read more about my thoughts here: www.buymeacoffee.com/thememeingli...

As a librarian I’m a firm believer in reading whatever you want… HOWEVER I also know from experience that if you don’t carve out a space specifically for teens the adults will take over and you will not have any teens in the space. This is currently happening with YA books

It’s good to read the works of classic authors like Austen, Hemingway, Twain, Dickens, Joyce, Harper Lee, and Brontë but if you’re not also reading Morrison, Márquez, Hughes, Baldwin, Butler, Hurston, and Ellison you’re not really interested in reading the classics, just white authors.

Color in the books you’ve read

When it is impossible to do, because of lack of money/resources/etc, that is a separate conversation. But the reality is many times it is not impossible to boycott a very bad company, we just don’t want to do it.

The reality is all capitalism is evil, so every company has its issues. but one thing we can do to make our world a bit better is boycott certain particularly bad companies. This requires us to sometimes go without. This is genuinely very hard sometimes.

Say I call for people to boycott Starbucks b/c of their union busting practices.
I can hear the response now: “Other companies also Union bust so they’re not unique. Some people have so few joys in life except for a cup of coffee, & punishing poor people for getting a cup of coffee is wrong”

Many people genuinely mean well, and are trying their best. But using woke/sjw language to prove that you actually are fine to continue to do [thing] isn’t the best way to go about anything in my opinion

Many people use this technique to make it so that they don’t have to change their behavior, even if their behavior is harmful, because they found a “woke” way to justify it

The biggest problem with being online is that people sometimes don’t think deep enough, and sometimes they think way too fucking deep that they end up coming to the wrong conclusion

Yeah! It’s a lot!!

This is the guy who my governor decided to put on the state library board.

I've created a toolkit- list of sources I use regularly-that hopefully you use for furthering intellectual freedom

www.buymeacoffee.com/app/post/edi...

I have read 77 books so far this year. The things you can do when not in grad school :)

Arkansas, which has a very strong conservative population, approves of their libraries. Don't let the M4L/proud boys/tea party/etc groups tell you that people don't like libraries. We like them a whole lot more than we like the politicians!

In 2023, Arkansas governor signed into law Act 372 and the LEARNS Act, and both acts hurt librarians and teachers. In this same year, Sanders is facing the lowest approval rating for an Arkansas governor in the last 20 years while public libraries are now more popular than ever

gotta go on airplane mode so that doesn't happen lmao

This month has been pretty difficult for me (family drama mostly), and I feel like I am not doing anything correct (though that is (probably???) just anxiety)

Anyway, I would love to hear some of your favorite books you've read recently

Some people are better than others at relaying information, some people are great at summing up stuff, but if you rely on social media to form all your opinions you WILL not have all the context. Please read books and essays etc to get better informed

Me: don’t get all your opinions from social media.
Some person: wow, I followed you because you always said it was important to uplift marginalized voices, and because of western propaganda the only place they can be heard is social media. Disappointed

Social media isn’t research!

I am not an expert on this topic, and I am still learning and growing. I also know my followers don't follow me because of my opinions on this topic, but rather libraries. But the dehumanization of people, especially children, is something that we should all fight against.

In general, I do not trust people that only research using social media or youtube. I understand this is a complicated topic, and you may be wondering where to begin, but please don't begin and end at social media discourse.

Please please please stop getting your opinions about the Israel/Palestine crisis from social media. Read articles and books by people who actually know what they are talking about. Anyway, here is a breakdown I recently read:
jewishcurrents.org/the-hamas-at...

Hi all! Nice to see some blue skies, let's see how this goes