Hello, your Fairy God-Librarian here, and in this post, I need to air out the dust from some old tomes. Oh wait, these books are relatively new? We’re not talking centuries-old tomes still chained on the shelves of European monasteries? Ok, wow, good job, America.
I’ve been working in my dream job as a public librarian for over two years now and in that time, the ever increase of ignorant people attacking school and public libraries for inclusive books has become absolutely insane. In March of this year, they came for us and now, this fight is personal. After submitting many book challenges for various children’s books about LGBTQ inclusivity and body autonomy in March of this year, they took their fight to the library board and to the city council. At these meetings, they read excerpts from books, and sometimes from books that we either didn’t have or had been in the library for decades. Ridiculously, they claimed that these books were in the children’s room when they were in fact in the young adult section. Then, they came for the young adult books, claiming that many were filled with inappropriate sex scenes. What we, the professional librarians, should do is to move them to inaccurate locations of the library, as if kids can’t just walk over to the described section and get the book anyway. Or, get this, remove and/or destroy them. What?! On top of this, we absolutely do not have childrens books about sex! I’m not even sure if that is a thing! Please, keep your asinine ability to read excerpts out of context to your Facebook page, ok? Also, just because a book contains a LGBT person in it, does not mean that it is sexually explicit. Leave your disgusting thoughts to the Nazis, people.
Here’s a little reminder, amongst the millions of Jewish people, the Nazis also murdered millions of: people with physical and mental disabilities, elderly people, prisoners, priests of non-protestant religions, gypsies, communists, trade unionists, Jehovah’s Witnesses, people they considered anarchists, Poles and other Slavic minorities, resistance fighters, and LGBTQ PEOPLE (thanks, Huffpost).
They wanted us not only to prevent anyone under the age of 18 from using the library, but they also wanted us to do something that they already had the right to do: vet what their children read. Imagine supporting a bill or a contract that would make it so that the professionals have to adhere to every Smo Jo on the street with an internet connection and a car. Like passing a state-wide mandate that would make all teachers’ pay based on merit. That is one of the many things that boils my blood about how difficult is it to be a teacher in the United States. The pay is already so low, now you want to make it so that I only get paid if my sometimes biligerent, always diverse group of children are in the mood to take a difficult test one day? Ok, tell me more about how you want to degrade me as a professional for the actions of children. This same thought applies when a group of non-librarians, mere parents without library experience and degrees, whose only qualification is that they have kids, think they know more about library science than the ones who have studied and/or worked in the field.
Thankfully, these people are loud and they are many, but they still pale in comparison to the number of people who fight for inclusivity, for respect, for justice, for diversity, for intellectual freedom, for intelligence, and for free access to books, resources, and other forms of information that libraries all over the world have been providing for millenia. So, despite all this, and with a tiny paycheck to boot, I still love my job.
As I write this, the people who have supported us have been so great. It is clear that these people actually read books and love books. Who love love. Those are my people. Those are the people who, if they know Christ, do not use Christ as a farcical agent of discrimination and hate but as who He really is, an agent of love. That God made us ALL in His own image, not just the straight, rich, white males and the females who are deluded by this. The real Christians are the ones who see their own sins before they see the sins of others.
Love others. Love yourself. Love animals. Love the planet God made for us. Love books. Seriously, just love love. Because God is love.
Love,
Lacie 