It's not just in the US
Alberta’s Book Ban Is a Blatant Act of Cultural Vandalism
The push to sanitize school collections erases what literature is for: knowledge, discovery, the freedom to think
by Ira Wells
On May 26, Alberta announced that it was entering the book-banning business. “Multiple books found in some school libraries show extremely graphic and age-inappropriate content,” warned a government press release. To save Alberta’s children from this material, the government promised to act: first, by inviting Albertans to provide feedback on what is “acceptable for school library collections,” and second, by setting province-wide standards that every school board will be required to implement before classes resume in the fall.
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When
The Tyee pointed out that three of the four targeted books featured LGBTQ+ narratives, Minister of Education and Childcare Demetrios Nicolaides shot back: “The fact that our actions of protecting young students from seeing porn, child molestation, self-harm and other sexual material in school libraries are being labelled as anti-LGBTQ is frankly irresponsible.”
Book banners can always be counted upon to deny that label while simultaneously invoking children’s innocence to justify the very censorship they disavow. “This isn’t about banning books,” Premier Danielle Smith posted on X. “It’s about protecting kids from graphic, sexually explicit content that has no place in a classroom.” (None of the books appear to have been part of any classroom curriculum, nor were students compelled to read them.)
Let’s be clear on our definitions. A book “ban” is “the removal of a title from a library because someone considers it harmful or dangerous,” Emily Drabinski, former president of the American Library Association, told NPR. A book “challenge” is when someone raises an objection to a book. All four titles initially challenged by the government—Maia Kobabe’s
Gender Queer, Alison Bechdel’s
Fun Home, Craig Thompson’s
Blankets, and Mike Curato’s
Flamer—were quickly removed from school shelves in Calgary and Edmonton. Trustees claim the books have been pulled for review. In the meantime, they are subject to a de facto ban from Alberta’s schools.
The government’s actions raise several questions, such as what constitutes “age-appropriate” and how is “explicit sexual content” being defined .....
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