Veteran librarian regrets ‘every day’ moving to Michigan city, center of wars over book prohibition
A seasoned librarian in western Michigan saw her workplace become a lightning rod for a group of radical conservatives seeking to ban books they believe promote pornography or LGBTQ causes.
Jean Reicher, who became a librarian at Patmos Library in the Jamestown Township two and a half years ago, went viral in December 2022 after appearing at a library board meeting.
She said in her impassioned speech that signs calling her a “pedophile” have been posted around the city in recent months. Reicher added that she has been photographed by strangers and received threatening phone calls.
Reicher told the board, “I moved to this town 2½ years ago and have regretted it every day for the past year. This has been terrible.’
Jean Reicher, who became a librarian at Patmos Library in the Jamestown Township two and a half years ago, went viral in December 2022 after appearing at a library board meeting
The library historically relied on the millage, which is the number of dollars in tax levied for every $1,000 in property value. Donald Trump won 60 percent of the vote in Ottawa County, where Jamestown is located, in 2016 and 2020
Peter Bromberg, a board member of the library information center EveryLibrary, told the Los Angeles Times this week that librarians across the country are under intense pressure amid the furor over the book ban because “neighbors say they’re an arm of Satan” .
A 2021 national survey found that 27 percent of public libraries have let staff go because of budget cuts.
In November, a group known as the Jamestown Conservatives won a victory when the library lost 84 percent of its $245,000 annual budget after the millage renewal was defeated in a general election with 55 percent of voters voting against the proposal.
The library historically relied on the millage, which is the number of dollars in tax levied for every $1,000 in property value. Donald Trump won 60 percent of the vote in Ottawa County, where Jamestown is located, in 2016 and 2020.
Reicher said at the December meeting, “We have been threatened. We are cursed. How dare you people. You do not know me. You know nothing about me. You said I sexualized your children. I take care of your children.’
According to her LinkedIn page, Reicher previously worked at the Woodridge Public Library in Woodridge, Illinois.
She told the board, “I wasn’t brought up that way. I believe in God. I’m Catholic. I am a christian. I am everything you are.’
Reicher is far from alone.
Anti-censorship group PEN America says censors have been busy in Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, South Carolina, Wisconsin and Georgia
The banned books were often novels for young adults on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer themes or with queer protagonists
PEN America, a non-profit writing group, says books about LGBTQ and racial issues are most often targeted
Conservative attacks on schools and libraries have spread across the country over the past two years, and librarians themselves have been harassed and even driven from their jobs.
A high school librarian in Denham Springs, Louisiana, has filed a legal complaint against a Facebook page that labeled her a “criminal and pedophile.”
At the time of the Patmos library’s budget cut, Larry Walton, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said about 90 of the 67,000 materials in circulation “may be related to LGBTQ.”
While the Jamestown Conservatives claimed the library “groomed” children with books containing explicit material and LGBTQ themes.
A local teacher, Jay Milkamp, told WOOD-TV in November, “We are very angry that our community will not support the library. We are American. We recognize freedom of expression.
“There are 67,000 books in this library, I read. Ninety of them are objectionable. I don’t think that’s a reason to vote against the millage.’
America’s 5 Most Banned Titles:
Genderqueer: a memoir by Maia Kobabe was banned by 41 school districts. The illustrated text charts the author’s “journey of self-identity” and “what it means to be non-binary and asexual,” according to promotional materials.
All boys are not blue, a series of personal essays by George M. Johnson, was banned in 29 counties. The ‘memoir manifesto’ tells about the childhood, adolescence and college years of the black strange author
From the darkness by Ashley Hope Pérez is a novel about teenage love between a Mexican-American girl and a black boy in 1930s Texas. It was banned in 24 districts.
The bluest eye was banned in 22 districts. The first novel by celebrated author Toni Morrison tells the story of a black girl growing up in the 1940s and her sense of inferiority because of her skin color.
The hate you give was banned in 17 counties by Angie Thomas. It was inspired by the Black Lives Matter protest movement, is about police violence against minorities and was filmed in 2018.
After the funding cut, a GoFundMe page for the library raised $12,000, author Nora Roberts donated $50,000 and a private family donated $100,000, according to the Huffington Post.
The American Library Association documented 681 book challenges in the first eight months of 2022, involving 1,651 different titles.
Throughout 2021, the ALA listed 729 challenges, targeting 1,579 books. Because the ALA relies on library media accounts and reports, the actual number of challenges is likely much higher, the library association believes.
The number of banned books in the first nine months of 2022 exceeded the number of banned books in 2021, the highest number in decades.
Texas accounted for the most bans, with 801 in 22 counties, followed by Florida and Pennsylvania.
This week, a Florida school board made headlines when it became the latest to remove a book by Nobel laureate Toni Morrison from classrooms and libraries after a mother criticized it for “exposing children to pedophilia” and running “Marxist indoctrination camps.” ‘. ‘.
Michelle Stille criticized the Pinellas County school board for including Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye” in her child’s advanced literature course.
Stille, a teacher at a Christian school in the district, said she was “appalled that an adult would expose 15-year-olds” to the book’s “explicit descriptions of illegal activity.”
Jessica Brassington of Mama Bears Rising, a group that says it fights for more oversight of education, told the LA Times that they are not trying to harm librarians or close libraries.
She said, “We want to protect our children. We’ve seen the dark side of what can happen outside the book. Suicide. Alienation.’
Brassington added: ‘We want to know what books are available for our children. … The parents are passed over.’