The Pros And Cons Of Banning Books

In the United States, there have been increasing debates over whether to ban certain books. In simple terms, the Republican party mostly supports the banning of books while the Democratic party opposes the bans. People that support the bans often think that they will protect the innocence of children. While opposers of the bans claim they do more harm than good. Although books can expose children to difficult and sensitive topics, they learn valuable lessons. Banning books creates more negatives like infringing on personal freedoms and disproportionately censoring minorities.

More than half of the books that get banned discuss topics related to minorities. Elizabeth A. Harris and Alexandra Alter elaborate on the books that are targeted by

They write “Some groups, she noted, have essentially weaponized book lists meant to promote more diverse reading material, taking those lists and then pushing for all the included titles to be banned.” (Harris and Alter 2). Legislators don’t look for books to ban by themselves. They take the advice of groups like the ones mentioned. If legislators are only shown diverse books to ban they will disproportionately censor minorities. When this happens, children get narrow views of the world and cannot learn about the vast differences in the world. This disproportionate censorship is a negative effect of banning books and serves as a reason to not ban books. Angela Haupt goes into detail on the book-banning situation in her article “The rise in book bans, explained.”. She writes “Now the books most frequently challenged tend to have certain themes in common: Books that have to do with LGBTQ topics or characters, Books that have to do with sex, abortion, teen pregnancy, or puberty, Books that have to do with race and racism, or that center on protagonists of color, Books that have to do with history, specifically that of Black people.” (Haupt 1). Three

In Viet Thanh Nguyen’s article, “My Young Mind Was Disturbed by a Book. It Changed My Life.”, he expands on his experience reading about sensitive topics in a book and reflects on how that book helped him realize the lessons that books can teach. He talks about the repercussions that come when you ban books. One point he makes is “Books are inseparable from ideas, and this is really what is at stake: the struggle over what a child, a reader, and a society are allowed to think, to know and to question.” (Nguyen 2). One of the most fundamental personal freedoms in America is the freedom of speech. In order to speak freely you must have the freedom of thought. Nguyen points out that books help us make our own thoughts. If you ban certain books, then you are banning thoughts. Thus, you are infringing on people's personal freedoms of free thought and thus free speech when you ban books. Multiple people have raised concerns over how banning books infringes on personal freedoms. For example, Chiesa, a writer for the Pawprint, wrote the article “The Neg­a­tive Ef­fects Of Book Ban­ning In The Class­room”. She brings to light the freedoms that parents are losing because of banning books. She writes “Lim­it­ing stu­dents ac­cess to books might solve on fam­i­ly’s prob­lems about their child read­ing a cer­tain book, but it re­moves the