One of the first videos to share the alleged list of banned books came from TikTok user @kim_kimchii on November 7, a day after the election results were announced. One of the first videos sharing the alleged list of banned books came from TikTok user @kim_kimchii on November 7, a day after the election results were announced.
The user shared a reel comprising the names of 389 books along with their authors and themes. The user also shared a Google Spreadsheet with the alleged list. Some of the books mentioned in it include Margaret Atwood’s
The Handmaid’s Tale, Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mocking Bird, Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner, George Orwell’s 1984, and Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.TikTok user @onisvideodiaries also shared a short reel comprising names of a few books and claimed that the Trump administration was allegedly planning to ban them from the country. In the caption, the TikTok user explained that the alleged move is part of Project 2025. TikTok’s @aubrey wrote:
under the video of the first comment.
A netizen explains that the list of allegedly banned books contains powerful women. (Image via TikTok).
Many people took part in the discussion and expressed similar reactions on social media platform X.
“No way, this is going to be a true thing,” wrote a netizen.
“The government should not ban many of these books. Many of the reasons for banning these books are ridiculous. I mean, “Ella Enchanted?” Is it really just because the characters use magic? It’s fantasy, and fantasy books contain magic. One netizen wrote: “I see readers rebelling against these if they are banned.”
Another netizen asked: “Wait, can we no longer read classics?”
“Anything which could inspire women to revolt.” “It’s really sick,” said another.
Meanwhile others pointed out that several of the alleged books on the list had been previously banned from public or school libraries in the USA.
A person replied: “I don’t know about all of them but some have been challenged and prohibited in the past by school districts.”
Have you been under a rock the past 10+ years? All of these books were banned at different times by different orgs. “I don’t believe any of this news, unfortunately,” wrote another person.
These are books that were historically banned for various reasons. In September, schools and libraries celebrate “banned book week” by reading banned titles. “This has been going on for a very long time!” wrote an individual.
Another wrote: “I saved the images and I will read them all one by one.”
The 900-page manifesto pushes far-right policies and ideologies for Donald Trump’s presidency. The 900-page manifesto pushes far-right policies and ideologies for Donald Trump’s presidency.
Some of the proposed agendas in Project 2025 include expanding the power of the president, dismantling federal bureaucracy, shutting down the Departments of Education and Justice, sweeping tax deductions, mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, pornography ban, restrictive abortion laws, and more.
Maggie Tokuda-Hall, the co-founder of Authors Against Book Bans, told Lithub earlier this month that Project 2025 will reportedly be detrimental to the fundamental right to read and freedom of speech and expression.
She pointed out a certain section of Project 2025 that reads,
The First Amendment does not protect pornography as it is manifested in today’s omnipresent transgender ideology, and the sexualization of children. Its purveyors include child predators, misogynistic women exploiters and child predators.
Tokuda Hall alleged that the paragraph is,
“All LGBTQ+ material will be considered pornography.” It is a pernicious lie that has been used to ban all books in the country. First Amendment rights won’t apply, so we will lose our freedom of speech protection.”
Maggie further said that if Project 2025 becomes a reality, it would be “the single-most, expansive, extreme attack on our freedom to read.” She said it would seek “book bans” to try and remove “publishers, teachers, and librarians,” who are subject matter experts in the field of education.
Notably, Donald Trump has distanced himself from Project 2025 repeatedly. In July 2024 he wrote on Truth Social: “
I don’t know anything about Project 2025.” I don’t know who is behind Project 2025. I don’t agree with everything they say, and some things are ridiculous and awful. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”
However, during the election cycle, Trump’s campaign pushed a manifesto called Agenda47. It offers policies to be implemented under the Trump administration for the next four years.
Meanwhile, since November 6, i.e., Trump’s re-election, Margaret Atwood’s dystopian classic,
The Handmaid’s Tale
,
has shot up in the best-sellers list of Amazon from 209 to 3. It was first published in 1985, and takes place in a dystopian future New England. The Booker Prize winner is set there. It portrays a totalitarian, theonomic, and patriarchal society.
Other dystopian novels, including Orwell’s
1984
and Ray Bradbury’s
Fahrenheit 451, have also been high up in the best-selling charts online.Why did you not like this content?
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Shreya das edited this article
2024-11-12 19:55:32