A ban implies to me the book cannot be sold at all which is hardly splitting hairs.
And did you find it just as egregious when Huckleberry Finn was banned in new york and california schools and public libraries for using the "n" word?
Every American that I know (including myself) understands the phrase "book ban" to refer widely, if not exclusively, to school libraries in the context of American politics. It's been nearly 70 years since we've had otherwise politically notable book bans[1].
> And did you find it just as egregious when Huckleberry Finn was banned in new york and california schools and public libraries for using the "n" word?
Yes.
[1]: https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/banned-books-wee...
That's just not true. "Banned book" has meant "book banned from schools and libraries" for a very long time. This is the meaning used by the American Library Association.
https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbook...
It is, for the time being and for most practical purposes, impossible to ban a book from being published in the USA. Other countries have bigger problems but that is not what people discuss in American politics.
>And did you find it just as egregious when Huckleberry Finn was banned in new york and california schools and public libraries for using the "n" word?
This is a very feeble gotcha.
Seriously: what's the point of this comment? There will always be a worse example; what matters is that there's a shared meaning in this context.
You are the first.
Book bans are bans on books, at a national or state/local government level.
Bans on books within a school have been a thing for a relatively long time where I am. Usually managed by the local school council for various different reasons.
I'm aware that there are ample other ways to (and entities that) ban books. Their severity is not meaningfully diminished by this conversation, and introducing them is a distraction.
If a school decided to ban Twinkies from their lunch menu I wouldn’t say we have a food ban crisis that the state of Illinois would need to legislate. A parent could still buy Twinkies at home and enjoy them as often as they wanted.
usually means
1. is usually exclusive 2. if not exclusive, then is the case in the majority of cases
The proposed case that "Book Bans" refer almost exclusively to school libraries is obviously false if you just take a look at a dictionary. It is evidently not "widely known to mean X" if common definitions do not explicitly state that.
All definitions state that it is an act of banning a book. But do not explicitly state that it is exclusive to some arbitrary bureaucratic level.
Either way, it is strange to just decide that a "Book Ban" must refer almost exclusively to a school.
And yes, this is semantics.
That's a lie. Or shall I say "gas lighting at best and a false flag at worst"?
"The Lithuanian press ban (Lithuanian: spaudos draudimas) was a ban on all Lithuanian language publications printed in the Latin alphabet in force from 1865 to 1904 within the Russian Empire, which controlled Lithuania proper at the time. Lithuanian-language publications that used Cyrillic were allowed and even encouraged." [0]
Additionally, I searched “fox news book bans” and “nbc book bans” and these were the first links that came up.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/choice-lies-parent-texas-dad-supp...
> Maia Kobabe’s book "Gender Queer" became one of the most banned books in the country in 2022. The book has been at the center of the debate over what books should be banned in schools.
https://www.nbcnews.com/data-graphics/map-book-bans-rise-rcn...
> School districts in 26 states have banned more than 1,000 books in the past nine months
Additionally, the Wikipedia article “ 2021–2022 book banning in the United States” discusses various cases of books being withdrawn from school libraries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021%E2%80%932022_book_banning...
To make my point stronger: I would call it a book ban, if English language books were illegal to write in the Latin alphabet, and only allowed in the Cyrillic alphabet. This would be consistent with the situation of Lithuanian language book ban (except it would not replace kindergarten and lower grades with Russian grammar schools).
Calling it a lie seems at the very least ignorant of the actual situation, or worse, willful twisting of history. If the former, I invite you to read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithuanian_book_smugglers to find out on which day they are celebrated!
I think there is a reason to point this out. Twisting language to drive, in this case a political point, is called propaganda. Calling it a ban implies something more severe than what is happening. Which is content regulation.
'Banning all books on Lithuanian language' and 'banning books in Lithuanian language written in Latin alphabet and encouraging transition to books in Lithuanian language written in Cyrillic alphabet' are different things.
Former would have had a goal of discontinuing written Lithuanian language and the latter had a goal of switching Lithuanian language from Latin to Cyrillic alphabet.
Misrepresenting the latter as the former is a lie.
But regardless you are only reinforcing the point that it was a real ban. The fact that they were banned and the books they didn’t want banned were encouraged really only continues to make my case.
Right now Kazakhstan is transitioning from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet. This year children will be taught only Latin letters and they won't be able to read the texts in Kazakh language written in Cyrillic in the last 80 years.
Do you consider this a problem?