@mike I don't know, I'm wondering what's happening in typical US schools these days. I don't think I've seen any evidence that any aren't teaching about slavery, Jim Crow, etc, but I keep hearing vague claims.

It seems usually if you dig deeper into book bannings it's at least nominally because the book isn't age-appropriate or something. e.g. "Beloved" by Morrison is banned in some schools. It discusses slavery. But... it also has bestiality, etc. Commonsensemedia says 15+ for whatever that's worth – I'm not saying I agree it should be banned from school libraries or high school literature curricula (I haven't read it), but I think this maybe doesn't support the claim that we're too insecure to confront our history.

I guess one can choose to see banning books like this as racism (whitewashing our history) or one can choose to see it as a quibble about what age certain material is appropriate for. Of course neither take is 100% wrong: I'm sure there's someone out there who wants this book banned because they're insecure about slavery.

If we ban books like that, but still teach about slavery in schools, does that mean we're insecure? I don't think there's any kind of serious effort to ban all books about slavery.

@ech Let's hope you're right!