Now I bring new evidence about Amanda and it is not only shocking, but it infects her public school's administration. Administrators at Live Oak Middle School, Denham Springs, LA, are colluding with Amanda to violate state law pertaining to open public records. As the law is being violated and Amanda retains her job, mainstream media is fawning over how wonderful is Amanda for taking the tough stance against "censorship." She and her school administrators are actively violating the law to censor what parents and legislators can see while she is being lauded for defending against "censorship."
Amanda is litigious, despite currently owing the parents she sued about $27,000 in legal damages that she has not yet paid. I'll suspect her school will be as well, now that I reported the above. But the above is true, I'm reporting on it, truth is a complete defense to defamation, and I'm presenting below the evidence in full so no one can complain I've taken anything out of context. As Amanda herself would say, "it is what it is."
This information I am reporting is absolutely loaded with crazy. She keeps laughing throughout until she cries then she starts laughing again. She uses our language but it has a different meaning: "book banning" and "censorship" for example happens all the time for her yet the last book ban in the USA was in 1963. She says there's nothing inappropriate in a school library and that people make things up for political reasons. She reveals that she works with her administration to keep people from getting public records. She trains librarians how to hide what school librarians are doing to indoctrinate children, such as by conducting business on apps like Signal and Slack. She's packing heat (not bad in and of itself) to defend against parents. She's organized local groups but not really since she got help to do that from Chicago's American Library Association. When first accused of indoctrinating kids she had no end of horrible medical symptoms until therapy helped her to get over the backlash from doing so. Some of her awards were self-nominated—and she was rejected for years. I could go on and on. Comment on this post to tell me what else you found.
And how do we know the administration follows her advice? I filed a FOIA request, asked for records even on personal devices and accounts, and got absolutely zero results. See: "Amanda Jones 'That Librarian' Deletes School Library Social Media to Hide Something; Here's My FOIA to Found Out What." And sure enough, this was the response:
On Monday, May 6th, 2024 at 3:03 PM, BRUCE CHAFFIN <BRUCE.CHAFFIN@lpsb.org> wrote:
Good afternoon: After a search of all emails, we have not located any communication within our system that pertains to the public records request that you sent.
Under the Louisiana Public Records Act § 44:1 et seq., I am requesting electronic copies, sent as attachments to a reply email, of public records, even if personal accounts were used, that discuss in any way the recent deletion of the @LOMiddleLibrary social media account on X, formerly known as Twitter and formerly located here: https://twitter.com/LOMiddleLibrary, and the deletion of the @lom_ibrary social media account on Instagram and formerly located here: https://www.instagram.com/lom_library/.
We consider this request closed at this time.
Livingston Parish Public Schools adheres to the equal opportunity provisions of federal and civil rights laws and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, marital status, or disability. The Title IX Coordinator is Bruce Chaffin, Assistant Superintendent, P.O. Box 1130, Livingston, LA 70754; phone (225) 686-7044; email bruce.chaffin@lpsb.org. In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, if you need special assistance to participate in any meeting, please contact Danita Duffy of the LPPS Special Education office at (225) 686-4248. Notification 48 hours prior to the meeting will enable the LPPS to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility to the meeting.
So it's my opinion, based on the above and my transcript below, that the Live Oak Middle School administration is actively working to keep parents and legislators from obtaining information under the state open government laws. Louisiana legislators may wish to take notice of what the school administration has done and the method by which school librarians are circumventing various laws (including deleting @LOMiddleLibrary and IG:lom_library in violation of records retention laws).
"Oh what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott's poem Marmion (1808)
Here is the source of the information I am reporting and below I present a transcript:
- Amanda Jones. Self-Preservation When Dealing with Censorship Attempts, 2023, by The Boss Librarian. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYr3qjvXXAA.
Here is Amanda's handout from the speech:
Here is the transcript I produced and it automatically advances the transcript as the video proceeds making it very easy to see, hear and read at the same time:
Here is the transcript I produced as text to be easily searchable by parents and legislators, the very people from whom the public school administration and Amanda are hiding and violating the law:
K.C. Boyd:
(00:02):
All right, coming up next is the 2021 School Librarian of the Year, Amanda Jones from Louisiana. Her title of her session is, "Self-Preservation: When Dealing with Censorship Attempts" and this is going to be a good one. Make sure that you have a pen and paper out and take some notes because, uh, Amanda's going to drop some, some gems on us. I, I know she will. Okay? So as soon as I see your screen I'm gunna drop off but you can just go on and take it away.
Amanda Jones:
(00:35):
All right.
K.C. Boyd:
(00:36):
Okay, I see your screen.
Amanda Jones:
(00:38):
Okay I'm trying, look, it's been so long since I've been on, uh, I can't see anybody so I'm just doing this blindly. Y'all can see me and everything?
K.C. Boyd:
(00:50):
Yes, we can see you and the screen.
Amanda Jones:
(00:52):
Okay, sorry. Y'all give me a second. I swear I'm better at tech than this normally. Okay, so I'm going to be monitoring the chat and K.C., if you see a question in the Q&A, I'm ha- I havin' trouble looking at, you know, the chat and the Q&A and everything at once.
K.C. Boyd:
(01:09):
Sure can.
Amanda Jones:
(01:10):
But, um, so I'm going to go ahead and start. My name is Amanda Jones and I'm going to drop the slide. Let's see... That should be it right there, so you should have access now to the slide deck and I'll, I'll post it multiple times, um, let's see... Y'all give me one second. There we are. Okay, now I can see. All right, so self-preservation, um, when dealing with censorship (laughs). So, uh, I've been through it the past year and hopefully you haven't been through it, um, but I'm gonna talk to you about ways you can prepare if you ha-are going through it. Some things to mitigate, uh, some some of your concerns, um, but before we start, I, I just kinda wanna know, um, what type of like, librarian you are, like school, public, or what grades or age levels, and then what state or country you're in. If you could drop that in the chat, I'd just like to know who I'm talking to. (laughs)
(02:15):
But um, in case you haven't heard, while waiting for everybody to do that, um, I'll, I'll say uh, uh the past year I've, I'm in currently in a lawsuit. Um, I am, uh, I was attacked (laughs) last summer for speaking out at the public library as a resident and, um, what ensued was just a nightmare and it's still going on. Why... There we go. It's still going on, I just filed an appeal, um, in my lawsuit, so that's like the whole thing. I'm not gonna talk about the lawsuit too much, but it is, uh, I got tired of being called a gr**mer and a p*d*phile online, and being, uh, and have ugly things said about me, so I did something about it. And we're going to talk about a little bit about some of that. All right, so I'm seeing where everybody's from and I'm going to continue on.
(03:05):
So what I want you to do is, you you have to prepare for the worst. And I remember back in May of uh 2022, I was on a panel with uh Nik- author Nikki Grimes, like the fabulous author Nikki Grimes, and she and I and Burton Ball [?] were talking about censorship and how to prepare yourself. And we were talking about book bans and censorship, as in like, prepare your collection development policies and, and, um, Miss Grimes's perspective as an author and all of that. Um, and I said, "Well, it hasn't happened to me yet, hahaha!" and then like fast-forward three months later and it was a nightmare. So, yi ya yit's just better to be safe and sorry?
(03:46):
So hopefully I will offer you some of these tips. Um, some of these came from me, some came from other people that they told me about, and I, um, have, have done a lot of these, so it's better to be safe than sorry. So the first thing I want to tell you is that, um, there are people out there, obviously, that, um, will or are just waiting to make your life a living hell just for being a librarian. And I don't know the why's or the how's, or I don't know their thought process on that, but it's happening. And um, everything's fair game to them. You, your family, your children, your job, everything is fair game to them. So you wanna be as prepared as possible.
(04:30):
You want to make sure the first thing you're going to do when you start preparing is you're going to go and you're gunna remove any references to your school or your library on everything. I have a professional website, um, that I keep, you know, I do speaking engagements and things like that and I, I, I keep all of that information up there and I have a school email on it so I had to go and take that off. Now there are some things I post on my website, like news articles and the title of the article has my school. I've done the best I can to take, um, every reference though off, of my school, my school email, all of the websites. But you also wanna make sure you do that on all social media, so whatever it is, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, whatever, take off any reference that you have to your school or your school district. Just trust me on this. Just do it (laughs) okay? Take it off.
(05:19):
I know you wanna say, "Hey, I'm a proud teacher librarian at blank school!" No (laughs), just take it off. You wanna make sure you only include your personal email on all of your accounts and your pages. Personal email, not school. And I was, I used my school email for everything. I was naïve. So now I use my personal for everything and I will only use school email at school, I will not use it when I leave home, I mean when I leave school and I use my personal for everything. But, um, you also want to go through all of your social media and you want to look at your pictures.
(05:55):
I would suggest that you take any pictures of your children off if they're younger. Now my daughter is 16 goin on 17 and, dum, I always ask her before I post stuff anyway, um, but you want to take it all off if possible? Even think about um like, even think about your pictures. Now I, my pictures on my socials are my face, um, but for a while there when I was being like, really attacked hardcore at the beginning, I took my picture off of everything, um, and I just now, uh, a couple months ago put it back on. But look at your pictures, look at your family. Um, you want to remove any phone numbers. I didn't realize that my Twitter was linked to my um, my cellphone and some, some apps you have to have a link to a phone, but go make sure it's not visible (laughs) to anybody. I was so clueless, y'all. So you wanna make sure you do that. You wanna make sure, um, even stuff like Goodreads, your Amazon account, your TikTok account, you take off your school email, reference to your school, any of that.
(06:59):
Now, something else you want to do, because everything to them is fair game and because they're a little, um, uh some people can be a little unhinged? You want to go back and do things like on Facebook you can go and retroactively set every prior Facebook post to friends-only and there's a little GIF on the screen, um, but basically you go under Settings and you go into, um, Posts and then you click on it, says "limit who can see past posts" and you can click on Friends Only and you can limit every single post you have ever made because y'all (laughs), I have a friend, Kelisa Wing from Virginia, they found a tweet of hers from three years ago that I didn't even think was bad and it was though they put it on Fox News. So (laughs), it, it, it was awful. So you go through, um, I lock down my Twitter periodically, um, whenever I wanna share stuff or, all- allow things to be retweeted, I'll unlock, but I go back and forth between that.
(08:00):
But you wanna go through, do a deep dive on all your social media. Clear anything and everything, lock it down, go through your privacy settings, um like in Instagram you can set it where people cannot comment? Facebook you can, um. Let me mention this. Because I run, I have a Facebook page for my school library. And so people, that's a little different, you, cause you, you can't really block a parent (laughs) of a child of yours at your school for the school library but what you can do is you could go and hide comments, and if you go in and you just copy and paste all the prepositions, and then like the hot-topic, um, words like 'gr**mer', 'p*d*phile', 's*xually explicit', 'por-' like all these things, 'woke', these buh words that they use and put those and all the prepositions, um, into the hide comments section. It will automatically hide all your comments on those pages, every comment that people put until you unhide it. I would suggest doing that.
(09:00):
You want to go through and you want to weed your friend list. Um, when I first started being targeted back last summer, um, I went through and weeded my friend list and I did not do it good enough. Um, there were people that were going in on my friends only posts and taking stuff and I figured out who it was and so I'm very, very cautious now. Um, mine was, it was a little heartbreaking, you have people I grew up with (laughs), but, um I would very much limit? Also on Facebook, there is, um, uh there's an option that you, you know, you like to link your family members? It'll say like Amanda's family and all my, my dad, my mom, my grandmother, everybody is linked. I went and unlinked it all, I took it off because they will come after your family as well. I know that from personal experience. They, they, they have targeted, um, my siblings, um, so, uh, and and they even go into, to School Librarian Facebook posts. Be careful what you post on, in the Facebook groups, cause they'll go in there and there's lurkers and they screenshot and all that. Um, but you wanna make sure you set everything to private, do the best you can on that end.
(10:02):
Now, um, as far as messaging goes. You need to think about public records requests, hackers and subpoenas (laughs) and I'm not being uh dramatic. You really have to think about these things. So for your emails, um, they will take anything and everything out of context, cuz we know we're not doing wrong, you know you're not doing righ- anything wrong. Um, but they will go in, and they will get a, um, you know, Freedom of Information Act, they can request your public reah records, your um work emails, um, sometimes. It depends on what they ask for, but um, I have been asked for mine and uh, be very careful.
(10:39):
I do not, I will not talk about book challenges whatsoever on school email. Um, I will only speak about it in person with my administration now. Um, I will not talk about book orders or anything like that on school email. Um. Some people, um, I, I know uh, Katie Schwarzmann who is a lawyer with the Tulane First Amendment Law Clinic said even your personal email if you're using it at school, sometimes they can get right to it, especially if you're in a court case.
(11:10):
Um, so be very careful about what you're, even on your phone if you're connected to the Wi-Fi or you're doing it during work hours, be very careful. And again I know we're not doing anything wrong. They will just take anything and everything out of context.
(11:22):
Um, something that we like to use in Louisiana, um, our, our activism group that we have now, um, initiated. Um, we use Signal. Signal is an app that we can communicate with each other and you can set your messages to automatically (laughs) disappear after five minutes, so we we're like, we joke, we're like um detectives or whatever. Uh huh. But, and I don't know if they could actually get those for court. They I still careful about whatever I say. Um, we also use Slack to coordinate things, um, where we're... library board meetings, school board meetings, things like that, we'll use Slack and Signal to communicate, not Facebook Messenger, not text message, none of that. You just want to be very, very careful.
(12:00):
Conversations are always better, um, face to face or phone call. Remember, um, just everything you do, everything you email, everything you say, everything, um, just think that somebody's recordin it and watching you at all times (laughs), that's all I can say. Um, ah. Cuz you know, I, I thought about this, um, I'll be at like a library board meeting and I just wanna tell people off and just like go in double barrels and like, they're recording me at all times, so um, yeah. Plus I always try to live by what Michelle Obama says about go, go, "When they go low, you go high" (laughs). So I keep that and the fact that I can be recorded, um, in my head at all times.
(12:41):
You want to stay in the know, so in order to prepare for this you want to stay in the know. So you want to, you know, you want to go to meetings, go to your school board meetings, go to your library board control meetings, go to your... We are governed by a parish council which is like a county, or county governance for parishes in Louisiana. Um, I don't attend every single one of those but I'll watch it online. Um, I do attend every library board meeting and I watch the school board meetings. You want to make sure that um, you ahead of time you click on this and these are clickable links and I'll put the, put it back in the chat. Um, reading up on PEN America's Field Guide to Harassment, it can come in very, very handy?
(13:14):
Very handy. Um, and I cannot say enough positive things about Kelly Jensen uh, from Book Riot? She does a weekly censorship round up. Now she's on vacation right now, so I don't know if she's posting things today but she keeps everything up to date? Um, she posts about stories all over the country, so even if it's not affecting your school or your state, read up on other states and what is happening because I get ideas on how to fight things and, and people who I can contact for support so I'm always reading Kelly's, um, Book Riot.
(13:46):
And if, they should be announcing, AASL should be announcing this week, she got a geuha, commendation 26 states, uh, chapters, um, we, we wrote a recommendation or commendation for her resolution for a ca commendation, whatever they call it. Should be announced soon. So I'm really excited about that for Kelly.
(14:04):
Um, and then SLJ, Library Journal, they're always posting things, read up on that.
(14:09):
And then there's something called Plural. It used to be called Open States but they changed at the end of July and it's now called Plural and I go on there all the time and I stay in the know on what's happening in the legislature, the bills, who's running for office. Now in Louisiana, we have it's called Geaux Vote, so I'm always looking at like, what's up for vote.
(14:27):
You just need to know all the players. Know all the players and know the game. Cuz it's a game to them, it's not a game to us, it's a game to them and you need to know the players in the game.
(14:38):
Um, you also want to preempt, uh, if it hasn't happened to you, still do this. You'll need to form an alliance (laughs), a super-secret alliance. Um, we, we formed an alliance in my parish um after the, after we were targeted. And dum, so I founded the Livingston Parish Library Alliance with the help of John Chrastka and EveryLibrary and Patrick and Peter at, at EveryLibrary. Um, and we, we have an alliance that whether you are working for your public or your school's library, start building your citizen coalition, you know? And the easiest thing to do is just start a Facebook page and post like, updates like, here's the school board meeting and this is on the agenda or I post positive memes about the library and like "We love our libraries because" and then I'll post some of Kelly's articles and different things, um, to help spread the word and you build up so that if something does happen you have a built in support system already. Okay?
(15:34):
Um, we had to do it (laughs) after the fact. And then, um, I I joined, so we have two wonderful women in our state, Lynette Mejia and Melanie Brevis, and they um formed Louisiana Citizens Against Censorship and they allowed me to help them, and then the three of us kind of joined together and we are uniting or trying to unite all of the alliances across the state and build that support not just not in our parish which is our counties, but also state wide. Um, it's really great if you just go ahead and, just do it (laughs). Build yourself an alliance.
(16:04):
Now. If you do, um, come under attack, watch what you say and do. I cannot stress that enough, watch what you say and do. I have diarrhea of the mouth. I am I am well-known for having diarrhea of the mouth and flying off the handle, and so I have to be very, very careful. Um, when I first started being attacked, um, I thought "This is not serious, like this is ridiculous." I went on their page and put the laughing emoji (laughs) and I wish I could take that back cuz it's not funny, um, and they talk about that all the time. "She put the laugh, she thinks it's funny". So, um, I learned that the hard way. Um. But what you wanna do, don't engage (laughs), it's not worth it. Yeah, you, somebody calls you a p*d*phile online or somebody says, like in my case they announced to my community that I'm giving p*rn*graphy and er*tica to six-year-olds and I'm teaching 11-year-olds how to perform an*l s*x (laughs). You know, I'm not and I wanna go online and say, "I am not doing that," um, but you just, you just can't, just don't. Um, it's not worth it.
(17:06):
You don't want to engage back, um, you you wanna lock down, lock your Twitter, you wanna lock your Facebook, you wanna mute, block. And what's funny is so I block a lot of people on Twitter, and so my haters are like, "I thought the person who, um, is against censorship is... she's, she's against censorship but she's blocking us." I'm sorry, but I, my personal Twitter is not a government entity, uh, that's my personal Twitter. They can rail all they want about it. I'm blocking them. You have to block them for your peace. Just block 'em and don't go look at what they're saying. And I know that's easier said than done. It took me six months to realize that, that no good will come out of you looking at it. You just, you just, it just hurts your heart and there's just, there's no... Just don't go look at it.
(17:50):
Um, if I were you, I'd get a really trusted friend to go take screenshots and document all of that. Change your name if you need it.
(17:56):
If you get an email, so I received a death threat. Don't forward it, cause it can mess up the chain of uh, the encry- the, oh, I don't know, I'm not cyber tech-y, but um, you don't want to forward it, you want to print it, you want to document it, block the sender.
(18:10):
And I have a folder called Whackadoos (laughs), and when I get a Whackadoo email I just put it in my Whackadoo folder for future reference and I don't go back and look at it. Um, so, do that. And if it's, now if it's a school email, you need to report that to your administration.
(18:24):
Also make sure that tell your family not to respond. Um, they will, they will come after your family. They will do deep dives and track every member of your family. I'm sure some one of my haters probably has a whole family tree on me, um, and that, that scares me. So, um, tell your family not to respond either.
(18:38):
You wanna document it all. And I laugh because (laughs) I use Wakelet (laugh) to document it (laughs). I have like columns, like all the players (laughs), and every screenshot and every link and everything but I don't just do, do it it there, and do it in multiple places on multiple clouds, on a hard drives, in the cloud, um, very securely and I document everything. You wanna document everything. If it's a social media post, you want to go and get the link for that post, save the link. You wanna take a screenshot. You wanna save that. You wanna save every screenshot, um, of every comment? You want to do all of that. Okay?
(19:12):
Um, you want to, every text message you get, and and I even, I have things printed, just in case, um, but I have everything. You wanna organize it by who, what, when, where, why. And if it's a, if it's a death threat, you you need to... If you feel unsafe you need to report that to law enforcement. Now I'm not saying it went anywhere for me for law enforcement but I did report mine, and after several months, they um eh, they'd given me the run around and I reported to the FBI and they deferred to the local sheriff's department, but you want to report it, you want that on record.
(19:44):
You also wanna document all of the police reports, harassment, anything like that, and you also want to document doctor's visits. If you start getting attacked online, you need to go to the doctor and have your weight, your vitals because I lost 50 pounds, my blood pressure went through the roof. I had to get on the anxiety medication and all of that is documented for my court case. And I go every month and a half, two months and get all of that to show the physical toll that it has taken on me. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you. Um, but also therapy. I document therapy sessions, how much I pay, ah my co-pays, what it co- like everything, you document everything.
(20:20):
Now reporting, um, you wanna make sure you report it to as many places as possible, um, either to cyber crime unit, you can go online, you can, you know, these are all the thi- places you can report it. But you definitely wanna make sure that your administration, your district, your school board rep, your union is all aware of these things so if someone goes on online and says you're getting s*xually explicit material to children, you need to make them aware of that. Um. And don't forget to tell your family, um, to report it to you as well. I take the screenshots and links from all the things that have been done on my family's website as well.
(20:53):
Now, do you want to take a stand? That's up to you. And I will say that um, I don't regret taking a stand and I don't regret, um, I, I don't regret filing a lawsuit. It has been a solid year (laughs), and I am nowhere in sight of any of this going away. Um, if I had let it go, I truly feel they would have moved on with life, they would've left me alone and that would be that. I now have my own personal stalkers. Um, I'm not even, I'm not even, alleged stalkers, for the court case (laughs). Um, but I uh, it's it's horrendous, it's it's really horrendous. Um, but I don't regret it, but you have to understand that I had the means and I am privileged and not everybody does. I am a white, straight woman. That affords me privilege. It does. Um. I am not a historically marginalized, um, person. Um, I also have a very solid support system with family. I have a very solid support system across the country with school librarians. Um, and I have a GoFundMe. It is super-expensive. I have spent $60,000 so far and we're not even like, I and I, oh by the way, if I lose, I have to pay their cour- court costs, too. So you just have to weigh that.
(22:08):
Um, several people have contacted me about, you know, they've sent me screenshots like, "Can I file suit? Can I file suit?" It's very hard. So if you are uh ever, um, if you have spoken of any of your school board or public library board meetings, if you've spoken in public, you will be classified as a public figure and that is another level of defamation that has to be proven. You have to prove malice. So it's super-super hard to file a suit, so you need to know that going in, and you know need to know that this is very, very expensive. But again, I have no regrets. So, um. I always tell people, you know, let it go, if you can. If you have it in you to fight back, fight back. I don't, I don't judge either way. Um, It has taken a very, very, very emotional, physical and mental toll on me, and I don't want that for anyone else.
(23:00):
Um, the aftermath. How do we cope and how do we, how do we move on? So, um, my friend Andrea Trudeau showed me the app, uh, Engageable? Think it used to be called Focusable, it's now called Engageable. You can do meditations. My friend Tiffany Whitehead showed me the Breeze: Mental Health app, you can go on and you can do, um, do guided meditations, breathing, take deep breaths, um. You have to, ih, get someone else to take the screenshots and do all that business for you so you don't have to look at it just for your own mental health. Um. Karina Quilantán[-Garza] introduced me to Spotify cuz I was not a Spotify user and she sent me a um playlist (laughs) like a, like a womanhood, like a bad*ss women playlist, and so I got uh, I got like, really into Spotify, so I have like, when I'm in the mood to like, really just rail, and then I have like, when I need, I have my Lauren Daigle and my own S- Southern Baptist hymns, when I need like, Jesus like (laughs) so that I don't go wild. So I have different playlists, that's helped me a lot. Go to the doctor, though, seriously, go to the doctor. Um, go get therapy. There's such a stigma about therapy, um, therapy's been amazing for me. Uh, I'm, I'm. I say yoga next or something, I haven't done that in a while. But I I did, um, I have tried that and it does help.
(24:18):
Ask for help. I asked for help immediately. K.C. was like, probably the first person I texted other than family (laughs) and K.C. helped, uh, and it it was amazing. And I, I don't know, I'm tryin not to cry, but I am forever indebted to her (cries). Um, reach out for help, um (cries).
K.C. Boyd:
(24:37):
Uh-uh, uh-uh, come on, come on, come on. Don't do it, don't do it.
Amanda Jones:
(24:37):
I know, I know, look!
K.C. Boyd:
(24:40):
It's all right, come on. You, you almost made it through. (laughs)
Amanda Jones:
(24:43):
I know, right? It's like I haven't thought in so long about this. Um, but reach out for help, like reach out to me, um, reach out to, I saw Carolyn comment, Carolyn Foote, the Texas FReadom Fighters, Becky. Um, reach out to your PLN because they're just wonderful. Um, but um, there, you know how on the airplane you have to put on your oxygen mask before you can help others? You really have to take care of yourself first, um, and I, I didn't learn that, I had to take a sabbatical, um, in December, uh. I start back school next week. Yay! I'm excited about it.
(25:17):
Uh, but you have to take a, um, I I did too much, and I didn't take care of myself and so, but now, I'm like, and now I was crying a minute ago cause I just, I love K.C. and I just wanted to, I get emotional when I think about her help. But um, I'm in such a better place, y'all. I'm I'm in a good place, um. And uh, but you have to ask for help and you have to talk about it, and um, so use some of these.
(25:38):
And know, you need to know there's no shame? So what these people want to do is they want to shame you. They want to tell, like, when you go online and they're posting this pers- this librarian is a p*rn pusher and they're always like the Marxist ALA and whatever, and I don't know that. Um, they wanna shame you. You've done nothing wrong (laughs) so don't let them shame you. You know you're not givin out p*rn to children? Um, hold your head up high. Like, you know, um. Th- ih th th- They wanna silence you, they wanna shame you, don't let them. But in the same regard, be safe about it, okay? Be safe. I have had to, you know and I've, I've had to be very safe, I have, we have security cameras, um, I have weapons (laughs) uh, I travel with mace and a taser and, um, you know, we are an open-carry state and uh if I have to travel a back road, it's, it is what it is. Um, cuz you can't be ss safe enough.
(26:39):
I even have checked my car for um GPS tracking devices, uh, because I have been very vocal against our attorney general who is running for governor, so you just cannot be too safe, uh, it's it's really wild out there (laughs). But, um, so that is, I think that's pretty much it on my spiel. Um, and yeah, final thoughts, it's not your fault. They wanna silence you, don't let them, you know, you've done nothing wrong.
(27:03):
And yet, and something you need to remember, it's a, it feels like a lot, like it feels like a lot. I'm in a small community, two red lights, so my whole community, my whole community shared all of these things and it's really hard when you see your kindergarten teacher writing about you, that you're (laughs) a problem person. But um, what you need to remember is, it's a vocal few that are stirring the pot. Don't give 'em an inch. Um, you know, don't give them anything, they'll move on. They really will. Um, and if they don't, then it's time to start thinking about what you need to do and if you need to get an attorney.
(27:37):
So, that was it. Um, I don't know if anybody had any questions (laughs).
K.C. Boyd:
(27:40):
Yeah, there's actually some questions and I just wanna make a quick comment. When it first started, ya uh, that weekend, I was so ticked off that I was just like on social media and I was fighting, arguing back with 'em, and it Carolyn Foote from Freadom Fighters that said, "Don't engage". And that was the best suggestion that, um, she could give me because, you know, when a friend of mine is going through something I'm ready to fight. I'm from the south side of Chicago, so you know I can't help myself. But the thing is (laughs), is that, you know, you it's it's not, it's not, any, it's, it doesn't, it, it doesn't gain an inch with any of these people.
Amanda Jones:
(28:17):
It doesn't.
K.C. Boyd:
(28:17):
They're just going to do, continue to say and do what they want to do. Amanda you do have some questions in the the ...
Amanda Jones:
(28:24):
I see 'em now, I pulled 'em up.
K.C. Boyd:
(28:27):
Okay.
Amanda Jones:
(28:27):
Um. So I will, so I, um, I'll put the link in here again and you should be able to take my slide. What I'll do is I'll put in the document that K.C.'s gonna, um, pass out. I'll put the PD, uh, PDF version too, as well as the slide deck. I'll do that. As far as MARC records for book orders, um, packing list comes in an email. It just is what it is, but I, you know, I don't order anything that's not age-relevant for my kids, so if they have a problem with it because it's black history or it has a black character and they say I'm teaching CRT or they have a problem with it cuz it has an LGBTQ character or by an author, too bad for them (laughs). Like (laughs) too bad for them. Um, uh, you know, it is what it is, um, I'm saying not a lot.
(29:09):
What's my opinion about joining the union? So I was, uh, a member of a professional organization and I switched to a union actually while I was in both, because of um, the legal representation, and my situation is unique because I'm being harassed for speaking up about my public library? I didn't do anything at school, like I haven't done anything or said anything, um, in all my interviews I do not mention my school or anything, so I am, I'm job-secure as of right now? Um, so I haven't had to, uh, have any issues but I'm in a union just in case, and I update my union attorneys on what's happening.
(29:45):
Um, now how did my admin respond to what they were saying. Okay, so I'm writing a book, it will be out September 24, uh, and I am going all into about uh what my administration said, um, because I will say on a personal level, uh, I mean on a professional level, they were amazing. Um, they they backed me 100%. My district, my everyone in my school system backed me 100%.
(30:12):
Um. When you grow up with someone who you work with for 22 years and they're your boss, there's some expectations when they, when they say that you're a school family. There's some expectations and I've learned that. And I, I went and told them this two days ago before school started, I said "We're not a family anymore, I don't wanna ever hear you talk about school family (laughs), we're not a family." And I just it is, ah, and I I said I'm writing about, I, there's a whole chapter in my book about the hurt. Um, ah, my school board representative, um, was a really good friend of mine and we don't no longer speak, so she's not gonna like my book either. It is, it'll be okay.
K.C. Boyd:
(30:51):
It is what it is. It is what it is.
Amanda Jones:
(30:52):
I'm telling my truth, so. (laughs)
K.C. Boyd:
(30:54):
Mm-hmm.
Amanda Jones:
(30:56):
But I think that was the... What is the name of my book? Oh, it's called "That Librarian" cause that's what they call me now that I'm suin' 'em, they don't put my name they say, "That Librarian" (laughs), so it's called "That Librarian: Book Bans in the United States," and it's actually, it goes into my story but it also zooms out and talks about Louisiana and the state as a whole, and it goes back and forth in like, what's the underlying like, it talks about white Christian nationalism and um, it talks about, um, how I was very Republican growing up and I was raised Southern Baptist and my coming to terms with things in 2020, um, ah, during COVID and George Floyd and and my whole change in mindset and uh, K.C., I hope you don't know, but I, I mean I hope you don't mind, but you're in the chapter about making me the person I am today.
K.C. Boyd:
(31:39):
Aww. Wow.
Amanda Jones:
(31:41):
And uh, just, it's, it's a, it's a lot about that, so, um.
K.C. Boyd:
(31:45):
You need to have T-shirts ready called that li- "I'm That Librarian". (laughs)
Amanda Jones:
(31:49):
And I do have my shirt, I don't know if you saw it at ALA, I have my shirt, it says, um, "Amanda Jones has joined the radical leftists to burn uh morals and uh, morals and common sense on the altar of wokeism" (laughs). That was an actual quote about (laughs) me in the paper (laughs).
K.C. Boyd:
(32:08):
I need to see that. Oh god, oh god.
Amanda Jones:
(32:09):
So I made a shirt. (laughs)
K.C. Boyd:
(32:11):
Well look, look y'all, give Amanda some love in the chat.
Amanda Jones:
(32:15):
Thank y'all.
K.C. Boyd:
(32:15):
Because this was painful for her to go through and, and she's able to still rise up up top and, and share this experience with all of us so we could be better prepared, you know, um, for a possible attack like this. She lived through it? So she's telling you the things that she did wrong, things she did right, and things that she wants you to do, so if you are attacked like this, you will be ready. Give her some love in the chat, give her some love on social me- Well, uh...
Amanda Jones:
(32:45):
You can, you can, yeah, yeah, oh and I...
K.C. Boyd:
(32:47):
How you feel about that?
Amanda Jones:
(32:50):
You can, and I'm locked down on Twitter right now.
K.C. Boyd:
(32:51):
Okay, okay.
Amanda Jones:
(32:52):
But um, if they, if you request me, Ali will follow you back if it says you're a librarian or educator because I'm very careful.
K.C. Boyd:
(32:58):
Yeah, yeah, that's another thing is that a lot of y'all, like, friend me, on Instagram. If I can't tell you're an educator or, or a librarian and it's just your name, I'm sorry, you can't friend me, no. and I I got that from Amanda. It's like you got to be, Amanda said, "K.C., you gotta be very careful who you're friending on online," you know, and I took that to heart.
Amanda Jones:
(33:21):
And uh, y'all can follow my case on librarianjones.com. I give updates, there's a speaking out tab, and I, I give updates. But thank y'all everybody, y'all have a good rest of your day and thank you, K.C., for hosting this amazing, uh, four days of PD.
K.C. Boyd:
(33:32):
Thank you for taking the time. I really appreciate you, hun. Love you.
Amanda Jones:
(33:36):
Love you, bye.
K.C. Boyd:
(33:37):
Alrighty. Bye-bye now. All right, y'all, we're gonna continue on with our presentations.
—
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