In Most Recent Attack on LGBTQ+ Americans, North Dakota Threatens to Throw Librarians in Jail
Republicans demonstrate once again that hate has no bottom.
Photo by National Cancer Institute on Unsplash
When we think of “controversial places,” political rallies might come to mind.
In some cases, depending on the speakers and topics, lectures can also be controversial.
Art can be controversial.
Associating with certain people can be controversial as well.
But going to a library?
What could possibly be controversial about that?
People visit libraries to read, research, surf the internet, attend author readings, study, and tutor.
Those of us with children remember them as places offering fun, educational activities.
They are the quintessential safe spaces.
Libraries and the staff who work at them aren’t typically at the forefront of political conflict.
Until now.
North Dakota republican lawmakers recently introduced a bill to throw librarians in jail if they place on their shelves literature including images depicting gender identity or sexual orientation.
That’s right, jail librarians.
ND republican state Reps. Mike Lefor and Vicky Steiner introduced House Bill 1205, seeking to outlaw books depicting “sexually explicit” behavior, including intercourse, and, of course, republicans’ biggest Boogie Man, gender identity and LGBTQ themes.
If it passes, librarians could face up to 30 days in jail and/or a fine of $1,500.
A supposed exemption would exist for “works of art that…have serious artistic significance,” books about biology, anatomy, physiology, and those assigned in sex ed classes.
That is, until republicans nationwide pick up on it and ban those types of material too.
The bill’s language is vague — probably intentionally — about “images depicting gender identity or sexual orientation.”
Does that mean pictures of the trans pride flag?
Harvard Law School clinical instructor Alejandra Caraballo thinks it does.
She tweeted:
Would these also be prohibited?
The North Dakota Library Association stated:
We stand opposed to censorship and any effort to coerce belief, suppress opinion, or punish those whose expression does not conform to what is deemed to be orthodox in history, politics, or belief. The unfettered exchange of ideas is essential to the preservation of a free and democratic society.
Some far-right republicans are outright threatening to shoot school librarians.
Yes, shoot.
Media watchdog Media Matters recently leaked audio from a “Moms for Liberty” meeting in Lonoke County, Arkansas in which Melissa “Missy” Bosch, the chapter head of communications and media, spouted:
I’m telling you, if I was — any mental issues, they would all be plowed down with a freaking gun by now.
Although aware she was being recorded, Bosch claimed the audio was “illegally recorded” and “illegally spliced.”
Credit: Media Matters
At this moment, republican-led state legislatures are trying to make sure American schools teach how “great” America is by glossing over the history of slavery, “Critical Race Theory” (CRT), colonialism that led to the Indigenous American holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, and anything else deemed “controversial,” like systemic racism.
Some, as we know all too well now, are even going so far as to ban books about racism.
This week, Fla. Gov. — and likely republican presidential aspirant — Ron DeSantis last week invoked his “Stop WOKE” Act to block the College Board from piloting an Advanced Placement African American Studies (APAAS) curriculum.
This is his latest assault that began last year with his “Parental Rights in Education bill,” what opponents have dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
The American Library Association (ALA) has been keeping track of censorship challenges to books for twenty years, and reports that in 2021, 1,597 books were challenged — the worst year yet.
ALA president Lessa Kanani’opua Pelayo-Lozada explained:
Our goal as libraries is to empower our users; to empower them for critical thinking, to empower them to make their dreams come true. And that can be scary to folks who maybe don’t want everyone to be in power, who want to have power over others.
Truthout reported:
In places ranging from Kootenai County, Idaho, to Ann Arundel County, Maryland, to Lafayette Parish, Louisiana, to the town of Frisco, Texas, local efforts are underway to limit what libraries offer — especially when it comes to promoting racial equity and gender inclusivity.
But threats to librarians and book bans aren’t about “protecting kids” from “uncomfortable topics” like racial equity and gender inclusivity.
The whole hysteria about our poor American students being indoctrinated into a “woke” LGBTQ+, African American empowerment propaganda campaign is just another piece of a decades-long right-wing sabotage of public institutions.
After the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision ending legal racial segregation in public schools in 1954, we started seeing the rise of “Christian academies.”
From this we started hearing more about “charter schools” — private schools paid for with taxpayer money supposed to be reserved entirely for funding public education.
The effect of this, of course, is that public schools that educate all students — African American, white, Hispanic, Latino, Asian, heterosexual, homosexual, transsexual, disabled — perpetually receive less than they need to function efficiently.
Moreover, since school taxes are linked to property taxes, more affluent (i.e., white) districts receive more funding, leaving urban (i.e., majority non-white) populations chronically underfunded.
Many of the “parents” showing up at school board meetings threatening teachers, board members, and administrators, and threatening librarians, are just shills for dark-money organizations with seemingly admirable names like “Parents Defending Education,” “Independent Women’s Forum,” and the aforementioned “Moms for Liberty.”
Armed with righteous terms like “school choice,” “parental rights,” and, naturally, “freedom,” they are being exploited to promote an agenda that will ultimately harm them and their children as much as others’.
Wealthy dark-money groups have always duped people into doing the groups’ bidding and then walking away with the spoils when the system has been taken down another peg.
So much hate and violence have been lately directed at school board members and school district personnel, the FBI has gotten involved.
This comes at the same time members of the House of Representatives are going to start receiving up to $10,000 to upgrade security at their homes amid increasing threats.
With increasing levels of gun violence plaguing our schools, places of worship, places of entertainment, and places of community and commerce, and the levels of hyper-sensitivity to political affiliation, no one should be surprised libraries have become the next partisan milieu.
After all, what do libraries symbolize but critical thinking, knowledge, curiosity, and intellectual exploration — all qualities aspiring fascists want to expunge from society so we might all become compliant, thoughtless drones for the economic royalists and their bought-off political shills.