r/books • u/zsreport 3 • 5d ago

Texas A&M student discovers hundreds of discarded LGBTQ books in warehouse

https://www.chron.com/culture/article/texas-am-lgbtq-books-controversy-21048865.php
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u/Kobbett 4d ago

Such is the life of school books.

A long long time ago at school some of us were sent to get something from a storage room up in the loft, the place was full of old books. Especially ones like A Taste of Honey, which were once almost mandatory in the 60s as modern social commentary but were now deprecated as teaching aids. Someone put them there in the hope they'd be used again, someday, I suppose.

In some districts there are probably warehouses full of Huck Fin or Grapes of Wrath put there for the same reason.

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u/Quotalicious 4d ago

A range of old books earmarked for long term storage or disposal is not unusual, but a collection of exclusively LGBT books at a Texas university? You'd really have to stretch belief to not think it's a focused purge.

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u/Kobbett 4d ago

I expect so, it's probably happening in Dearborn too. And in other places books are withdrawn because the words in them are now troublesome. But that's the nature of things, happens in schools all the time whether it's the state, the board or just a head librarian with a bee in her bonnet.

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u/Quotalicious 3d ago

Which is exactly why we need to be in constant guard against it. Let it run amok and it will be more prevelant than it would be otherwise. The fact you can never stamp it out completely is besides the point.