Pretty much all the Tintin books are sexist (e.g. name two strong female characters) so should we throw the rest of the books out as well?

Owning books or art or anything that is offensive and doesn’t fit in with what is currently acceptable doesn’t make you a bad person as long as understand why its offensive. Having a copy of Tintin in the Congo isn’t the act of a racist if you know that its racist and use it appropriately. e.g. don’t give it your children until they are old enough to understand.

Self-censorship is just as bad as any other form of censorship.

Chris

I’m struggling to find any redeeming features in Tinin Au Congo, however.

Indeed they do – but they also seek to avoid any reference to it in current culture. Here in Bristol there was a major kerfuffle over the naming of a new shopping centre. The original intention was to call it “Merchants Quarter” which seemed an apt decription, encapusalting both the nature of the place, and the historic use of the land where it is built (adjacent to the old trading quarter next to the docks). However, the ubiqitous “community leaders” decided that was too reminiscent of the City’s slave past (Bristol was built on the back of 18th and 19thC maritime trade, in part the slave trade) and kicked up a fuss. This forced the council and the developers to rethink and following a public consultation it reverted to its old 1970s name.
There have been similar rumblings over the planned redevelopment of a 1950s concert hall (Colston Hall) named after a prominent merchant and city benefactor, who almost certainly prospered, in part, from slavery. Local band, Massive Attack, who you may have heard of, have always refused to play there for that reason alone. The idea being mooted is that on redeveopment it also be renamed something less contentious. I’m digressing into local history.
Anyway my point is how is applying social pressure on an organisation to refuse to stock legal cultural artefacts any different to airbrushing, when the outcome is the same ? And how does that square with multiculturalism, which is basically applied cultural relativism ?

Either way, choosing not to sell or buy a book, or choosing to remove a book from your own shelf, is not the same as a government censoring/banning/changing a book.