Hawaii bans Banned Books Week

Move over, California and Fort Lauderdale. America has a new book-banning capital: Hawaii.

Right now, libraries all over America are observing Banned Books Week, in which they showcase books that have been banned or censored. But the Hawaii State Public Library System, which oversees all public libraries throughout the Aloha State, has nixed the event.

One local branch had featured the most widely censored books, along with informational materials from the American Library Association. But this libe was forced to censor this very display.

The statewide library system now prohibits use of the words censorship and banned to refer to books that have been censored or banned. ALA materials and props like caution tape are also forbidden. Stickers with the motto "Censorship is so 1984" were confiscated.

Why? State library officials say Banned Books Week is not "inclusive." Seriously, they said that.

Books are about ideas. Inclusiveness involves a collection of these ideas. Banned Books Week highlights this inclusiveness.

Hawaii's act of censorship sounds like yet another example of right-wing policy using more expansive branding. In other words, by attacking Banned Books Week as not being "inclusive", the state library system is practicing that 2020s phenomenon called wokewashing. This means they market themselves as champions of social justice even though their policies stand for the exact opposite.

Did the People's CDC take over the Hawaii library system when nobody was looking?