1 of 1 Book censorship breaks US record, organization denounces — Photo: Unsplash Book censorship breaks US record, organization denounces — Photo: Unsplash
The United States received 1,269 requests for book censorship last year, specifically works by or about the LGBTQIA+ community and by or about people of color. The American Library Association (ALA) announced this Thursday (23) that the crowd is nearly doubling from 2021.
A total of 2,571 titles were censored in 2022, up from 713 the previous year and 156 in 2020. That’s a new record since the association, founded 140 years ago, began compiling such information two decades ago.
A total of 58% of complaints were against books in school libraries and in school curricula, with the remainder against titles in public libraries.
In recent years, titles such as “The Sun Is For Everyone” by Harper Lee, “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck or “The Bluest Eye” by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison have been affected.
Prior to 2021, most attempts to censor a book were aimed at banning it or restricting access to the work. “[Agora,] We see these challenges coming from organized censorship groups going to local library board meetings to demand the removal of a long list of books [e] that no one can read them,” said Deborah CaldwellStone, director of the ALA’s Office of Freedom of Thought, in a statement.
His goal is to “silence the voices of those traditionally excluded from our nation’s debates, such as people in the LGBTQIA+ community or people of color,” CaldwellStone said.
According to ALA President Lessa Kanani’opua PelayoLozada, censorship doesn’t just affect books. Increasingly, library staff are threatened, their jobs, their safety and, in some cases, direct threats for making books available to those who choose to read them.