

But that doesn't mean that my opinion is always going to be the right one.

It also doesn't mean I'm always going to succeed in keeping as open and honest as I can - I'm human, we make mistakes.

So, get the facts. For a start, you can check out these infographics, provided by the ALA:

But what is censorship?

Ah, here we come to one of the trickier points my dearest nerdlets.

Where is the line between market forces and censorship? Where is the line between public safety, or child safety, and censorship? It's a fine one, I admit.

But it's one that we shouldn't be afraid of examining. Because if we truly have intellectual freedom, we wouldn't be afraid of asking questions.

To me, the censorship line comes in when you start to try to limit people's access to materials.

But what do I mean by that? Well I essentially mean a ban.

I mean a government punishing people for owning a book or writings (incidentally, in England and Wales it's illegal to own terrorist materials, including pamphlets and books.*)

I mean books being removed from public libraries or state schools because of objections.

But what about private schools and private libraries? Well, I think private libraries can do what they like, but I think private schools need to have a similar attitude to state schools.

*Is this an example of justifiable censorship? I don't know. The law covers anything that 'could be' useful to a terrorist - including maps. I told you it was a fine line.

See? It's never as easy as it seems on first glance, guys.

There's also a difference between censoring, and not promoting.

Promotion is giving something - for example a book with a lot of racist content - a platform. Promotion is helping the author sell that book. Promotion is publishing that book.

Censoring is not allowing the author to write that book. Censoring is writing a law that says 'this book can never be published.' Censoring is burning all copies of that book in existence, and beating up or imprisoning the author.

It's not censorship to say, 'If you publish that book, we won't buy it.' That's a boycott; that's market forces. That, in fact, is freedom of speech.*

It's not censorship to decide not to review that book on your website, or feature it in a list of good books. That's just deciding not to promote it.



*I know, ironic, huh?

I think this post by Cogito explains what is and isn't censorship really well!

It's a post written about scientific data and vaccines, but the principles are pretty universal.







I'm sure all that has got your brains whirring my nerdlets, so let me know what you think!

What counts as censorship? Can censorship ever be justified? Leave a comment!

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• Why Critique Is the Opposite of Censorship

• Censorship - Are We All Hypocrites...?

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