Thread by @ReclamationStax

If you care at all about your local library being fully staffed and fully stocked with the books and materials that offer the best, most comprehensive, diverse, and accurate information to serve all needs, DO NOT SLEEP ON YOUR UPCOMING #LIBRARY BOARD ELECTIONS. #libraries

In communities all over the country, municipal elections this April (next week!!!) include races for seats on public library boards and public school boards. There is a well-funded, well organized, aggressive, right wing movement to take over public board seats & kill libraries.

This movement is dedicated to defunding libraries, banning books that feature #LGBTQ content, any #representation of people of color, and books that deliver accurate physical health information to kids in grades 6 to 12 who absolutely need that information.

This movement will not stop until library spaces look like desolate fields barren of life, school librarians r run out of town fearing for their lives, libraries r closed over 1/2 the week, and libraries r run by mediocre businessmen & shills w no library experience whatsoever.

In some instances, they won’t stop until the local library is shut down.

bridgemi.com/talent-educati…

Such is the depth of their hatred of public goods that bring diverse populations of ppl together to coexist & learn abt themselves & those unlike themselves. Such is the depth of their fear of we the people in all our colors, sexualities, identities, ethnicities, ideas, abilities

Such is their hatred of #democracy. Bc democracy depends on free access to information for all, the services of #librarians & staff committed to collecting free materials that entertain, guide, and educate all, and community spaces that are safe, respectful, and welcoming to all.

Such is their commitment to ignorance, their desire to harm children & adult literacy. Because every study shows that literacy grows and thrives when readers have access to a wide, diverse, well-stocked selection of books from which THEY CHOOSE, depending on their own interests.

Decimating book collections by #banning titles left and right that don’t fit one narrow worldview? Forcing kids 2 read only certain types of books? Withholding information kids & teens desperately want and need? Result? They don’t read anymore. Literacy plummets, ignorance grows

But this seems to be what the white Christian heteronormative & hysterical parents leading #CensorshipMadness want. Bc an ignorant, fearful population is an easily controlled & manipulated one. Populations that are made to feel second-class can lose hope. It’s the bigots’ wish.

Isolated, helpless-feeling ppl whose library & school boards have eviscerated their libraries will turn to the internet for knowledge. And the internet, swollen and seething w disinformation, is corrupted by greedy tech elites & is nearly impossible to navigate for verified info.

An isolated, confused population w nowhere in their communities to gather, co-exist, and learn about the vastness of our world via carefully selected materials and resources can be easily made to fear the other, to be urged to consume more, and will grow in undeserved despair.

There are filthy rich dark money guys pouring $$ into school/library board races RIGHT NOW. They’re funding proxies who will help them degrade & de-fund public goods. These elite radicals want the tax dollars that fund our spaces to retoute to private businesses 4 their profit.

Their proxies in this war are the ones you see shouting at school board meetings about porn & #CRT and the board members banning hordes of books that contain any LGBTQ representation, any stories about Jewish history, people of color, and life-saving info about healthy sexuality.

These proxies want a white, heterosexual, patriarchal Christian state. At every step, they test what they can get away with. Erasing stories & info about ‘undesirable’ ppl, erasing lessons on genocides, the Holocaust, & Black enslavement precedes ACTUAL ERASURE of people.

If they have to shut down or privatize our public/school libraries to #censor what they want, so be it. Thus is the symbiosis between dark money greed and right wing Christian bigots achieved, their relationship mutually beneficial.

#Censorship is state-sanctioned hate and a scourge to freedom. Parent groups fighting for censorship hide behind names like Moms For Liberty and Awake IL. But their project is fundamentally un- American and liberty-opposed

Just listen to 100yo Grace Linn: tiktok.com/t/ZTRv44SfP/

“Parents’ rights!!!” they howl. Sounds good, but out of their mouths it’s code. It means “some parents.” It means the hateful suppression of information by small factions of parents ignorant, afraid, and in denial about the reality of our multi-racial and diverse democracy.

Liberty requires open minds unfettered by the market & the state. Democracy requires people to feel like people with their own unique experiences and original points of view, not money sources for the elite.

doctorow.medium.com/they-want-to-k…

Libraries must enable the free pursuit of knowledge relevant to all people regardless of race, religion, income in open stacks teeming w diverse, varied materials that teach/show all the unique ways to be human, to be a person. Board candidates across the country detest this idea

So figure out today who’s running for your school and library boards. If any candidate is running under the mantle of PARENTS’ RGHTS, beware. They mean they want a SMALL UNREPRESENTATIVE SUBSET of white parents to control what we can and can’t access in OUR libraries.

If they are aligned with Moms For Liberty they are aligned with a prejudiced, illiberal project to dismantle liberty and establish the stories and information - and therefore the PEOPLE, the CHILDREN - they do not approve of as second-class and disposable. They are anti-library.

If a candidate says they’re “against porn in libraries,” what they mean is they don’t want people (especially LGBT+ teens & sexual assault survivors) to access accurate, thorough, healthy, & respectful info abt their bodies, sexual health, consent, privacy, and relationships.

If they say they are “anti-woke” or “anti-CRT” it means they don’t want to see brown and black and Asian faces in the books on the shelves, they don’t want accurate American history to be taught, and that to them one identity in their vision of a society is supreme: whiteness.

Find out which candidates believe Black Lives Matter, LGBTQ kids, teens, and adults do and should exist, that a library’s collection
must reflect the diversity of society, offer accurate information on history & science, and offer materials that deliver wide-ranging perspectives

Follow @BookRiot and @veronikellymars for the best advice and information on the censorship fight:

bookriot.com/anti-censorshi…

Bad news about censorship in school libraries and public libraries can feel like a fire hose that batters your brain and your heart and never shuts off. But “giving up is not an option.”

bookriot.com/giving-up-is-n…

The trans teen whocan’t find a book w a character like himself is told “you aren’t valuable.” The child w gay parents who can’t find a book w a family like hers learns “your family doesn’t count.” The Black boy who sees only white history on the shelves hears “you don’t exist.”

The white heterosexual child who never reads about lives, experiences, perspectives, and ideas unlike his own learns a destructive lie: that he is the center of the universe & the world exists to serve him.

All of are examples of mental violence waged on kids through silence and omission.

Don’t know how to rally your friends and neighbors for this democracy defending work? Again, @veronikellymars has got you.

VOTE! Our libraries and kids depend on you.

bookriot.com/how-to-talk-ab…