PEN America has released a new analysis of book bans, Cover to Cover, and it really makes clear the purpose of book banning—which, surprise surprise, is not what book banners say it is.
For one, in the more than 10,000 book ban instances that PEN America looked at—which span across genres, fictional and nonfictional books, and even picture books— 36% involved books that featured fictional or real people of color. They also found that of the banned history and biography titles, 44% were centered around people of color, and 26% of banned books within the same category were about Black people, specifically. This, in addition to other facts, led them to the conclusion that the current deluge of book bans we’ve been seeing these past few years is based around white supremacist ideology.
Books centering on the LGBTQ+ community are also being targeted. We’ve known this for a while, of course, but this new analysis gives us some new data to work with. Last year, 29% of all banned titles included LGBTQ+ characters or themes, and of those books, 28% were focused specifically on trans and/or genderqueer characters. Additionally, more than 50% of the banned books with queer people included people of color, which points to the intersectionality of these book bans.
Sabrina Baêta, senior manager for PEN America’s Freedom to Read program, stated how, “This targeted censorship amounts to a harmful assault on historically marginalized and underrepresented populations — a dangerous effort to erase their stories, achievements, and history from schools.”
It seems like book banners are all about destroying the confidence of kids who don’t fit their view of how kids should be. Around 10% of the books banned feature characters who are neurodivergent or have a physical, learning, and/or developmental disability. What’s more, the books are usually about building confidence and self-esteem, and show how to deal with ableism.
On top of all of this, PEN America found that the books that banners labeled as “explicit” were not—31% of them had references to sex but few details and only 13% of them had sexual activity “on the page.” PEN America highlighted how books with various aspects of human experiences—which include sex—help students explore certain topics in a safe environment. Interestingly enough, books on other human experiences—like death and grief, violence, abuse, and mental health issues—were also highly targeted by book banners.
As we gain more statistics and data on book bans through things like PEN America’s latest analysis, we get a clearer and clearer picture of how book banners want this country to be: white, straight, and ignorant of everyday issues.
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