It is well known that the startling increase in book challenges and bans disproportionately target works by diverse authors or containing diverse themes, including materials that approach the issue of race in ways that critique the American ideals of meritocracy and “colorblindness.” Those seeking to ban such materials are inhibiting intellectual freedom by hindering access to perspectives of race that challenge the dominant one. In one example, a parent demanded that Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye be removed from school curricula due to its sexually explicit content, proposing Dr. Ben Carson’s Gifted Hands as a replacement, because both books were written by Black authors. In this presentation, the researcher summarizes and discusses findings from a content analysis comparing the content and themes within these two books. It turns out the two books contain very different amounts of explicit content as well as very different approaches to race and racism.
