Ayana Looney
Sometimes I am not quite clear and sometimes I come from afar but I am not thinking as a lobbyist as much as I am as a social critic trying to delve into the subjects of meaning. What, really, do these terms mean? We are making judgements as to what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, and this is rather in contrary of what we want to be doing vis-à-vis intellectual freedom.
Your first paragraphs has a lot of terms that either have no definition, or otherwise depend upon a presumption that has no factual basis. Using a singular, "Age appropriate" as a code word for some type of discriminatory exclusion sounds like science fiction. I am not saying that discrimination is not happening but rather that we are confused about cause and effect, beginning with what causes racism in the first place. Otherwise we are just talking about the consequences, the effects, and that is a never-ending task. Our confusion here paves the way for a molehill to become a mountain, and we are already on the mountain top --just not the one we want.
Finally, I am not talking about parents AND children but children in EXCLUSION of parents; rights by and for the child itself.
My citations of the CRPD are about Article 7 whereas the debate (I was there) was centered around the unwillingness of parents to abdicate their power over a child. Maybe that was a poor choice of words but the battle often unseen is where the child wants something different than the parent. We have, for instance, issues in the disability community where we have horror stories from adults all the time about the fact that they never had real input and real decision making power in their treatments, their solutions, their devices, their schools, and more. In the deaf community children are being implanted with Cochlear Implants (CI) as early as 2 months of age and this is invasive surgery that requires years and years of training and stuff that includes monthly mapping sessions and all kinds of phonics-related things and these children have no say. Now, of course, I am not saying that a 2 month old child should be able to decide, what I am saying is that these things are actually being mandated by some courts here and in other countries and it is rather controversial. We literally drill a hole in the skull and shave off the cochlea and that is an effective end to any future regenerative technologies derived from, say, sea anemones. And this is the least of it, the educational pathway is a whole 'nother story and is predicated upon the premise used in the first place to justify drilling a hole in a child's head. To wit, phonics dominate the child's educational trajectory notwithstanding the fact of deafness in the first. The social justice issue becomes one of language access and the dichotomy between input methodologies and what reading and writing are all about, hint, reading and writing are not hearing, speaking, or signing.
So what is age appropriate and how do we both empower and protect children? This is something to be continued, is it not?
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Alec McFarlane
President
New Image Associates - Construction Consultants
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Original Message:
Sent: Oct 24, 2022 11:09 AM
From: Ayana Looney
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
Dear Alec McFarlane,
I think Darryl Eschete has a valid point about the transparent attempt to equate "age-appropriate" with "desexualized" and/or "lacking any mention of LGBTQ+ or racism issues." I agree that Missouri is using "age-appropriate" to remove books by and about BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ people. I will incorporate some of his ideas into the short fourth paragraph later today.
Alec, I totally agree that decision-makers are the children and the parents. Librarians have a long history of relying on publishers and publications like ALA Booklist to determine the target audience for books selected AND partnering with children and parents to help readers find their books. It could be that including information about collection development, and selection processes might improve the draft letter.
I hope the letter will be a good template for us to use by the time the comment period opens in November. It's a small thing I can do to be a part of a solution.
Thank you for reading,
~Ayana
Original Message:
Sent: Oct 21, 2022 07:10 PM
From: Alec McFarlane
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
My point exactly, this stuff does NOT exist in a vacuum.
Your quote:
"
This whole bit of nonsense is arguably a transparent attempt to equate "age-appropriate" with "desexualized" and/or "lacking any mention of LGBTQ+ or racism issues." I would suggest tweaking your statement slightly to say "school/government officials do not have the right to decide what books should be available to children wishing to independently explore issues, hiding their objections to anything they disagree with or are uncomfortable with behind a firewall of 'age appropriateness'." Or something like that."
Extrapolate this to the extents and you will realize that your personal participation in the recent "Code of Conduct" thread was about me, and me alone as THE censored individual IN THE ALA.
You guys want to solve problems? Start looking at yourselves, our own house is out of order. Critical thinking? Try again, whatever it is you are propagating is the problem. Dealing with this issue in a vacuum just gives the appearance that we are doing something. We are not.
Alec C. McFarlane
Original Message:
Sent: 10/21/2022 11:23:00 AM
From: Darryl Eschete
Subject: RE: Disturbing development in Missouri
The only thing that would jump out at me is: "school/government officials do not have the right to decide what books are age-appropriate for other people's children."
Which would then invite a line of questioning: If a school official (read: school librarian/curriculum specialist) doesn't have the right to decide what books are age appropriate in a school or school library, then who is making those decisions now-and why--and who should make them in the future? And don't school officials make a huge number of decisions about propriety for other people's children on any given day? And if government officials don't have the right to decide what books are age-appropriate in public libraries, then why do children's and teen/YA sections exist in those libraries?
This whole bit of nonsense is arguably a transparent attempt to equate "age-appropriate" with "desexualized" and/or "lacking any mention of LGBTQ+ or racism issues." I would suggest tweaking your statement slightly to say "school/government officials do not have the right to decide what books should be available to children wishing to independently explore issues, hiding their objections to anything they disagree with or are uncomfortable with behind a firewall of 'age appropriateness'." Or something like that.
Now, I think any argument made will always risk the "slippery slope" comeback: "Then what's to stop librarians/school officials from putting {INSERT GRAPHIC/EROTIC PHOTO ESSAY COFFEE TABLE BOOK HERE} in a school library or children's collection?" Somebody smarter than me will have to think through the rhetorical pre-emption to that. Because they DO ask that kind of thing.
Original Message:
Sent: 10/21/2022 10:32:00 AM
From: Michael Blackwell
Subject: RE: Disturbing development in Missouri
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Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft last week announced a new proposed rule he says will protect minors in the state's libraries. But librarians and freedom to read advocates fear the ...
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Ayana, this looks very good to me.
I might modify this sentence, which brings in the condemnation too early (before the subject has been discussed).
"I denounce the censorship and banning of books in school and public libraries."
Maybe say "I question the aims of a recent development in Missouri that will almost certainly lead to censorship and banning of books in school and public libraries."?
Then as the last sentence say "I denounce this attempt at the censorship and banning of books in school and public libraries."?
Good stuff--well said!
Michael
Original Message:
Sent: 10/20/2022 3:59:00 PM
From: Ayana Looney
Subject: RE: Disturbing development in Missouri
I see that on November 15, 2022, a 30-day comment period will open. I've drafted a comment/letter. How might I make it stronger? What edits might anyone suggest?
As a Librarian, it is my official duty to uphold First Amendment rights and personal freedom for all by supporting the Freedom to Read. I denounce the censorship and banning of books in school and public libraries.
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's proposed rule establishing a "library certification requirement … to protect minors from non-age-appropriate materials" directly violates Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District v. Pico (1982). According to Board of Education v. Pico, the First Amendment limits the power of government officials to restrict or remove access to books due to content (ACLU, Bill of Rights Institute, & The First Amendment Encyclopedia).
Parents have the right to determine what is age-appropriate for their own children. Individual parents and school/government officials do not have the right to decide what books are age-appropriate for other people's children. Until a child's First Amendment rights and personal freedom are obstructed or abridged by their own parent, a child has the right to make their own decisions about what they read. According to Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District (1969), students do not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate" (National Constitution Center, American Library Association).
Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's proposed rule will allow school/government officials to unjustly interfere with and impede the First Amendment and personal freedom rights for all. The proposed rule will not only deny children their fundamental, Constitutionally-protected access to reading materials but will also deny each parent the right to choose reading materials for their own children.
Librarians like myself provide access to materials vital to a well-rounded education and are crucial developmental tools for literacy, lifelong learning, and civic participation (Unite Against Book Bans, American Library Association). It is not the responsibility of librarians or school/government officials to impede, abridge, or interfere with the First Amendment rights of children or probit children from reading. It is the responsibility, and the right, of individual parents to police their own minor children in the library (Library Bill of Rights).
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Sincerely,
Ayana (eye-on-ah) Looney, MLIS
Technical Services Library Assistant, California State Library
Sacramento, CA 95814
(916) 603-7136
ayana.looney@library.ca.gov
Original Message:
Sent: Oct 19, 2022 02:43 PM
From: Michael Blackwell
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
There is apparently a month before public comment, if I'm reading right. John Chrastka from EveryLibrary will be preparing comment, working with MLA, and more widely, to gin up opposition. Deborah CS is aware and working on it with MLA We need to work out how to have voices be heard. Ashcroft in Missouri apparently is an old foe of the ALA. We don't have to play into their hands and be thought to be "pro obscenity." We will have to reframe the dialog. I bet most people in Missouri don't want to be the "Show me the book burning" state.
Michael
Original Message:
Sent: 10/19/2022 1:48:00 PM
From: Darryl Eschete
Subject: RE: Disturbing development in Missouri
Right. But from a legal point of view, given past Court decisions, these people don't seem to think they need to really define it. Roth v. US; Miller v. Ca, etc.
https://www.sos.mo.gov/cmsimages/adrules/csr/current/15csr/15c30-200.pdf
https://revisor.mo.gov/main/OneSection.aspx?section=573.010
"Contemporary community standards"
"Prurient interest"
"Average person"
And all that stuff. They're leaving it open to a local jury, board or commission to decide what's age appropriate/obscene. Very old fashioned. Your thought that something like "age appropriate" is too vague to be meaningful echoes what--Brennan? Marshall?--said in the Miller v. CA decision. We need us a First Amendment lawyer up in here.
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Darryl Eschete
Director
West Des Moines Public Library
Original Message:
Sent: Oct 19, 2022 11:04 AM
From: Alec McFarlane
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
What is age appropriate? Define it. That is the question.
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Original Message:
Sent: 10/19/2022 10:14:00 AM
From: Darryl Eschete
Subject: RE: Disturbing development in Missouri
"I have two observations to share, the first is that "age appropriate" is the essence of their claim and it is a value judgement. The value judgment of what is appropriate to a given "age" is a value judgement that presumes , for instance, that all children of "5 years of age" are the same. There is a good body of evidence to the contrary."
But the people who wrote this down in MO were smart enough to reference existing statute. Missouri already has language in their law that says adults can't give kids anything that..."... depicts or describes nudity, sexual conduct, the condition of human genitals when in a state of sexual stimulation or arousal, or sadomasochistic abuse in a way which is patently offensive to the average person applying contemporary adult community standards with respect to what is suitable for minors."
Most states have language similar somewhere in their state codes. I looked, and Iowa actually has similar language, BUT ALSO a specific exemption for public libraries. I don't see such an exemption anywhere in Missouri's state code, though I haven't had time to obsessively dig.
So this "rule" is really just a pretty obvious bit of politically theatrical exemplification. Any pushback tees somebody up to ask: "Well, if state law won't let a pervert on the street give a kid a book about {insert sexual moral panic du jour}, why do we allow librarians to do it? And why do librarians want to?"
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Darryl Eschete
Director
West Des Moines Public Library
Original Message:
Sent: Oct 18, 2022 10:12 PM
From: Alec McFarlane
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
Michael Blackwell
I have two observations to share, the first is that "age appropriate" is the essence of their claim and it is a value judgement. The value judgment of what is appropriate to a given "age" is a value judgement that presumes , for instance, that all children of "5 years of age" are the same. There is a good body of evidence to the contrary.
Second, this is a cultural thing of sorts whereas the CRPD or the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities was REJECTED by the US Senate on the exact same premise: the right of parental choice. This is in contrast to the CRPD itself which grants rights to the child itself and you can find this in Article 7.
https://www.un.org/disabilities/documents/convention/convention_accessible_pdf.pdf
While the exact CRPD language itself may refer to the matter of what is "age appropriate" without actual definitions, the contention is more about who decides what a child does; the child or the parent. There are practical instances where it is plain that a parent decides for a child and this is not the contest, the contest is about what happens at certain extremes commonly understood as disabilities: To what extent does a child participate in decisions related to their education? To what extent does a child decide what they will accept? How do we differentiate between the wants of the parents for the child and the wants of the child itself? This particular issues might take a different tangent than the one you have here but it informs the same problem.
The "Quad" that I use are found below and they all inform human, not age-based, rights. This Quad should be supplemented with another four sources that debunk the age-based mythology. It is not that there are not generalities but rather that there is no fixed basis by age. Ultimately we are looking for human rights and how we acquire the right to seek, to understand, and to choose. Bias is not some mythological beast but the result of the same upbringing and the "right" to indoctrinate said belief of upbringing.
1. United Nations - Lyon Declaration on Access to Information and Development c.2014
2. American Library Association - Library Bill of Rights c.1986
3. United Nations - CRPD - The Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities c.13 December 2006
4. United Nations - Universal Declaration of Human Rights c.10 December 1948
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Alec McFarlane
President
New Image Associates - Construction Consultants
Original Message:
Sent: Oct 18, 2022 10:52 AM
From: Michael Blackwell
Subject: Disturbing development in Missouri
Forwarding an email:
Attached you will find a proposed rule change and Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft's accompanying press release. It's a sad day in Missouri and one that I never thought I'd see as State Librarian. If you're a praying person, please keep my staff in your thoughts and prayers as this has been the most difficult 24 hours we've experienced, and it's only the beginning.
Robin
Robin Westphal, State Librarian
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Michael Blackwell
Director
St Mary's County Library
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