Ferenc, Ed. “Fighting Against a Nationwide Attack on Libraries and Education: Interview of Emily Drabinski S4 E160.” America’s Work Force; Union Podcast, August 14, 2023. https://awf.labortools.com/listen/fighting-against-a-nationwide-attack-on-libraries-and-education. (Transcript below.)
Think about what she is saying. Listen or read closely. Everything she is saying is why people are dropping out of ALA. Now I will discuss what's in the transcript provided below and why state library commissions should drop ALA membership immediately.
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Overall, these statements by the President of the ALA reveal that ALA's top goal is equity—literacy is never mentioned. Not even once. And it shows. Reading scores are crashing all across America, with black students having a 4th grade reading proficiency level of 17%. Never mind literacy, Emily wants librarians to organize for change against communities she calls "a small but very loud minority." Per Emily, librarians should spin challengers/parents/state library commissioners as being hateful, racist and homophobic, and she says ALA rarely gets involved locally when the opposite is true. Most importantly, she threatens state library commissions, because this is how ALA works.
So more state library commissions should drop out and drop out now using this new evidence.
Emily starts out by describing ALA as "an association that advances access and equity, uh, for all." Equity means, per Dr. James Lindsay, "something pretty close to Marxism." See picture of Emily Drabinski above right.
Emily then does projection. She calls parents, "a sort of movement being led by a small but very loud minority of people." That's a lie. Parents are the vast majority, and the librarians who allow the s3xualization of children, those are the people who literally are the small but very loud minority. So she's gaslighting.
And how does she describe these parents? As "people who want to restrict access to information about black life and experience, about queer life and experience." So as racists and homophobes. That's more lying. It's simply not happening but claiming it is has been a decades-long tactic of the American Library Association because it works to fool people. And black students having a 4th grade reading proficiency level of 17%, something not even on ALA's radar.
Here's more projection: "organized efforts to pull books off the shelves." The reality is the s3xualization of children in libraries is an organized effort to push books onto school shelves, and ALA is organizing that effort. And ALA's organization is so strong and well entrenched it goes right up to the White House, so it's projection to complain about Moms for Liberty and the like: "Library Boards Trained to Lie by ALA; Banned Books Wedge Issue Adopted by White House."
Here's comes the victim role: "the professional sort of nature of our work is part of what’s being attacked here." Parents speaking up about their children being s3xualized by librarians is an "attack." And ALA wants more funding for this?
Then she makes the parents look stupid: "So I think there’s also a real disconnect between the attacks that are happening and the daily work of the librarian who, in many case, of these cases doesn't even have the book on the shelf."
More outright lies: "The um part of the talking points that these, uh, loud, pro-censorship activists and organizers is that the American Library Association sets policies for individual libraries and we really don’t do that." Go to any school's materials reconsideration form. Compare it with ALA's model form. They all ask essentially the same accusatory questions or are substantially similar and people don't even realize ALA essentially wrote the forms. This is why newly formed World Library Association has an online reconsideration form, but I digress. Further, ALA set the policy for librarians to ignore child p*rn viewers then deleted it but only after I personally challenged ALA on that very point. So don't tell me "we really don't do that." You really do. And I'll prove it further below.
Now here's a joke: "We have, uh, professional standards and practices and recommendations." First, librarianship is not a profession. Second, they have no standards. They train librarians to use personal devices to bypass open government laws. They order librarians to delete and destroy public documents already requested via FOIA. They plagiarize censorship maps for Banned Books Week. They hire and rehire a homophobe to train for ALA then have her file two defamation suits against me in federal court where the settlement offer was that I delete my exposing ALA's own homophobia. They add the word "age" to the Library Bill of Rights to s3xualize children. They train librarians to lie about challenged books. They defame an MLB player (Alfonso Soriano) on Wikipedia claiming he cheated on his wife, which is defamation per se. They fake claims about LGBT discrimination on Banned Books Week just to promote themselves. They make hundreds of anonymous edits on Wikipedia about Net Neutrality just to circumvent IRS tax laws. They spend over $1.5M to keep Internet p*rnography in public libraries, allying with a man from the ACLU who possessed sadistic and masochistic child p*rnography and went to jail for seven years. They write for SIECUS and Playboy. They train librarians that they know material is s3xually inappropriate for minors but it is to be "reframed" as diversity and inclusion. They give scholarships to nonwhite people and have conference break rooms for nonwhite people. I could go on. These people have zero standards, let alone professional standards.
More lies: "We have an Office of Intellectual Freedom uh that ... do[es]n’t set policy at individual libraries." OIF makes personal appearances at libraries across America to help libraries defend their policies that are essentially copied from ALA model policies. One library that defended the crime of child p*rnography for 2 1/2 years was given an "intellectual freedom" award on OIF's insistence. Watch: "2014-8-18 Diane Jennings Admits Child Porn and LIES about Staff Action," by Megan Fox, YouTube, 11 November 2014. This was the very incident, where the PR Director admitted on a radio station that the crime of child p*rnography had occurred, that ALA started training librarians not to speak with media except under very strict conditions that would guarantee mishaps like this would never again occur. It's why ALA will never debate me or anyone. So at that library that defended admitted child p*rn crimes, ALA OIF said:
So as to Emily's lie that OIF "do[es]n’t set policy at individual libraries." Its leader admitted, reiterated actually, "I do want to reiterate that I work with libraries on developing policies on a regular basis." So there you go, yet another Emily Drabinski lie so she can spin ALA as a harmless organization that's just there for moral support.
And I'm not even half way through the short interview she gave. The provably false lying is simply nonstop. Oh yes, the lies are repeated from one speaking engagement to the next. Example, FYI:
Keynote 1- Emily Drabinski: Organizing for Change, 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-umq7phyB54.
Then there's more gaslighting: "This is an issue that has been right on the, for the front line library worker front and center for the past couple of years and it’s been really really intense." It's not getting more and more intense. What it is is that librarians are pushing more and more s3xually inappropriate material reframed by ALA as diversity and inclusion, and more and more parents are waking up to that. Are we supposed to stay silent? Yet Emily casts it as the censors are getting bolder and censoring more, when reality is the librarians are getting bolder and s3xualizing more.
Here's the lie/joke of the century she tries to slip in like it's true: "And what, what we’re seeing is that when community members and people who believe in their public library use it, which is the vast majority of us, right...." No, public library use is dropping and it was a trickle during the Covid lockdown years. And certainly the "vast majority of us" do not use public libraries. Further, many parents are now avoiding libraries precisely because ALA has s3xualized it. Did you know ALA trained librarians to "sneakily" push Drag Queen Story Hour into libraries? Meanwhile, ALA trains librarians to block actor Kirk Cameron and readings in public meeting rooms of his Brave Books series. This women Emily just cannot stop the lies.
Truth finally! "People organizing to ensure that the library board members represent people who care about the library and promote the library as a way of keeping people who want to ban books from taking over those kinds of positions." She's saying her Unite Against Book Bans group is organizing to win board seats just to block out the locals running for the board. So finally she tells the truth while revealing ALA is working to subvert communities. Nice, huh? Funding ALA is like funding your own destruction.
Oh yes, sinking the hook, she attacks the parents again, the vast majority, remember, that she belittles as a tiny minority: "it’s uh really inspiring that they haven’t, that the book banners and censors haven’t taken over the library." Then the parents are called hateful: "And uh I'm not sure quite why, ha ha, it doesn’t garner the same clicks as hate does?"
Now comes the big lie. The big lie is that the vast majority of Americans oppose censorship so keeping books from children is wrong. It's a big lie because it's based on truth, people do oppose censorship. This is America, after all. But the vast majority also opposes s3xually inappropriate books in school, and that she doesn't mention, and that's a separate question from book banning generally. Here's how she puts the big lie: "Uh, but I believe that we we the major vast majority of Americans agree that children should have access to books." It's a lie to say that. Yes, we all agree children should have access to books, just not explicit ones in school libraries—and even the United States Supreme Court agrees with that per the Pico case.
Then, in her coup de grâce for the state library commissions dropping out of ALA, she has a message, a threat actually, and here comes the reason every library commission should drop ALA now. First, the interviewer asks: "as we know there's some states that are pretty vocal right now, what would that message be Emily?" He's clearly referring to Montana and other states considering dropping out of ALA. (Texas dropped out too but after this interview.) Emily responds, "We're all in this together. There are more of us than there are of them." Emily responds with defiance, then with a threat to organize librarians against the state library commissions, "We're all in this together. There are more of us than there are of them. It’s just a matter of getting together and standing strong for what our communities need. And there are lots and lots of ways to do that. Everyone just needs to do something." The community organizer is organizing against communities. Her answer to a question about states dropping ALA membership is confrontational, that there are more librarians than there are state library commission members and parents who oppose how ALA harms communities and especially children. It's a threat—from the President of the American Library Association.
There you go. This is why state library commissions should drop ALA membership. The ALA leader Emily is not there for literacy nor to serve the public, she's there to organize opposition against them. Do not spend another dime on any group organizing against you and explicitly so.
Drop all affiliation with ALA now.
T R A N S C R I P T
Ed "Flash Ferenc" (Program Host) [39:34]:
When we come back Emily Drabinski will be joining us. She head’s the American Library Association. We’ll talk about all the censorship and book banning going on in the United States of America. Back in a few.
Program Host: [42:29]:
Let's go to New York City right now. Joining us on our live line is Emily Drabinski who is President of the American Library Association. She's here to talk about the book banning and censorship that's been going on in America in the past couple of years. There's always some of that going on but it's off the charts right now. Emily welcome to uh America's Work Force. Before we get into that maybe you could uh tell us a little bit about your background, your association with the American Library Association, what it's all about and what you do. Go ahead, let’s pick it up right there.
Emily Drabinski:
Sure. I'm a librarian, and have been for more than twenty years and a member of the American Library Association for about that long. Uh, I’m involved with the organization uh as a volunteer and a member leader, and was elected President last year. And I’ll serve a term, uh, this year. I’m about six weeks into it and working hard on behalf of library workers across the country trying to raise awareness and, about the issues that library workers are facing every day on the job.
Program Host:
Yeah you uh you have entered in a very difficult time in America, no doubt about that.
Emily Drabinski:
I sure have.
Program Host:
Uh let me ask you, now do all libraries belong to the American Library Association? Does it work that way?
Emily Drabinski:
No, it is a member organization and you can join, right, but it isn’t mandatory and we aren’t a a governing body of any kind. We’re a an affiliation of members who, uh, come together to generate probla, solutions to the problems facing American libraries. Uh, some libraries are organizational institutional members, but the vast majority of us are, uh, working librarians who want to be a part of an association that advances access and equity, uh, for all.
Program Host:
Yeah, we've done a couple of shows with uh some unions that are organizing at libraries, we did that during uh National Library Week which was back in April, so we're seeing a lot of that going on. And a lot of that's happening because of what's happening in libraries, and the pandemic, of course, changed everything too. Uh, but let let's talk about the the book banning and the censorship that's going on and I I read earlier in the show some of the data, the numbers here, which uh is the highest since you started compiling data on censorship in libraries, goods going back 20 years ago. So, um, what's going on here in in your opinion, this. Is it like local school boards that are being really vocal? Can you explain the dynamics of what we're dealing with right now?
Emily Drabinski:
I think it's really important first to note that this is a, uh, a a sort of movement being led by a small but very loud minority of people who want to restrict access to information about black life and experience, about queer life and experience, and are targeting, um, materials based on those identities. These are, uh, organized efforts to pull books off the shelves that give access to the stories of many of our lives. And it’s happening everywhere and is coordinated and organized in a way that I think we haven’t seen before. Libraries have always deal with patrons who, community members who have suggestions about the kind of books we collect and concerns about some of the books on our shelves and that’s a very ordinary part of library work. What’s different right now is the highly organized nature of the attack, uh, which is something we haven't seen before.
Program Host:
So it it's not your choice, you go to the community to find what books belong in libraries there? Is that is that pretty clear?
Emily Drabinski:
Well, so if I'm a librarian, right, I went to school and got a masters degree in library science and I, my, part of my job is to develop, uh, physical collections, other kinds of resources, electronic and digital resources, services and programming that, uh, can connect to the people in my community. And every library is different, and so the library in Brooklyn, New York, is different from the library in Boise, Idaho, where I grew up, but in both places the library is tightly linked to the needs of the community. I’ve spent most of my life in higher education and so my library always meets the needs of the students and faculty at the University where I'm working, so the professional sort of nature of our work is part of what’s being attacked here. Uh, in the case, there’s a case in Boundary County, northern Idaho, uh last year where the library director was, uh, sort of organized attack on her institution, looking for, uh, her to remove 300 titles that, uh, the sort of activists in that area had pulled together, and those 300 titles weren’t even books that she had on the shelves. She didn’t own them at all. So I think there’s also a real disconnect between the attacks that are happening and the daily work of the librarian who, in many case, of these cases doesn't even have the book on the shelf.
Program Host:
Hmm. OK let's take that that that case, for example. When you are alerted to something going on, you mentioned Idaho your your home state, does the American Library Association kind of gather, go over there, counsel and try to um moderate the situation, does does it work that way, Emily?
Emily Drabinski:
You know it doesn't work that way and I think there’s been a lot of confusion about that. The um part of the talking points that these, uh, loud, pro-censorship activists and organizers is that the American Library Association sets policies for individual libraries and we really don’t do that. We have, uh, professional standards and practices and recommendations and we assist in cases where our assistance is requested. We have an Office of Intellectual Freedom uh that works very hard on behalf of individual libraries uh when they, when their assistance is requested, doing things like providing talking points, uh, press training, sort of connecting people to the resources that we have inside the organization, uh, but we don’t set policy at individual libraries.
Program Host:
I see.
Emily Drabinski:
That’s a local concern.
Program Host:
Now, now you do have an action tool kit. In fact I downloaded it. It's pretty uh significant. You can get it if you Google American Library Association. Those of you listening right now, and we have a pretty broad audience, they can take part in this action tool kit which um. Well let's let's talk about that. So so this is, if if somebody is in a respective community and they're banning books or censoring books uh they can download this kit and fight back? Can you can kind of kind of walk us through the the process on that? I'm sure you’re getting a lot of feedback on this, uh, on this toolkit, right?
Emily Drabinski:
We sure are. We've got a campaign right now called Unite Against Book Bans that includes, uh, tools for people, everything from uh yard signs that you can print out and have have printed and and put in your yard, uh, proclaiming that you oppose book banning and censorship in your community, talking points for talking with the media, uh, as a concerned citizen, guidelines for how to show up at a school board meeting, how to show up at a library board meeting, um, lots of tools like that that you can use, uh. Mostly we’re wanting everybody to get involved. This is an issue that has been right on the, for the front line library worker front and center for the past couple of years and it’s been really really intense. And what, what we’re seeing is that when community members and people who believe in their public library use it, which is the vast majority of us, right, uh, uh, toolkit also include statistics about public support for libraries and the pat, it’s a minority of people that want books out of the collection, and so we need the majority to show up and stand up. And the strategy is, right, for how we're going to win is, um, they’re they’re different and they change every day, and we never know in advance, right, and so we’re asking the toolkit there’s lots of ways for people to get involved. We’ve seen cases in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, where community members have banded together to support the librarian. Really really effective ways, uh, we’ve seen in, uh, Lincolnwood, uh, in the Chicago area, uh. People organizing to ensure that the library board members represent people who care about the library and promote the library as a way of keeping people who want to ban books from taking over those kinds of positions. And so the toolkit gives lots and lots of information about how you can do that organizing in your own community.
Program Host:
Well you point out it's a small but vocal group.
Emily Drabinski:
There is that.
Program Host:
And somehow they get they get national media attention, some networks more than others, I'm not gonna name names, I think you know who I’m talking about here. But uh the the pushback here. Now is that, you you mentioned some success stories. Is that garnering some media attention, the fact that, you know, citizens are saying, "hey, enough is enough, we don’t want this banning anymore." Is that happening?
Emily Drabinski:
We’re seeing some of that, I wish we saw more of that. Ya know? There’s a lot of winning happening across the country. A lot of communities where uh the the push for censorship is failing, uh, that Lincolnwood example I just shared with you, it’s uh really inspiring that they haven’t, that the book banners and censors haven’t taken over the library, but they were, they were able to see that that might be coming and, uh, organize really effectively in advance, and it’s the kind of, um, win that’s a little harder to frame and celebrate? And uh I'm not sure quite why, ha ha, it doesn’t garner the same clicks as hate does? Uh, but I believe that we we the major vast majority of Americans agree that children should have access to books. It’s, uh, for someone who’s worked in libraries my whole career it’s been shocking to see people oppose things that it’s hard to imagine anyone being against. I was visiting a library in Rhode Island a few weeks ago, and you walk in the door and there's a a shelf there with little tiny plants on it and it’s painted and it says, "take a plant, leaf a plant," and it’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen and it's a community partnership between the branch library and the local Girl Scouts to provide greenery to the community. When you see something like that in the library and you don't understand how anyone could be against it and it doesn’t make any sense, and it, I think, um, that’s the piece that’s the most challenging for me. If we could amplify the stories of good work that libraries are doing every day that you probably know about from going to the library, I know about from going to libraries, those are the stories that I’d love to see getting more press coverage, cause that's the real work of uh America’s library workers. Connecting people.
Program Host:
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well you got a friend here at America's Work Force. We appreciate what you're doing there. This is a really, really tough job and just in closing Emily, Emily Drabinski joining us, she is President of the American Library Association, your message to those communities that are affected, um, and and as we know there's some states that are pretty vocal right now, what would that message be Emily?
Emily Drabinski:
We're all in this together. There are more of us than there are of them. It’s just a matter of getting together and standing strong for what our communities need. And there are lots and lots of ways to do that. Everyone just needs to do something.
Program Host:
There you go.
Emily Drabinski:
And we’re glad to have all of you in the fight.
Program Host:
Alright, Emily, please keep in touch with us. Emily Drabinski, President of American Library Association. Stay strong and stay safe, okay?
Emily Drabinski:
Thank you.
Program Host:
That'll be it for another addition of America's Work Force. Tomorrow I’m gonna check in with the Ohio Federation of Teachers and the Insulators, that would be Local 45. Until then, all of you have a safe and wonderful day.
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Source of transcript of Emily Drabinski interview:
Ferenc, Ed. “Fighting Against a Nationwide Attack on Libraries and Education: Interview of Emily Drabinski S4 E160.” America’s Work Force; Union Podcast, August 14, 2023. https://awf.labortools.com/listen/fighting-against-a-nationwide-attack-on-libraries-and-education.
Source of graphic of Emily Drabinski and Karl Marx, upper right:
Monger, Craig. “‘Marxist Lesbian’ American Library Association President Not Backing Down Despite Alabama, Other States Seeking Separation.” 1819 News, August 16, 2023. https://1819news.com/news/item/marxist-lesbian-american-library-association-president-not-backing-down-despite-alabama-other-states-seeking-separation.
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