Mr. Nice Guy: Booksellers give in to ‘bullies,’ cease sales of some titles – Fairfield Daily Republic

Mr. Nice Guy: Bud Stevenson

I have been a fairly reliable customer of Amazon, but now Im having second thoughts.

They recently delisted When Harry Became Sally: Responding to the Transgender Moment. The book is certainly timely since there has been endless commentary in print and on TV and radio on the subject of transgenderism.

As Roger Kimball, publisher of Encounter Books points out in an essay in The Wall Street Journal, Amazon has no problem offering Adolf Hitlers Mein Kampf, one of the most vicious anti-Semitic books ever written. Mein Kampf is considered by many to be the blueprint for the murder of 6 million Jews during World War II. A competitor of Amazon, Bookshop.org offers the equally troubling works of Louis Farrakhan, who proudly bills himself as the one who exposes the crimes of the Jews over the centuries.

Another author I admire is Heather Mac Donald (note that Mac and Donald are printed separately, not together as MacDonald). She recently wrote The War on Cops, a very timely discussion of how the political left has made police officers the enemy. In the opinion of the censors at Bookshop, portraying the police as vital defenders of the American way of life was too much for their customers.

Bookshop.com explained that it removed When Harry Became Sally because they had multiple complaints and concerns from customers, affiliates and employees about the title. So Hitlers book that advocates the murder of all the Jews in Germany is OK for Bookshop, but a discussion of transgenderism is not.

Let me quote Kimballs opinion of the new censorship: The move to squash Mr. Andersons book (When Harry Became Sally) is the vanguard of a larger effort to silence debate and impose ideological conformity on any contentious issue is which the commissars of woke culture have made an investment. It has nothing to do with principle and everything to do with power.

Kimball goes on to say that Amazon and Bookshop have sided firmly with the bullies.

One wonders how the ultra-sensitive left in this country feel about Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the Democratic congresswoman from Detroit. Tlaib called for the abolition of the police. In a recent comment, she said American policing is inherently and intentionally racist. You might be interested to know that Congresswoman Tlaib is much in demand as a public speaker. Apparently her description last year of President Donald Trump as a mother only added to her popularity.

As I write this I hear that Thursday was Jackie Robinson Day. I believe I was in the eighth grade at Mamaroneck Junior High School when we had an assembly at which Robinson was the guest speaker. It was definitely the most memorable event of my junior high school years.

Robinson had the most mellifluous voice I ever remember hearing, and from that day on I abandoned my allegiance to the New York Yankees and became a Brooklyn Dodgers fan. Robinson, of course, was the first player to break the color barrier, and his spectacular play proved to Major League Baseball owners and managers that they were missing out by ignoring Black players ever since the founding of professional baseball.

For a few years, I had a collection of autographed baseballs I remember Stan Musial but, instead of saving them I batted them around in my neighborhood. I wonder what they would be worth today?

Bud Stevenson, a retired stockbroker, lives in Fairfield. Reach him at[emailprotected].

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Mr. Nice Guy: Booksellers give in to 'bullies,' cease sales of some titles - Fairfield Daily Republic