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That Librarian -the story of one librarian's fight against hate and censorship [1]

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Date: 2025-02-13

On July 19, 2022, Amanda Jones went to a meeting of the Livingston Parish Library Board of Control because she’d heard that they would be discussing book content, a topic of considerable interest to her. She stood up and made a short speech on the corrosive effects of censorship. Not a wild, arm-waving rant, but quiet, thoughtful remarks on what is a library’s core mission: to be a library for everyone. There were book burner hate merchants at that meeting, two men in particular. Their reaction was to decide Ms. Jones should be burned as well—at the stake, if they could manage it.

Amanda Jones was, at that point, an educator with two decades of experience, and a librarian--a rather well-regarded one. She was the 2021 School Library Journal Librarian of the year, and President of the Louisiana Association of School Libraries. She is a devout Christian, and had always leaned center-right--to the degree she was all that involved in politics. In the book she woefully admits that she voted for the Orange Menace the first time around, believing all the stories about how awful Hillary was coming from her parents. She was an unlikely target of right-wing vitriol.

She woke the morning after that speech to find out that her life was being brutally wrenched off in another direction. The howler monkeys, those brave souls who hide behind their keyboards and phone screens while hooting and shrieking incoherently and flinging shit, descended. The accusations of being a groomer and pedophile began as a slimy shower that morning, quickly becoming a toxic deluge. It didn’t take long before she got her first, but nowhere near her last, death threat.

That Librarian tells the story of her struggle against the ugliness and smirking dishonesty blasted at her. Of life-long friends, parents of her students, fellow educators, political figures, and others who turned against her after swallowing the lies spread by two hate-mongering sleazebags leading the initial assault. I won’t name them here; they should be consigned to lives of eternal miserable irrelevance. She tried to sue them for their slanders. A clueless and cowardly local judge dismissed her case, which is still on appeal.

That first week nearly killed her; she was utterly unprepared to deal with the raging virulence and personal betrayals. Her life, and the life of her family, were in ruins. She was being targeted, the fusillade never stopped, and it came from every direction.

But after a bit she pushed back her paralyzing despair, got back to her feet, and she began fighting back as best she could, including that lawsuit. That struggle, aided by others who believe in free speech, and rights, and truth for the many—and a whole lot of fellow librarians--is laid out in this book. It makes clear the savage cruelty, brainless hysteria, and hypocrisy of the self-styled protectors of morality. That fight is nowhere near ended, not in an America that can reelect a veritable Old Faithful of Lies, an ignorant, preening thug who betrayed his oath of office, the Constitution, and the very ideals such as honesty and justice that have been our guiding lights for so long.

Amanda Jones is still fighting this battle, and she has been changed by it. She found herself to be stronger than she thought, braver than she ever imagined. She is, in short, a hero. Her story is well worth hearing as an inspiration--and as a warning.

That Librarian by Amanda Jones, Bloomsbury Publishing, HC, 2024 (and I don’t think Ms. Jones will think less of you if you borrow it from your local library)

A note: I am a published author, and a fervent believer in the printed word. I have been on the Board of Trustees of a nearby small-town Public Library for around twenty-five years, VP of that board for the last ten or so. I take this office very seriously: in all that period I have missed exactly three meetings. Libraries are, and should remain, one of the most fundamentally democratic institutions we have. They have been under attack for quite a while now, and in the rough beast regime now rising we can expect no cessation of these attempts to silence, even shutter libraries. The end of Ms. Jones’s book lists some strategies and organizations helpful in that battle.

To end on a lighter note, my position on the board has brought me a magic talisman I never could have imagined possessing back when I was a young bookworm: a key to the library. Join in to help your local library survive and thrive, and you might earn one too!

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/2/13/2300452/-That-Librarian-the-story-of-one-librarian-s-fight-against-hate-and-censorship?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=community_spotlight&pm_medium=web

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