Your thought experiment asks: what if the banned book library contained out-of-print white supremacist books instead of historically banned books?

The answer should be obvious: it would be a white supremacist library.

Given that the present administration includes fans of those books, their banning seems unlikely. Perhaps a refresher on the kinds of books that are presently under threat is in order? https://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/top10

(You can find contemporary Huck Finn censorship attempts in their database here, by the way: https://airtable.com/appZthgrTU9u1Bf5d/shr4J8Mgiua2CV2Ig?mWW... )

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like_any_other an hour ago | parent [-]

Books that are assigned reading in schools and universities, and promoted by libraries, are "under threat", while books nearly impossible to find, never on any reading lists, and whose promoters get their speeches shut down by French police [1], or get investigated by the FBI and kicked out of university [2], are to be considered widely available, got it.

And your "historically banned" is just "occasionally removed from public school libraries on parental request". Not using tax money to promote them to children is a low, low bar for "banned". While actual availability is, of course, completely ignored. Whatever tells the best story, facts be damned.

[1] Jared Taylor's Banned Conference Speech - https://www.arktosjournal.com/p/jared-taylors-banned-confere...

[2] Ohio universities involve FBI in investigation of ‘It’s okay to be white’ and white nationalist group’s postings on campus - https://www.thefire.org/news/ohio-universities-involve-fbi-i...

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chipsrafferty an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Why do you want people to read those books so bad?

	▲	like_any_other 37 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's convenient that only evil people point out the emperor has no clothes, isn't it?

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margalabargala an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

We've decided collectively as a society that some ideas are "good" and others are "bad". For example, racism and white supremacy have been decided to be "bad".

There's an alternate reality where white supremacy is mainstream, where queer fiction is impossible to find, and that would be a different world.

Instead, what's being preserved are the books written that celebrate the values that match our broad cultural values, despite a handful of cultural deviants attempting to suppress the parts of the rest of humanity they dislike.

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like_any_other an hour ago | parent [-]

Sure. Just rename it to "Library of widely available and even mandatory for children to read books that we pretend are banned to preserve our image as underdogs, and excluding books that we've used our cultural dominance to ensure are actually hard to get."

It's a mouthful, but at least you'll be honest for once.

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margalabargala 36 minutes ago | parent [-]

"For once"?

That's a significant impugnment of the honesty of a person you know nothing about.

"Banned books" is the colloquial term for these books, even if it's not as accurate as you'd personally prefer.

Next thing you'll be complaining you bit into an Apple and got computer instead of fruit.

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like_any_other 25 minutes ago | parent [-]

> "Banned books" is the colloquial term for these books

Yes, many people are either unaware of, or willing participants in, this lie. That doesn't make it any less of a lie.

	▲	margalabargala 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It's not a lie. Some entity somewhere banned them. It's vague, not inaccurate. You're just pissy because they aren't using your personal favorite parameters around "banned" for "by whom" and "for whom". You're pretending your opinion is fact and therefore anyone who disagrees must be a liar.