Maya Angelou Is Out but 'Mein Kampf' Stays at the Naval Academy Library

[dalton99a]

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/11/us/politics/naval-academy-banned-books.html

Who’s In and Who’s Out at the Naval Academy’s Library?
An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power.
By John Ismay
April 11, 2025 Updated 5:08 p.m. ET

Gone is “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma.

Two copies of “Mein Kampf” by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves.

Gone is “Memorializing the Holocaust,” Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered.

“The Camp of the Saints” by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and promoted by Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser.

“The Bell Curve,” which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled.

...

[louis-t]

1. Tell us what books we can read, what words we can use

Who we can love, what we can do with our bodies, what religion we can belong to, then tell us how 'free' we are.

[tanyev]

2. Nauseating.

[Passages]

3. You can't say the agenda is designed to be subtle.

Disgusting.

[Irish_Dem]

4. Destruction of all that is decent about American culture.

And emphasizing all that is bad.

[Jim__]

5. Is anyone surprised by this? Seriously?

[dickthegrouch]

6. The obvious answer to that is

Sun Tzu told us to "Know your enemy"
Maya Angelou doesn't belong in the Naval Academy because she's not an enemy.
Mein Kampf does because it was written by (and continues to be read by) enemies.