April is Black Women’s Month and April 4-10 is National Library Week. However, recent controversies regarding “critical race theory” and falsely calling LGBTQ people “groomers” are interfering with the unwritten policy for people to access information as well as attempting to erase the lives and ideas of Black people and other minoritized people.
It’s not like libraries have not experienced attempts to ban books; the entire first week of October is dedicated to commemorating the volumes of fiction, nonfiction and poetry that people have tried to remove from library shelves.
The difference is that nowadays banning has moved from intellectually insidious to physically dangerous. White nationalists and those who agree with them terrorize Drag Story Hour, where drag queens read to children usually with the parents’ or guardians’ knowledge, if not consent or presence at the event.
This newest drive started with the big-c Conservatives creating a boogeyman—and accompanying strawman arguments—out of Critical Race Theory, or CRT. What is an elective course studied in law school curdled into the 21st-century version of “reverse racism.” These conservatives also redefined the Black-from-way-back word “woke” to be a loose synonym for CRT.
With the twisted understanding of CRT constantly replayed on big-c Conservative media and posted on social media, some felt justified in going after library books like the Nikole Hannah-Jones-edited “The 1619 Project “and author Angie Thomas’ “The Hate U Give.”
The American Library Association (ALA) reported a record-setting 1,200 challenges to books. The number was not only double from 2022, but also the highest number since they started collecting and keeping data about these oppositions in 1983.
What the ALA also noted was the number and, moreover, the method of the challenges.
“A few years ago, complaints usually arose with parents and other community members and referred to an individual book. Now, the requests are often for multiple removals, and organized by national groups such as the conservative Moms for Liberty, which has a mission of ‘unifying, educating and empowering parents to defend their parental rights at all levels of government,’” the PBS Newshour reported on March 23.
Not only that, but librarians reported being harassed and threatened with violence or legal action.
That’s exactly what happening in Lapeer, Mich., according to Christine Peele, who’s a librarian on Detroit’s West side and a member of the executive board of the Michigan Library Association.
“The prosecutor [John Miller] is considering filing charges against the library director [Amy Churchill] over the content on the shelves,” namely the book Maia Kobabe’s memoir “Gender Queer,” Peele said. Miller has attempted to walk back the charge, stating that his allegedly threatening Churchill with a four-year felony if the library didn’t remove the book was taken out of context.
Another Michigan library was outright defunded due to the anti-LGBTQ scare of “grooming,” Peele said in a one-on-one interview with the Michigan Chronicle. The voters in Jamestown, located in Western Michigan, elected against funding the library. She said people donated to the library, but she doesn’t know how long the money will last.
Detroit has the opposite problem. “Our customers are more concerned about us staying open than these bigger controversies,” said Peele. “Our customers”—meaning the library patrons—”aren’t trying to limit but expand the book collection, the hotspot and computers. They’re more concerned about masks.”
As for the bigger controversy of CRT, Peele stated, “At the Detroit Public Library, every day is Black History Month. What people consider CRT is all over our shelves.”
The Michigan Chronicle asked Peele about what she believes is fueling the ongoing mess. She said that social media, Fox News and “people passing along lists of books that they never read.”
“Even my more religious customers monitor what their children read. They aren’t having the kinds of conversations with the staff that [these other protesters] are having.”
She said that her library’s urban book collection is one of the most popular ones. The genre and the classics being the books by Iceberg Slim and Donald Goines, have graphic scenes of violence and sex. But no one’s tripping about it so far.
In the midst of knowing the community supports the library, she said that “I’m concerned about our safety sometimes, with someone wanting to argue with the staff and the encounter escalating to violence.
“But overall, our customers do appreciate the library and are glad that we’re here. They’re glad we provide the services we do to the community.”
Peele made this air-clearing statement: “One of the benefits of being a citizen of the United States is the opportunity to choose for yourself and your family what you want to read.”