The vitriol needs to stop
EDITOR:
For the first three years of my tenure on the Anderson County Library Board, we didn’t have a single member of the public at large in attendance at any of our monthly meetings. Starting around January of this year, you better show up 30 minutes early if you want a seat. Anderson County has become swept up in the national zeitgeist of book banning and “othering” people all under the ruse of “protecting the children.”
It’s a compelling cause celebre because nobody in their right mind wouldn’t want to protect children, right? Except we seem to fail at protecting children pretty routinely as evidenced by recent news articles of children being abused by priests, youth pastors, coaches, and scoutmasters, not to mention all the homegrown abuse that leads to children sleeping on the floors of DCS offices throughout the state. A recent presentation to County Commission by the Coalition Against Human Trafficking indicated that practically all child trafficking taking place in East Tennessee is by the children’s parents, usually their mother, and that it’s multigenerational in many cases.
Not once did they mention library books or librarians playing a role in harming children, and I’ve yet to read any articles about children being endangered by library books in amongst all those articles I have read about children being endangered by priests, youth pastors, coaches, scoutmasters etc.
Now of course, I’m setting myself up to be chastised because not all priests, youth pastors, coaches, scoutmasters etc. abuse kids.
I shouldn’t cast aspersions against entire groups of people based on the actions of a few. Funny how that seems to be exactly what the Mom’s For Liberty-driven book banning agenda is doing right now in Anderson County.
They’ve decided any books that they don’t personally agree with are so harmful, that it’s not enough to simply not read them; they want to prevent everyone else from reading them, too. Books such as “Let’s Talk About It,” which has been shelved in the adult non-fiction section (nowhere near the children’s section) the entire time it’s been in the library, except for a couple months when it was in the sheriff’s possession pending an obscenity complaint investigation, in which the conclusion was the book doesn’t violate any state laws.
The book, incidentally, is available in public libraries throughout the state and country and on the Tennessee State Library’s eReads system — overseen by Republican Secretary Of State Tre Hargett, who is elected to his position by the Republican super majority General Assembly, which negates this being a Republican versus Democrat issue as far as I’m concerned.
Anderson County Library Board policy requires children under 11 to be accompanied by a parent, and all children under 18 must have a parental signature to check out any book in the library. Yes, children ages 12-17 can access the adult sections, which includes biographies, bibles, memoirs, Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts novels among other things. But I believe it’s up to parents to decide if they’re comfortable with their teens being at the library without them.
The Library Board has heard from people on all sides of this issue, and following suggestions from the county law director, is taking active steps to update library policies to give parents more control over the content in the library accessible to their children, but not giving them control over the content other people and their children have.
All of the “research facts” in last week’s editorial are technically correct, but intentionally taken out of context. The studies, which I’ve also read, were regarding children being sexualized by television, the internet, smartphones, and the culture around them. Sex-ed books shelved age appropriately in public libraries simply are not contributing to the problem of children being over sexualized. If anything, “Let’s Talk About It” helps with harm reduction since defining consent and abuse are major themes.
It’s easy to get swept up in fervor, and to get angry at some amorphous “enemy.” However, the willful misinformation campaign targeted at the libraries and librarians locally, some of which is being agitated by elected officials, has real consequences and causes real harm and danger to real people. Our library directors are county employees. They are county residents, and they are county taxpayers. Their children attend schools here in the county. They were simply doing their jobs and following Library Board policy regarding collection development and reconsideration, and the vitriol that has been pointed at them needs to stop.
A good library should have something in it to offend everyone.
Joshua Anderson
Chairman, Anderson County Commission
Chairman,
Anderson County Library Board