I'm going to be honest. This was one of the best episodes, in my opinion, in a while.
From the fact that this isn't something I'd organically see on Twitter, to the FOIA request and commentary from people on the ground, this was a solid episode.
Really thought this was quite well done. Props to the team
Yes, it shows that Katie put in some time on this one. While it's absolutely a bullshit story that itself might only affect a couple of listeners, it was definitely worth doing. Most of us see some kind of variation on this bullshit although much less outlandish and clear cut.
Can there be some push back about describing a person as "diverse"? It's not possible for a person to be diverse, a person is always equal to themselves. I actually do think that this use of language has a very good claim to being white supremacy (along with saying people are "racilized"). It seems to me that a hypothetical small village in Africa where everyone is (at most) second cousins would be described as far more "diverse" than New York City, which is simply not what that word means!
Are you saying a room full of black people who all went to Ivy League schools and got high power jobs and have the same basic world view and fairly similar life experiences is not just the most beautifully diverse thing you’ve ever had the PRIVILEGE to set your eyes on?
I don’t see how it’s a euphemism. It’s just incorrect usage. Like saying something is “inflammable” when you mean “flammable”. It’s technically wrong and it annoys me but I’m not gonna correct anyone on it since we all know what the speaker is trying to say.
"Inflammable" is correct, it comes from the verb "to inflame". It is however confusing because of the other meaning of the "in-" prefix, so "flammable" and "non-flammable" can be used instead.
The people who assume a “diverse” candidate is unqualified and hired strictly because of their identity never assume the same of well-connected white males. Interesting, that.
Under affirmative action principles, employers are urged to take affirmative steps to seek out applicants who meet the stated qualifications for the position.
In contrast, the premise of “equity” hires is that requirements can be waived, generally because they’re believed to be barriers for members of historically marginalized racial or ethnic identity groups. Katie gave the example of waiving the requirement that a head librarian have a masters degree in the field. In other words, employers lower standards for diversity hires strictly because of their identity.
Just as some minority applicants are very well connected for certain jobs because they’ve come up in the small and insular world of social justice nonprofits, some white guys are very poorly connected because they’re not well socialized into mainstream hetero male culture.
This is akin to another deplorable phenomenon in journalism. I encountered it most memorably in the local paper's story about the new president of prominent institution in the city. Among other things, it noted that the incoming president was "LGBT." Really?
That's an even bigger pet peeve for me than "diverse". (Steelman: I think someone could come have diverse ancestry for example, and it would make sense to shorten it to the person being diverse.) But no individual even CAN BE LGB (Nevermind the TQIA+.)
I am blaming them. I'm also calling it like I see it. People who use the term "diverse" to mean "non white" are engaging in a practice where "white" is normal. I think that it's reasonable, although not required, to think of assuming that "white" is the default is engaging in "white supremacy". It's ironic that the people who are most vocally "anti-white supremacy", are, as far as I can see, engaged in "white supremacy".
Noticing that the default, John Doe employee is white is not at all the same thing as saying "white is normal." It rhymes but it's not the same thing, and it's obviously not normative! They claim to want, and behave as if they want, the exact opposite.
I’ve heard the term “racialized” in terms of traits. For example skin color is “racialized” because it’s a phenotypic feature some people settled on as a feature to use to draw racial dividing lines, regardless of its incomplete overlap with ancestry grouping.
For me, this is up there with describing an individual student as “multicultural.“ In most cases, we’re not talking about the product of multiple cultures or a biracial background. At my school, it usually just means Black.
I agree. It just like my family's running joke when the news says to look out, we are in for some weather. Everyday of my life, there is some sort of weather, whether it is desirable, annoying or destructive.
It’s shorthand for “a person who embodies a diversity goal.” It’s a bit kludgy — kind of like when “woman” is used as an adjective phrase (as in “this is a woman-led podcast”) — but it’s intelligible.
No one say “this is a man-led ice cream shop,” but I guess if they did, we’d know what they mean.
Exactly. I only hear people say it at work, in the context of hiring. "We have 3 candidates - 2 are diverse" means HR isn't going to make us repost because the whole pool was white (major nonprofit with a 6 page DEI statement). And, of course, you can only even say that in hushed tones to a trusted confidant lest even pointing out their diverseness falls on the wrong ears!
I admire any organization that extends opportunities to people who are usually excluded from opportunities. In the long run, everyone is better off when this is the norm.
America kinda understood this during Reconstruction but decided to go in the proverbial different direction after Lincoln got his head air conditioned.
Well, it's not Goodwill, we don't extend opportunities to people because they are historically disincluded. Anyone may apply for any job, at which point those with certain diversity markers will be weighed more heavily - unofficially. The problem with an unspoken directive to hire "diversity" is that "diversity" only means skin color in this context. Or, god willing, skin color + non-male identifying! But let's not ask for the world.
This is dependent on the workplace. I work in elementary ed and I’ve been told at several jobs that me being a man helped to turn the hiring needle in my direction. I get it, there are no men in this field, but I wasn’t crazy about being told that.
Feel free to show where I said opportunities should be extended just because someone is member of an excluded group — as is done at the… Goodwill.
If you read closely you’ll notice I said it’s good when an organization makes an erstwhile effort to extend opportunities to people who have been historically closed out of opportunities.
What about what I actually said do you find disagreeable?
I find ^this comment disagreeable because it's small and condescending. Your initial comment made an unrelated point to my first one, changing the subject so that you can mention how good you are because you, unlike other people, really like to see the disenfranchised get jobs. But that's just me, I find all irrelevant derailing self aggrandizing comments to be disagreeable.
Objectively, you're correct that an individual cannot be "diverse." It arose from references to groups (e.g., "diverse student body," "diverse staff," etc.) and then needing to address individual members of the group. Further, most other terms that might be used as a generic catchall ("minority," "non-white," etc.) has been deemed problematic to one degree or another because they "center whiteness" or such.
I agree, but the places where it is used (Canada, mainly) are places where I think there is more than average opposition to the idea that maybe we can aspire to a future that is not focused on identity differences based on race.
I haven't finished the episode yet, but I'm in library school at the moment, and if I have to get this godforsaken degree, than everyone else who wants anything to do with libraries has to as well. And this is coming from a "diverse" (brown) woman. I don't care if you're black, white, or green.
For his wallet’s sake, I pray he’s doing some soul searching. I was never sure why he was a paying subscriber when he seems to have so much contempt for the hosts, commentary, and subscriber base. He could spend that money to support a podcast or publication that he truly enjoys or put it towards an extra coffee every month. He doesn’t have to throw it away on something he doesn’t seem to like!
I thought of Zagarna when Katie said she was voting Trump. The last thing of there’s I read they said Katie’s ‘mask had slipped’ and they’d be coming out for Trump within the month.
In some ways I couldn’t care less of what they think of us but paying money to a podcast whose hosts you don’t respect in the slightest is truly weird behaviour.
I thought I spotted a comment on the last episode, so I think they may still be about.
I’m playing the odds, given that most men don’t do highlights. But Moose was born with them! He’s so gorgeous that Katie is literally trying to pimp him out for puppies on Twitter!
But yes, good looks and assholery can easily coexist. In all five sexes.
I agree it was fun to have someone be heterodox but it got to the point where you weren’t even having a debate with them. It was just taking your argument in the worst possible way and spitting it back at you. It was twitter energy.
It really was bad. Twisting anything I said into a completely different argument or just completely ignoring things. I’m ok with disagreement but it was definitely bad faith arguing. I never felt we had accomplished anything in our several encounters.
And that’s the episode threads. Back when he was posting on the weekly open thread, he would get personal with parents of trans identified kids, call them bigots etc. He’s been banned once for being an asshole. I figure it’s just a matter of time before he loses his temper and says something foul enough to get banned again.
He was pretty bad faith at times but so are a lot of the people on “the other side”. They just don’t get as much pushback. And just like Zarg (but from the right) the opinions being espoused and echo chambered are things like Jesse and Katie are ignorant / got it wrong / they might unsubscribe / only a moron could think X / etc.
Anyway, I find the double standard dispiriting / annoying. It’s a fact that the average poster around here is quite a bit to the right of K&J (with plenty about where they are and a few to the left) and sometimes I wonder why the heck the complainers still subscribe either? And then they complain about lefties like zag here doing the same? Look at a mirror guys.
I don’t really understand how anything here could be said in an echo chamber with such a variety of views.
I would say our complaints are with the hosts of the show not other members of the community. Zarg just had an issue with anyone who said anything. They were a contrarian. Which has its place and each person could choose whether to engage with them or not.
I think it is fine to express in a comments section issues you had with the program that you are paying for. This is a private discussion thread, not a public review site. I think people equally complain/compliment and it would be important feedback. The hosts can decide whether they take it or not. We can decide if we pay for the product or not.
I will say briefly that library social work is kind of a real thing because so many homeless people and other marginalized people spend time in libraries. It’s a way of getting to people who are vulnerable and might not be attached to another institution.
Especially since social workers and librarians have very different skill sets. A librarian is not going to have the skills to help a homeless people navigate the shelter/supportive housing system, but a social worker will.
This is not unlike teachers and professors now being tasked to do the work of therapists and social workers, without proper training, and certainly without any added compensation. A colleague and I have been commiserating about how lovely it would be if we could just focus on what we were taught to do: teach.
Huge numbers of students have a mental health diagnosis. They nearly all have a therapist, so it’s not like they’re trying to get me to completely take over that role, thank goodness. I’ve set up my procedures so that they can get one no-questions-asked extension per semester, in hopes of maintaining reasonable boundaries.
They still often want to unload about their problems. I’m a good listener, and I probably would’ve been a good therapist in a different life. And I don’t mind being a mentor, while also trying to maintain healthy boundaries. But the past few years, the scale of their problems has been overwhelming.
I thought it was bad in my world until I read a Guardian article about a week ago detailing extreme absenteeism at British universities, which seems to have risen as high as 70 to 80%. That’s the percentage of students absent, not in attendance!
Public libraries are used in many ways that are new, or new-ish: supervised parental visits, trade-off spaces for divorced parents, remote work, tutoring. That they are havens for homeless/marginalized people who have no where else to go isn't an argument for them to use library budgets to hire social workers. It's the municipality that should be funding social workers to visit or maintain an office in the building.
Should the library be a site for food distribution, a summer recreation program, remote-workers? Many are. I'm just not sure that the drive to be all things to all people, or the thing that needy people need the most, isn't a futile, un-ending endeavor.
I’m a librarian and at least in my area we do not get any extra money (or training) for supplying additional social support. It therefore depends on the individual librarian if they want to go above and beyond to help in this way. Tbh, it also depends on the person asking and how polite they are. A lot of people are rude and pretty anti social so a lot of my colleagues are unwilling to help them.
Also a librarian, and same. We've had some additional training (how to administer Narcan, for instance), but not much. We do try to point people in the direction of services, but unfortunately most of them don't want the help that's actually on offer. They want money for a hotel room and takeout from a restaurant, not a bed at the local shelter and food from the community pantry. While these are understandable things to want, they're not generally the aid available and we're certainly not empowered to give it to them. We frequently get abuse for not giving the kind of help desired, or giving the wrong kind of help (i.e., calling for an ambulance when someone has passed out in the washroom and isn't responding).
As I often say, if I'd wanted to be a social worker I'd have gotten an MSW instead of an MLIS. But alas.
I can relate somewhat, as hospital registration, people seem to assume that I'm, like, a building supervisor, so I get asked all kinds of things that I have no idea about. Patients are often upset when I can't offer them vouchers for a cab or a hotel room, or that we don't just have social workers sitting around waiting for people to walk in and ask for help.
Another necessary skill set is that of security guard. My university, Portland State University, took the position that the university library was a public space. For that reason it made no effort to keep out the homeless.
When I resumed using the library after a long absence, I was shocked to discover homeless people engaged in such non-academic activities as washing in the bathrooms, searching garbage cans for treasures and sacking out on the comfy lounge furniture.
One day I came to one of the library's quiet floors and settled down to work in one of the carrels. Two strapping young men who were obviously homeless were fast asleep on lounges, their duffel bags next to them. After a while they woke up and began speaking in normal conversational tones. As I always do when I am on a quiet floor, I waited to see whether they would leave or stop talking. When the didn't, I did what I always do in such situations: I walked over, told them they were on a quiet floor and suggested they move up or down a floor if they wished to chat. That elicited a response I had never encountered from a student. He gave me a dirty look and said "You can't tell ME what to do." FFS
It was foolhardy of me to have done that. The guy was probably armed. Armed or not, he had no business being there. University libraries are for enrolled students, faculty and other members of the university community and the public, provided they follow reasonable rules of conduct. They are not refuges for the homeless and other marginalized people who are not there to use the facility for its intended purpose any more than the university president's office is.
Since then, the current university president's lack of a backbone led to the takeover of the library by a few anti-Israeli student protesters and a larger number of the usual opportunistic hooligans of the kind who've given Portland the nickname "Little Beirut." By the time the police chased them out for the second and final time, they'd caused at least $750,000 in damages, not including the cost of repairing or replacing electronic equipment. The library closed during spring midterms and is not slated to reopen until the start of the fall term.
If this doesn't cause the school to restrict access to the library, what will?
Absolutely. I know at least one library in Minneapolis that employs a full time Social Worker. The delightful book. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, features how the LA public library (the branch featured in the book) has been tuned into more of a community center
Why should the Library be a community center? Who approves this kind of funding? Why is the government hiring social workers in and outside of the library? Sounds like at least one org is accomplishing its mission.
This “community” is already a lot of things, some good some bad, but can it please not become anti-library or anti-social worker? That plays right into the criticisms everyone already has of the heterodox left.
I'm not anti library...I may be anti social worker, as far as I have been able to tell they are mostly ineffective busy bodies. However, that's not the point I was making. I'm anti wasting money. And having Library social workers overseen by the Library (Which can't seem to even manage its own affairs let alone social workers) and Health and Human Services Social Workers seems like a waste and potentially hard to manage both.
I think the idea is that not everyone is going to want to go to a social work office or community center who might need those services. And some places don’t have a community center, but almost everyone knows that a library is a safe place in their community they can go during the day. If someone comes in who might need help having a social worker there to offer them services is useful and could actually save money vs also building a community center.
Of course this will only really happen in communities of a certain size. It’s not like every library needs an on-staff social worker.
I don’t care if social workers operate out of a library. Have your office at Home Depot. My point is, this seems like its own separate department and management structure.
Same! I felt like it was only a matter of time that the good ole village of OP would make Barpod. I just assumed it would be something related to the high school (they're doing a lot of the 'dismantling the honors track for equity' BS from what I hear). I sometimes think growing up there is what gave me contrarian tendencies haha.
Celebration of Palestinian culture would not be controversial if it could even be theoretically possible to celebrate that without talking about Israel. It's fascinating to me that the borders of "Palestine" always seems to EXACTLY follow the borders of contemporary Israel (they currently claim the Golan heights as well!).
Since there never was an independent nation called "Palestine," it's hard to say what Palestinian culture is. The Gazans are mainly Egyptians, and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria are Jordainian or Syrian. Pre 1948, many Arabs referred to "Palestine" as "Southern Syria" or "Trans Jordan". Ironically, it was the Jews who lived there during the British occupation who called it "Palestine." Who knows what Palestinean culture is? It's certainly not some ancient tradition.
And I'm sure the Syrians would have something to say about the so-called Palestinians occupying the Golan.
A people’s culture is the food they eat, the music they listen to, the way they speak to and relate to each other, the traditions they participate in. Which are constantly changing and taking influences from everywhere around.
The culture of Palestinians - the Muslim Arab population of that region - is going to have similarities to but not identical to other Arab populations from nearby regions and other populations of that region, including Jews and Christians. You might as well ask what is Jewish Israeli culture?
I don't disagree with you in the facts of what you're saying but there are a lotta leftists who make a very similar argument about Israel, claiming there's no such thing as Israeli cuisine etc.
And they'd have a good point. Israeli cuisine is a mixture of cuisine from all around the Jewish diaspora, influenced by Turkish and British rule in recent times, constrained by Kosher dietary laws.
Yes, but. You can't just take the same progressive U.S. liberal traditions (drum circles, pronouns, peace circles) and then do them and say you're celebrating Palestinian culture.
Also, there are cultural differences between the Palestinians in the West Bank, and the ones in Gaza--as well as the 20% of Israel that is Arab. In fact the only thing that unites them is their hatred of Jews. So I guess "Palestinian Culture" is antisemitism.
As someone who has actually spent maybe too much time in "Palestinian Culture", very much not a thing! Palestinians are not monoliths, but the one thing that they almost universally are not is progressive!
I've seen morris dancers a few times. The first was a Summer Solstice at Avebury and I was a bit worse for wear as I had been celebrating all night. It was a bit surreal but amusing.
I also used to work with a guy who was really into morris dancing.
Embroidery is fairly universal. Humans like the decorative arts and it doesn’t require significant capital. I suspect there are middle eastern embroidery traditions.
It’s interesting how an Arab conquest of the region resulted in a new indigenous culture. But what about the Roman conquest? Why aren’t Italians seen as the indigenous peoples of that former Roman province? These protesters are not going far enough.
Palestinians aren't very Arab generically. They have as much ancestry in Palestine 2000 years ago as Ashkenazi do. All the Jews weren't expelled from Palestine by the Romans. This is a myth. The Palestinians are largely descended from the people who were there in the first century with about 30% Egyptian. Ashkenazi about 30% European genetically. Palestinians and Mizrahi more closely related to each other than either to Ashkenazi. My question is if the Maccabees are Jewish heroes rather than terrorists, why is it weird for Palestinians to be pissed at what Zionism had in store for them and which came to pass precisely as they feared?
My brother in Christ I was talking about conquests, not people becoming genetically Italian or Arab. But hey you know, sure, let’s get out the calipers and do some skull measurements. Could be fun.
But you were implying there was no “Palestinian culture” prior to the Arab conquest. This person is pointing out the people of Palestine were already there and simply took on some of the culture of their conquerors. It’s surely the case that the people of Israel (whose decendents now include Jewish and Muslim and Christians) previously had taken on aspects of Roman cultural during that conquest as well… it’s not about “race” it’s about having as deep cultural roots in that region as Jews do. Denying that doesn’t help anyone.
I guess I was confused by all the genetic measurements in the reply and missed that it wasn’t about race. What I meant to imply was there was no Arab Muslim culture there originally.
The genetics just help to demonstrate scientifically that people have ancestors from the region which correlates well with the idea they’ve some historical claim to the land and aren’t just interlopers, as do the Jews and Christians.
To your larger point I mean, sure? There was no “Muslim Arab” culture before the founding of Islam because that’s impossible… and that occurred hundreds of years after the founding of Christianity which occurred after the Roman conquest of Israel/palestine etc but I’m not sure what the purpose of such an argument is. Many of The people of Israel/Palestine today regardless of their current religion can trace their cultural roots to this region.
Okay… then what should recent immigrants and refugees from Palestine do, exactly? Hide in a hole somewhere? stop eating foods they enjoy and sharing that with each other and the community? Gonna tell the cancelled hummus guy from Minneapolis he should have opened a McDonald’s franchise instead?
I don’t think it’s people from Palestines celebrating their own music/food/heritage that are to blame if people are trying to make everything about the war / politics.
It ain’t just Biblical but it’s historical. Some things are historical fact unfortunately. As much as narratives are compelling and seem to make sense, sometimes those pesky realities get in the way.
Oh well. I don’t know what you think should have happened to the Jews who had fled there from literal genocide or those who had been there for over 4000 years but I’m sure it isn’t as easy an answer as it was for the Arabs in the area who were able to literally have their choice of …. Every other country in the entire region… to move to. Of which there was one that had an eerily identical culture to them… called Transjordan.
Can’t the two of you see that both peoples have a deep claim on this land and thus obviously both need somewhere to live and we can’t expect the other just to pack up and go because the other side thinks their claim is x years longer?
Sure. If I lived in utopia that would be the result. Unfortunately those two groups have developed a complicated relationship over centuries of forced conversions, conquest, expulsion and persecution. So to assume that there is any way that both groups can occupy such a tiny strip of land in peace is naive.
If there was a way of achieving that perfect ideal solution, we would have gotten there already. Instead, we’re further from it than ever because people let the perfect be the enemy of the good. People would rather strive for solutions that will never happen than face reality and force the shitty compromise.
Yep. All of this. Many people find it difficult to be morally and philosophically consistent. They oppose identitarianism — except when it benefits a group they identify with.
Yeah… sometimes this stuff sounds a lot like “Judaism is an older religion than Islam and therefore Jews can do whatever they want in Israel because they are Gods chosen people of the region”. Not great!!
My biggest question here is why libraries need diversity coordinators at all?
I could see a large public library needing someone to, say, curate the Spanish-language section or do outreach to a range of underserved community groups, but I don't know how anything not involving books, periodicals, computers, or literally coordinating who meets in what room could be a full time job.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars of library money was spent on these people?
This is why the library thing makes me so angry. It's such a purely good institution in society, and it's always underfunded. I actually could not care less if Harvard hires DEI buffoons. I only think it's nice that they stopped because it's an indication that things are headed in the right direction. But a library? They cannot fucking afford to be playing these stupid identity games. Literally. They have far more important things to spend money on that they already can't afford. These people and their corruption get *everywhere*, even one of the most purely good institutions in a human society going back millennia.
You're not missing anything. It's a toxic stew with a multitude of ingredients: white guilt, grifting, virtue-signaling, the influence of diversity "consultants"; whatever DEI claptrap is being taught in master's programs, mission creep and a lack of oversight from government entities that provide funding.
If I was a taxpayer in that city, county, town, I'd be infuriated (operating from the assumption that funding comes not only from the locality, but also county and state, to some extent). Now if a library want to raise private funds to endow DEI bureaucracies, then have at it.
You're not missing anything. It's pure window-dressing. Librarians are responsible for making sure the collections and the programming on offer serve the community, which often necessitates knowledge of a lot of different groups of people locally. So you might want to look for a person who has certain types of cultural knowledge or language skills when you're hiring, because they'll be able to better serve certain populations. But I don't know how the hell a "diversity coordinator" is going to help with that.
I'm looking at their website and they say that 8.7 million dollars, or 69% of the budget, is spent on staff. It looks like they have about 70 people on staff. That averages out to 125K per person.
Two diversity coordinators, even at under 100K per annum, is going to be some dollars.
NPR podcast Louder Than A Riot is a hilarious example of organizations casting about for something anything identity related.
Podcast about queer black rap? That’s fucking catnip to NPR. And of course it was a failure, who was the audience? Jessie and Katie mentioned it struggled to even get five figure downloads. But when it was canceled, the New York Times article reported there were internal protests, saying it was racist not to continue funding it.
I've always been confused as to why these outlets pick the most niche communities imaginable to cater to and are then surprised when they fail. "Know your market" is essentially the very first lesson taught in any Business 101 community college class.
Listen to the second episode of Andy mills new project “reflector”. It’s on the Young thug trial and some of the guest features talking about him will have you rolling your eyes
It seemed really far fetched to me to draw a straight line between Tipper Gore - who was worried about lyrics theoretically influencing people - and young thug - who is accused of organizing actual crimes that he brags he organized. I don’t see the comparison at all: the latter is not a moral panic about lyrics. It’s the crimes people are worried about.
Yeah I just don't see the free speech argument at all. Obviously if someone is talking about crimes generally, and gets caught up in some specific offense that isn't relevant.
But if I am writing long historical fiction novels where women are frequently tortured on a rack and then hung, and then my girlfriend is tortured on a rack and then hung hung and people think I did it...well it seems like you should be able to bring that up at trial.
It doesn't have anything to do with "blackness" or "rap music" and is instead just about common sense and reasonable evidence.
Yeah. There was a prof who was accused of being inappropriate with female students. When they found his erotic fiction about his students it was used as evidence.
They spend some time getting into the similarities in the two culture wars, but based on the second half of the first episode in the series I think they’re going to start in on distinguishing them next.
I've always been confused as to why these outlets pick the most niche communities imaginable to cater to and are then surprised when they fail. "Know your market" is essentially the very first lesson taught in any Business 101 community college class.
It is too bad there aren't transcripts for the BAR pod, because if there were it would be possible to cite exactly how many times the word "community" came up in this episode.
Basically, the Oak Park Public Library's ultra-progressive troublemakers never spoke for themselves. Their grievances weren't their own; they were the community's. Members of the public didn't use the library. The community did. Library users didn't demand that the library board and staff embrace DEI with revolutionary zeal. It was the community who demanded it.
The problem is that "community" as it is used by progressives is a political fiction. Self-appointed activists invoke "the community" to give themselves the appearance of democratic legitimacy. That's one of the ways activists become the unelected representatives of entire demographics when only a fraction of the so-called "community" share the activists' politics and values. It's how a handful of aggressive and persistent activists are able to hijack a public library's board, budget, staff and facility and hold them hostage.
“Community“ also is a way of implying homogeneity of belief and unity of interests, neither of which is likely to be true of any complex group. I’ve become alert to how this often papers over real differences and even disputes. Tensions with the LGBTQ alphabet - between, for instance, lesbians who want a same-sex dating pool and trans women who think they belong in that pool - are seemingly erased by invoking the word community. Similarly, the most radical BLM activists claim to speak for the whole black community, when often they do not.
Years ago, a friend of mine went to a community board meeting. When I asked him how it went, his answer was “well, now I know what community means: ‘what’s in this for me?’”
(As a side note, my private thought was “well, you went to find out the same thing.”)
It's Kafka-esque. Joslyn wasn't one of us. She wasn't at all problematic. She was a true believer in the woke ideology, who did everything she'd been told she was supposed to. If the ideology was what it pretended to be, she should have done extremely well.
But it turns out the ideology rewards schemers and whisperers over competence and sincerity.
Almost any system can be gamed by the scammers and whispers. But I think starry-eyed progressivism is especially vulnerable because the belief in its inherent goodness (besides being insufferable!) will always produce a built-in blind spot. And I say this as someone whose politics still skews pretty progressive, apart from trans ideology.
I mean, we don’t know what she believed deep. As for “One of us” that’s kind of creepy rhetoric. One of who? The people in this comment section are mostly just normie liberals. On matters of actual public policy there probably isn’t much we actually disagree with her about.
I was laughing so hard at the idea of a drum circle being a central event at a Palestinian cultural festival. I’ve never seen a drum circle that’s less than 90% of the whitest people you’ve ever seen, most of whom are desperately trying to cover up the fact that they have a trust fund waiting for them when they decide to stop cosplaying as working class.
I wondered out loud several times while listening if there was anyone involved in this event who was actually Palestinian or from that region. Based on the names of the people involved, I’m guessing that they are a minority if they exist at all. It’s funny that the people who claim to care so much about Palestinian rights are the one most eager to use Palestinians as a way to take out their petty grievances on others. Definitely smacks of sincerity!
Yeah my mother-in-law and her sister love to play extremely progressive hippies in the Midwest woods, but sometimes it just comes off as a big attempt to distance themselves from the fact they were the daughters of a very rich lawyer from Boston.
I always love when they do performative stuff like drive 200 miles to a climate protest or work for decades to stop development around a lake only to eventually build a new house on it.
It sounds like the actual community event has been going on for many years. That doesn’t sound like the sort of stunt pulled typically off by cringy white people but actually by a community. They’d get bored too quickly and move on to the next shiny thing.
Plus the neighborhood is ethnically diverse and it’s not as if Palestinian immigrants don’t exist - to the contrary it has experienced massive brain drain because who in their right mind wants to stay under the rule of Hamas in Gaza or in the West Bank with its own problems from both Israel settlers and Islamic terrorists?
What a bizarre coincidence I just a had a family member quit a library that was going through a similarly petty political struggle. There were endless petition and emails, but to the outside observer no real harm being done.
Our family member would confide in me and other close family, who have every incentive to take their side but in the end we would just say, yah know this stuff seems pretty superficial.
That's to say maybe there is something to say about the environment of libraries.
It's a common title for the person who's in charge of public library system with multiple branches. Heads of individual branches are usually called Head Librarian or Library Manager, while the CEO runs the whole thing.
My library is so sane thank god. The admin are great. They’re tough on censorship. Great with young people and the homeless. Run a tight ship. I love them.
Do libraries even provide any essential services to the community anymore? I think the lack of inspiration and ingenuity required in their work would lead to this kind of petty social behavior.
Yes! Still the only place a lot of poor people can access the Internet, printing, etc., for free. In my town they help seniors do their taxes, host monthly tech help sessions where teenagers help older folks with their devices, lend out home improvement tools and cooking supplies and park passes and museum admissions for kids as well as books. My local system supports a lot of small, very rural branches - they’ve been a godsend because I do legal work in some rural places and there’s often nowhere else my low-income clients can access computers. Or nowhere else I can access a computer when I drove three hours out into nowheresville for a prison visit.
My local library also has the identity-flavor-of-the-month displays, of course, but that’s one small part of the overall offerings. I see a lot of ingenuity in their work outside of that.
I understand libraries offer a lot of community services but that just seems like a different thing than a library. I don’t know what a Master in Library Sciences teaches you but it seems like it would be better to have a degree in social work. Maybe we should just call them community centers. I know mine rents out TV’s and Rokus and lets you use Libby and Kanopy for free. I just feel like traditional library services would be such a small fraction of what a library is anymore.
I take your point, but I think all of this, especially the public administration side of it, speaks to a library job now requiring more knowledge and skill, not less. Somebody has to run even those small branches and figure out how to ensure limited resources feel consistently available to an entire community, and secure continued funding to do that. I also don’t know a ton about what a library science degree requires, and it’s possible that some library jobs shouldn’t require so many credentials, but I don’t think that the function of libraries has exclusively been “acquire book, circulate book, sort book, charge fine” for quite a long time, if it ever was.
My understanding is that an MLS degree is more of information science. How to organize and catalog data. I’ve met a few people whom worked as a librarian for a big corporation. University librarians help people navigate the myriad separate data bases that digitized material is stored in. Much more complicated than a google search.
In public libraries there adult services and youth services in public libraries. Anyone who can’t afford summer camp for kids can rely on programming at the library, after school programs, computer literacy for immigrants, etc..
I appreciate all the information. I was genuinely curious. From the outside, the proportion of space occupied by unused books and DVD’s to other services provided in the libraries that I have been to appears to give the impression that it is still a large part of what they do. So I was just wondering if would just be better for the community if we just gut the libraries of books etc and just designate them as community centers and hire social workers and educators. Would that be better for the community?
It's a question worth asking (and I hope I didn't come off dismissive!). I think the books and curation element are still really important to a lot of people, though. It probably varies by place, but for example, our library system opened up a limited-service branch in an unused storefront in the local mall, geared toward lending over social services, and that's apparently been a massive success. People on that side of town were really wanting a place to go pick up physical books.
It's a bummer that libraries have ended up shouldering such a huge community role relative to their original purpose - I think simply because they're some of the only truly public spaces we really have left, a place you can be without having to buy anything.
Thinking about it, my argument in favor of keeping the books would be twofold: First, because it prevents the library from becoming *only* a place for poor people, homeless people, elderly people, etc. The books are equally for everybody and having books keeps it a true community space, across incomes and ages. Second, the books are deeply tied into the community offerings - author talks, book clubs, kids' storytime, etc. A lot of parents, especially, bring their kids to the library just to hang out. In addition to high-circulation stuff like the latest bestsellers, you can get basically anything through Interlibrary Loan, which has been very helpful to me professionally. And our local libraries curate not just books but local history - we have a massive collection of non-book stuff like music by local artists, and zines. Basically, I don't think books are incidental to the library's mission.
I think you’re interpreting this as a bad thing when it isn’t. Institutions evolve over the years to provide the services the community needs. At least they should do that. I think a public library in 2024 that only housed books but provided no actual services isn’t fulfilling it role.
Well, I think it might almost be that in smaller libraries in tiny towns. Although I suppose, even at the tiny library in my tiny town they have occasional events and things like movies and audiobooks.
The important thing I agree is a library provides services that its community needs, including somewhere free and safe to just quietly exist during the day.
I lovvvve my tiny little local branch library! I consider access to books/music/videos/periodicals/computers to be "essential". Also they give us $10/month of free copies - very useful for building my recipe collection that I curate from the cookbooks I check out there. They also give away seeds, and you can check out passes to museums and stuff. And it's a meeting place for a semi-rural community.
There’s a public library next to the school where I teach and dozens of students walk there every day after school. They have literacy programming, snacks, and offer help with homework. If they didn’t do it either we’d have to provide these services (we already do a lot and are stretched thin) or the kids wouldn’t have anywhere to go. This is a poor rural community, so way different than the library in the episode (though, it is only a three hour drive lol), and I think a lot of small communities like ours are very well served by the library.
I'm going to be honest. This was one of the best episodes, in my opinion, in a while.
From the fact that this isn't something I'd organically see on Twitter, to the FOIA request and commentary from people on the ground, this was a solid episode.
Really thought this was quite well done. Props to the team
Yes, great work by Katie. My only complaint is that I miss Trace's episode notes. That very good boy was thorough!
Yes, it shows that Katie put in some time on this one. While it's absolutely a bullshit story that itself might only affect a couple of listeners, it was definitely worth doing. Most of us see some kind of variation on this bullshit although much less outlandish and clear cut.
This is real journalism; I love it.
Yeah, it was good. Also, Joslyn Bowling Dixon might not need people to take her side, but it's still nice that people do.
Strong people rarely receive support because they are perceived not to need it. For this reason it is strange and appreciated when it is given.
It’s the best of barpod, some bullshit but with surprising, thoughful, and funny analysis.
Plus media criticism!
Came here to basically leave this comment so thanks for doing the work
Yes. This is Barpod at their very best
Totally agree. This is a good example of the show.
Agree!
Can there be some push back about describing a person as "diverse"? It's not possible for a person to be diverse, a person is always equal to themselves. I actually do think that this use of language has a very good claim to being white supremacy (along with saying people are "racilized"). It seems to me that a hypothetical small village in Africa where everyone is (at most) second cousins would be described as far more "diverse" than New York City, which is simply not what that word means!
Are you saying a room full of black people who all went to Ivy League schools and got high power jobs and have the same basic world view and fairly similar life experiences is not just the most beautifully diverse thing you’ve ever had the PRIVILEGE to set your eyes on?
Racist.
This is one of my bugaboos as a journalist but I am fighting a lonely war. A single person cannot be diverse. Only a group can be.
It's a euphemism. It's preferable to "token" and "affirmative action wonder."
I don’t see how it’s a euphemism. It’s just incorrect usage. Like saying something is “inflammable” when you mean “flammable”. It’s technically wrong and it annoys me but I’m not gonna correct anyone on it since we all know what the speaker is trying to say.
"Inflammable" is correct, it comes from the verb "to inflame". It is however confusing because of the other meaning of the "in-" prefix, so "flammable" and "non-flammable" can be used instead.
THANK YOU
The people who assume a “diverse” candidate is unqualified and hired strictly because of their identity never assume the same of well-connected white males. Interesting, that.
Under affirmative action principles, employers are urged to take affirmative steps to seek out applicants who meet the stated qualifications for the position.
In contrast, the premise of “equity” hires is that requirements can be waived, generally because they’re believed to be barriers for members of historically marginalized racial or ethnic identity groups. Katie gave the example of waiving the requirement that a head librarian have a masters degree in the field. In other words, employers lower standards for diversity hires strictly because of their identity.
Just as some minority applicants are very well connected for certain jobs because they’ve come up in the small and insular world of social justice nonprofits, some white guys are very poorly connected because they’re not well socialized into mainstream hetero male culture.
As a journalist, maybe just go the opposite way. Instead of "diverse" say "different".
Still, different than what?
Than the normal people clearly.
A synonym for "deviant," perhaps?
lol funny and true
It's like when places at the NYT say they're increasing diversity and they just hire a bunch of people from Harvard.
“Our goal is to have at least 30% of the company to be Ivy League graduates who aren’t white or Asian”
This but unironically! It’s exactly what they want.
It just means not-white. Wakanda was portrayed as incredibly diverse… with their ethnically homogenous monarchy and entirely black government.
Baseball and hockey have programs designed to increase diversity. Basketball and football do not.
The NBA has worked really hard at diversifying internationally, and has invested heavily in Africa, China, and I think India.
Hey buddy, I think your bigotry is falling out. Better stuff that back in there and get on…
I’ll start doing the work
Have a peace circle!
I kept hearing that as Pee Circle
This is akin to another deplorable phenomenon in journalism. I encountered it most memorably in the local paper's story about the new president of prominent institution in the city. Among other things, it noted that the incoming president was "LGBT." Really?
That's an even bigger pet peeve for me than "diverse". (Steelman: I think someone could come have diverse ancestry for example, and it would make sense to shorten it to the person being diverse.) But no individual even CAN BE LGB (Nevermind the TQIA+.)
A multitalented president it sounds like.
I was with you until you described it as White Supremacy. Blame the people who have embraced the term and all the opportunities that came with it.
I am blaming them. I'm also calling it like I see it. People who use the term "diverse" to mean "non white" are engaging in a practice where "white" is normal. I think that it's reasonable, although not required, to think of assuming that "white" is the default is engaging in "white supremacy". It's ironic that the people who are most vocally "anti-white supremacy", are, as far as I can see, engaged in "white supremacy".
Noticing that the default, John Doe employee is white is not at all the same thing as saying "white is normal." It rhymes but it's not the same thing, and it's obviously not normative! They claim to want, and behave as if they want, the exact opposite.
I’ve heard the term “racialized” in terms of traits. For example skin color is “racialized” because it’s a phenotypic feature some people settled on as a feature to use to draw racial dividing lines, regardless of its incomplete overlap with ancestry grouping.
For me, this is up there with describing an individual student as “multicultural.“ In most cases, we’re not talking about the product of multiple cultures or a biracial background. At my school, it usually just means Black.
I agree. It just like my family's running joke when the news says to look out, we are in for some weather. Everyday of my life, there is some sort of weather, whether it is desirable, annoying or destructive.
It’s shorthand for “a person who embodies a diversity goal.” It’s a bit kludgy — kind of like when “woman” is used as an adjective phrase (as in “this is a woman-led podcast”) — but it’s intelligible.
No one say “this is a man-led ice cream shop,” but I guess if they did, we’d know what they mean.
Exactly. I only hear people say it at work, in the context of hiring. "We have 3 candidates - 2 are diverse" means HR isn't going to make us repost because the whole pool was white (major nonprofit with a 6 page DEI statement). And, of course, you can only even say that in hushed tones to a trusted confidant lest even pointing out their diverseness falls on the wrong ears!
I admire any organization that extends opportunities to people who are usually excluded from opportunities. In the long run, everyone is better off when this is the norm.
America kinda understood this during Reconstruction but decided to go in the proverbial different direction after Lincoln got his head air conditioned.
Well, it's not Goodwill, we don't extend opportunities to people because they are historically disincluded. Anyone may apply for any job, at which point those with certain diversity markers will be weighed more heavily - unofficially. The problem with an unspoken directive to hire "diversity" is that "diversity" only means skin color in this context. Or, god willing, skin color + non-male identifying! But let's not ask for the world.
This is dependent on the workplace. I work in elementary ed and I’ve been told at several jobs that me being a man helped to turn the hiring needle in my direction. I get it, there are no men in this field, but I wasn’t crazy about being told that.
I'm surprised that not one but multiple places told you that. Pretty unprofesh to point out which demographic marker worked to your favor.
Feel free to show where I said opportunities should be extended just because someone is member of an excluded group — as is done at the… Goodwill.
If you read closely you’ll notice I said it’s good when an organization makes an erstwhile effort to extend opportunities to people who have been historically closed out of opportunities.
What about what I actually said do you find disagreeable?
I find ^this comment disagreeable because it's small and condescending. Your initial comment made an unrelated point to my first one, changing the subject so that you can mention how good you are because you, unlike other people, really like to see the disenfranchised get jobs. But that's just me, I find all irrelevant derailing self aggrandizing comments to be disagreeable.
Objectively, you're correct that an individual cannot be "diverse." It arose from references to groups (e.g., "diverse student body," "diverse staff," etc.) and then needing to address individual members of the group. Further, most other terms that might be used as a generic catchall ("minority," "non-white," etc.) has been deemed problematic to one degree or another because they "center whiteness" or such.
I want to see this applied consistently -- "white supremacy" centers whiteness, henceforth "non-diverse supremacy"
Um, language evolves, sweaty 💅🏻
It's really hard to tell if you're serious or a parody.
Dude, even I don’t know anymore
If there's "racialised," then there should also be "genderised."
Because if a genetic characteristic of one kind can be impugned or taken advantage of, then an even more significant genetic characteristic can too.
ok, sexised then. idc about "gender," it seems to be a completely meaningless term.
I agree, but the places where it is used (Canada, mainly) are places where I think there is more than average opposition to the idea that maybe we can aspire to a future that is not focused on identity differences based on race.
"Minoritized" is another version of this. I think both (racialized and minoritized) are used more in Canada; at least that's where I've heard them.
It sounds like the awful sort of latinization that Orwell would abhor. So probably the fault of the Quebecois?
I haven't finished the episode yet, but I'm in library school at the moment, and if I have to get this godforsaken degree, than everyone else who wants anything to do with libraries has to as well. And this is coming from a "diverse" (brown) woman. I don't care if you're black, white, or green.
I hire non MLS librarians. They're often my better ones ...
What sort of library is it? My understanding is that librarians must have an MLIS degree?
Public libraries. Many libraries require this, but it's a defacto union card. The trend is moving away from it, imo.
If you don’t know who the one asshole in a community is, it’s you.
Is zagarna even here anymore?
Lol omg I thought about Zagarna immediately.
I mean I’m kind of a prick too so we got into it a fair bit, especially on the Israel Palestine thing, but I always saw them starting stupid shit.
Damn. I be knowing peoples names and shit. It’s like I’m… part of something. A CoMmUnItY…
Feels gay.
Feeling gay? During pride month. Ok wokie
There's also Skull, who seems to be at the very least white supremacist-adjacent.
There's a difference between being an asshole and being wrong. I may be an asshole, but I'm not a racist.
I did start praying for zagarna so if he left or reformed I take credit on behalf of the almighty.
For his wallet’s sake, I pray he’s doing some soul searching. I was never sure why he was a paying subscriber when he seems to have so much contempt for the hosts, commentary, and subscriber base. He could spend that money to support a podcast or publication that he truly enjoys or put it towards an extra coffee every month. He doesn’t have to throw it away on something he doesn’t seem to like!
I can’t imagine what it’s like to wake up with that level of anger and feeling like everyone else in the world is a villain.
In his name.
I thought of Zagarna when Katie said she was voting Trump. The last thing of there’s I read they said Katie’s ‘mask had slipped’ and they’d be coming out for Trump within the month.
In some ways I couldn’t care less of what they think of us but paying money to a podcast whose hosts you don’t respect in the slightest is truly weird behaviour.
I thought I spotted a comment on the last episode, so I think they may still be about.
Yes he’s still here, insinuating racism on the part of people who engage with his arguments.
Of course….
It’s not the opinions I object to, it’s the consistent bad faith arguments.
I don’t know why but I’d always assumed they were a ‘she’.
Katie said she's voting Trump? I must have missed that. Was she being serious? Did she say why?
I would be shocked if Katie even voted anymore.
No, just a flippant comment which I think it’s safe to say was 100% a joke.
He could withdraw five bucks every month and burn it instead and by doing that make the world a better place. I would certainly be happier.
🙏
Maybe Zagarna is actually Katie's anon account, just here to stir up trouble.
Is he “Jessica the 80s baby”?
Ridiculous. Zagarna is very clearly Moose.
Air humping? Peeing on the trees? Yeah. Checks out.
Except that Moose has these beautiful blonde highlights. I’m betting our resident asshole does not.
I have met my fair share of extremely good looking assholes. Mostly women but there were a couple of guys in college too.
I’m playing the odds, given that most men don’t do highlights. But Moose was born with them! He’s so gorgeous that Katie is literally trying to pimp him out for puppies on Twitter!
But yes, good looks and assholery can easily coexist. In all five sexes.
Mmh nah, not problematic enough
He was picking/continuing a half-dozen fights in last episode's thread as recently as yesterday, so if he's gone he did so in the last 12 hours.
He’s gonna be rock hard when he comes back and sees how many people are talking about him. 🤣
Maybe I’ve just stopped engaging so my notifications aren’t FULL of replies by him anymore
There’s more than one here. I count 2.5. (I should add that this is subjective but, still, one could make a solid case.
Names bruh.
Spill the tea.
For public shameing purposes.
I volunteer
Haha! I knew it wasn’t just me. He’s gotten pissy with me a couple times. Mostly over Covid talk. He’ll be missed!
I liked Zagarna! We need someone to disagree with us so we don't end up as a boring echo chamber.
That said, I don't understand why anyone would want to, so if they decided to drop out, I wouldn't blame them.
I agree it was fun to have someone be heterodox but it got to the point where you weren’t even having a debate with them. It was just taking your argument in the worst possible way and spitting it back at you. It was twitter energy.
It really was bad. Twisting anything I said into a completely different argument or just completely ignoring things. I’m ok with disagreement but it was definitely bad faith arguing. I never felt we had accomplished anything in our several encounters.
And that’s the episode threads. Back when he was posting on the weekly open thread, he would get personal with parents of trans identified kids, call them bigots etc. He’s been banned once for being an asshole. I figure it’s just a matter of time before he loses his temper and says something foul enough to get banned again.
He was pretty bad faith at times but so are a lot of the people on “the other side”. They just don’t get as much pushback. And just like Zarg (but from the right) the opinions being espoused and echo chambered are things like Jesse and Katie are ignorant / got it wrong / they might unsubscribe / only a moron could think X / etc.
Anyway, I find the double standard dispiriting / annoying. It’s a fact that the average poster around here is quite a bit to the right of K&J (with plenty about where they are and a few to the left) and sometimes I wonder why the heck the complainers still subscribe either? And then they complain about lefties like zag here doing the same? Look at a mirror guys.
I don’t really understand how anything here could be said in an echo chamber with such a variety of views.
I would say our complaints are with the hosts of the show not other members of the community. Zarg just had an issue with anyone who said anything. They were a contrarian. Which has its place and each person could choose whether to engage with them or not.
I think it is fine to express in a comments section issues you had with the program that you are paying for. This is a private discussion thread, not a public review site. I think people equally complain/compliment and it would be important feedback. The hosts can decide whether they take it or not. We can decide if we pay for the product or not.
I’m glad you’re here, Jojo.
I think I recognize that name. What would be a good episode to go back and read the comments by him?
There was one thread where I basically played the role of Hillary Cass and asked for some evidence on transgender medicine. A meltdown ensued.
Not sure how to find old threads on Substack though.
Yes
I will say briefly that library social work is kind of a real thing because so many homeless people and other marginalized people spend time in libraries. It’s a way of getting to people who are vulnerable and might not be attached to another institution.
Especially since social workers and librarians have very different skill sets. A librarian is not going to have the skills to help a homeless people navigate the shelter/supportive housing system, but a social worker will.
This is not unlike teachers and professors now being tasked to do the work of therapists and social workers, without proper training, and certainly without any added compensation. A colleague and I have been commiserating about how lovely it would be if we could just focus on what we were taught to do: teach.
In what context are you coerced into being a therapist? Any examples? Just curious.
Huge numbers of students have a mental health diagnosis. They nearly all have a therapist, so it’s not like they’re trying to get me to completely take over that role, thank goodness. I’ve set up my procedures so that they can get one no-questions-asked extension per semester, in hopes of maintaining reasonable boundaries.
They still often want to unload about their problems. I’m a good listener, and I probably would’ve been a good therapist in a different life. And I don’t mind being a mentor, while also trying to maintain healthy boundaries. But the past few years, the scale of their problems has been overwhelming.
I thought it was bad in my world until I read a Guardian article about a week ago detailing extreme absenteeism at British universities, which seems to have risen as high as 70 to 80%. That’s the percentage of students absent, not in attendance!
Public libraries are used in many ways that are new, or new-ish: supervised parental visits, trade-off spaces for divorced parents, remote work, tutoring. That they are havens for homeless/marginalized people who have no where else to go isn't an argument for them to use library budgets to hire social workers. It's the municipality that should be funding social workers to visit or maintain an office in the building.
Should the library be a site for food distribution, a summer recreation program, remote-workers? Many are. I'm just not sure that the drive to be all things to all people, or the thing that needy people need the most, isn't a futile, un-ending endeavor.
Oh, I know. I like that you brought up that you doubt they are getting the funding to add on social services.
I’m a librarian and at least in my area we do not get any extra money (or training) for supplying additional social support. It therefore depends on the individual librarian if they want to go above and beyond to help in this way. Tbh, it also depends on the person asking and how polite they are. A lot of people are rude and pretty anti social so a lot of my colleagues are unwilling to help them.
Also a librarian, and same. We've had some additional training (how to administer Narcan, for instance), but not much. We do try to point people in the direction of services, but unfortunately most of them don't want the help that's actually on offer. They want money for a hotel room and takeout from a restaurant, not a bed at the local shelter and food from the community pantry. While these are understandable things to want, they're not generally the aid available and we're certainly not empowered to give it to them. We frequently get abuse for not giving the kind of help desired, or giving the wrong kind of help (i.e., calling for an ambulance when someone has passed out in the washroom and isn't responding).
As I often say, if I'd wanted to be a social worker I'd have gotten an MSW instead of an MLIS. But alas.
I can relate somewhat, as hospital registration, people seem to assume that I'm, like, a building supervisor, so I get asked all kinds of things that I have no idea about. Patients are often upset when I can't offer them vouchers for a cab or a hotel room, or that we don't just have social workers sitting around waiting for people to walk in and ask for help.
It’s not really a woke thing
Another necessary skill set is that of security guard. My university, Portland State University, took the position that the university library was a public space. For that reason it made no effort to keep out the homeless.
When I resumed using the library after a long absence, I was shocked to discover homeless people engaged in such non-academic activities as washing in the bathrooms, searching garbage cans for treasures and sacking out on the comfy lounge furniture.
One day I came to one of the library's quiet floors and settled down to work in one of the carrels. Two strapping young men who were obviously homeless were fast asleep on lounges, their duffel bags next to them. After a while they woke up and began speaking in normal conversational tones. As I always do when I am on a quiet floor, I waited to see whether they would leave or stop talking. When the didn't, I did what I always do in such situations: I walked over, told them they were on a quiet floor and suggested they move up or down a floor if they wished to chat. That elicited a response I had never encountered from a student. He gave me a dirty look and said "You can't tell ME what to do." FFS
It was foolhardy of me to have done that. The guy was probably armed. Armed or not, he had no business being there. University libraries are for enrolled students, faculty and other members of the university community and the public, provided they follow reasonable rules of conduct. They are not refuges for the homeless and other marginalized people who are not there to use the facility for its intended purpose any more than the university president's office is.
Since then, the current university president's lack of a backbone led to the takeover of the library by a few anti-Israeli student protesters and a larger number of the usual opportunistic hooligans of the kind who've given Portland the nickname "Little Beirut." By the time the police chased them out for the second and final time, they'd caused at least $750,000 in damages, not including the cost of repairing or replacing electronic equipment. The library closed during spring midterms and is not slated to reopen until the start of the fall term.
If this doesn't cause the school to restrict access to the library, what will?
Absolutely. I know at least one library in Minneapolis that employs a full time Social Worker. The delightful book. The Library Book, by Susan Orlean, features how the LA public library (the branch featured in the book) has been tuned into more of a community center
Why should the Library be a community center? Who approves this kind of funding? Why is the government hiring social workers in and outside of the library? Sounds like at least one org is accomplishing its mission.
I agree with you. I really like libraries but I don't like that they become a de-facto community centre in the absence of proper public services.
This “community” is already a lot of things, some good some bad, but can it please not become anti-library or anti-social worker? That plays right into the criticisms everyone already has of the heterodox left.
It sounds like these homeless people and social workers are the ones trying to make it less of a library.
I'm not anti library...I may be anti social worker, as far as I have been able to tell they are mostly ineffective busy bodies. However, that's not the point I was making. I'm anti wasting money. And having Library social workers overseen by the Library (Which can't seem to even manage its own affairs let alone social workers) and Health and Human Services Social Workers seems like a waste and potentially hard to manage both.
I think the idea is that not everyone is going to want to go to a social work office or community center who might need those services. And some places don’t have a community center, but almost everyone knows that a library is a safe place in their community they can go during the day. If someone comes in who might need help having a social worker there to offer them services is useful and could actually save money vs also building a community center.
Of course this will only really happen in communities of a certain size. It’s not like every library needs an on-staff social worker.
I don’t care if social workers operate out of a library. Have your office at Home Depot. My point is, this seems like its own separate department and management structure.
I completely agree. My undergrad is in social work, and I'm leaning towards public libraries.
About a week ago, heard on NPR a story about a libraries and social workers. It's been a thing for quite a while.
I am from Oak Park and doing deep breathing to prepare myself to listen to this
Same! I felt like it was only a matter of time that the good ole village of OP would make Barpod. I just assumed it would be something related to the high school (they're doing a lot of the 'dismantling the honors track for equity' BS from what I hear). I sometimes think growing up there is what gave me contrarian tendencies haha.
There was a documentary series about OPRF High that was pretty interesting.
Haha, I’m from Chicago and am also bracing myself.
SAME we all should be friends in this crazy AF place.
Celebration of Palestinian culture would not be controversial if it could even be theoretically possible to celebrate that without talking about Israel. It's fascinating to me that the borders of "Palestine" always seems to EXACTLY follow the borders of contemporary Israel (they currently claim the Golan heights as well!).
Since there never was an independent nation called "Palestine," it's hard to say what Palestinian culture is. The Gazans are mainly Egyptians, and the Arabs of Judea and Samaria are Jordainian or Syrian. Pre 1948, many Arabs referred to "Palestine" as "Southern Syria" or "Trans Jordan". Ironically, it was the Jews who lived there during the British occupation who called it "Palestine." Who knows what Palestinean culture is? It's certainly not some ancient tradition.
And I'm sure the Syrians would have something to say about the so-called Palestinians occupying the Golan.
A people’s culture is the food they eat, the music they listen to, the way they speak to and relate to each other, the traditions they participate in. Which are constantly changing and taking influences from everywhere around.
The culture of Palestinians - the Muslim Arab population of that region - is going to have similarities to but not identical to other Arab populations from nearby regions and other populations of that region, including Jews and Christians. You might as well ask what is Jewish Israeli culture?
There's also something a little funny that Palestinians can't say "Palestinian". Although I suppose the Spanish are the same.
I don't disagree with you in the facts of what you're saying but there are a lotta leftists who make a very similar argument about Israel, claiming there's no such thing as Israeli cuisine etc.
And they'd have a good point. Israeli cuisine is a mixture of cuisine from all around the Jewish diaspora, influenced by Turkish and British rule in recent times, constrained by Kosher dietary laws.
But that's the point, name a single culture that isn't a mixture of X/Y/Z. Purity arguments are just a bum angle.
Yes, but. You can't just take the same progressive U.S. liberal traditions (drum circles, pronouns, peace circles) and then do them and say you're celebrating Palestinian culture.
Also, there are cultural differences between the Palestinians in the West Bank, and the ones in Gaza--as well as the 20% of Israel that is Arab. In fact the only thing that unites them is their hatred of Jews. So I guess "Palestinian Culture" is antisemitism.
Well yes, on that point we certainly do not disagree.
Are drum circles, spoken word and embroidery elements of Palestinian culture? Or just progressive culture?
As someone who has actually spent maybe too much time in "Palestinian Culture", very much not a thing! Palestinians are not monoliths, but the one thing that they almost universally are not is progressive!
I've seen morris dancers a few times. The first was a Summer Solstice at Avebury and I was a bit worse for wear as I had been celebrating all night. It was a bit surreal but amusing.
I also used to work with a guy who was really into morris dancing.
I had this exact thought when I was listening to this episode. The train of thought I imposed on people was...
Palestinians are indigenous > what do indigenous people like? > Oh, drum circles. Perfect, I already have a drum.
Especially since music is prohibited in Muslim culture:
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_and_music#Music_and_interpretations_of_Islamic_law
=
Even in Gaza, which is a bit more secular than other Muslim territories, there is a ban on music and musical instruments: https://www.wrmea.org/2019-june-july/the-suppression-of-musical-culture-in-gaza.html
Yes, I know drum circles aren't quite music. But I can't imagine it being an activity that would be encourged in any Muslim society.
Embroidery yes, I believe. Palestinians make beautiful embroidered dresses.
Pretty much 100% sure that drum circles and slam poetry are not though.
Embroidery is fairly universal. Humans like the decorative arts and it doesn’t require significant capital. I suspect there are middle eastern embroidery traditions.
It’s interesting how an Arab conquest of the region resulted in a new indigenous culture. But what about the Roman conquest? Why aren’t Italians seen as the indigenous peoples of that former Roman province? These protesters are not going far enough.
We all need to go back to the Fertile Crescent or Olduvai Gorge!
Palestinians aren't very Arab generically. They have as much ancestry in Palestine 2000 years ago as Ashkenazi do. All the Jews weren't expelled from Palestine by the Romans. This is a myth. The Palestinians are largely descended from the people who were there in the first century with about 30% Egyptian. Ashkenazi about 30% European genetically. Palestinians and Mizrahi more closely related to each other than either to Ashkenazi. My question is if the Maccabees are Jewish heroes rather than terrorists, why is it weird for Palestinians to be pissed at what Zionism had in store for them and which came to pass precisely as they feared?
My brother in Christ I was talking about conquests, not people becoming genetically Italian or Arab. But hey you know, sure, let’s get out the calipers and do some skull measurements. Could be fun.
But you were implying there was no “Palestinian culture” prior to the Arab conquest. This person is pointing out the people of Palestine were already there and simply took on some of the culture of their conquerors. It’s surely the case that the people of Israel (whose decendents now include Jewish and Muslim and Christians) previously had taken on aspects of Roman cultural during that conquest as well… it’s not about “race” it’s about having as deep cultural roots in that region as Jews do. Denying that doesn’t help anyone.
I guess I was confused by all the genetic measurements in the reply and missed that it wasn’t about race. What I meant to imply was there was no Arab Muslim culture there originally.
The genetics just help to demonstrate scientifically that people have ancestors from the region which correlates well with the idea they’ve some historical claim to the land and aren’t just interlopers, as do the Jews and Christians.
To your larger point I mean, sure? There was no “Muslim Arab” culture before the founding of Islam because that’s impossible… and that occurred hundreds of years after the founding of Christianity which occurred after the Roman conquest of Israel/palestine etc but I’m not sure what the purpose of such an argument is. Many of The people of Israel/Palestine today regardless of their current religion can trace their cultural roots to this region.
Okay… then what should recent immigrants and refugees from Palestine do, exactly? Hide in a hole somewhere? stop eating foods they enjoy and sharing that with each other and the community? Gonna tell the cancelled hummus guy from Minneapolis he should have opened a McDonald’s franchise instead?
I don’t think it’s people from Palestines celebrating their own music/food/heritage that are to blame if people are trying to make everything about the war / politics.
It ain’t just Biblical but it’s historical. Some things are historical fact unfortunately. As much as narratives are compelling and seem to make sense, sometimes those pesky realities get in the way.
Oh well. I don’t know what you think should have happened to the Jews who had fled there from literal genocide or those who had been there for over 4000 years but I’m sure it isn’t as easy an answer as it was for the Arabs in the area who were able to literally have their choice of …. Every other country in the entire region… to move to. Of which there was one that had an eerily identical culture to them… called Transjordan.
Can’t the two of you see that both peoples have a deep claim on this land and thus obviously both need somewhere to live and we can’t expect the other just to pack up and go because the other side thinks their claim is x years longer?
Sure. If I lived in utopia that would be the result. Unfortunately those two groups have developed a complicated relationship over centuries of forced conversions, conquest, expulsion and persecution. So to assume that there is any way that both groups can occupy such a tiny strip of land in peace is naive.
If there was a way of achieving that perfect ideal solution, we would have gotten there already. Instead, we’re further from it than ever because people let the perfect be the enemy of the good. People would rather strive for solutions that will never happen than face reality and force the shitty compromise.
I think there should be two states. It’s not reasonable to expect either group to leave
Yep. All of this. Many people find it difficult to be morally and philosophically consistent. They oppose identitarianism — except when it benefits a group they identify with.
Yeah… sometimes this stuff sounds a lot like “Judaism is an older religion than Islam and therefore Jews can do whatever they want in Israel because they are Gods chosen people of the region”. Not great!!
My biggest question here is why libraries need diversity coordinators at all?
I could see a large public library needing someone to, say, curate the Spanish-language section or do outreach to a range of underserved community groups, but I don't know how anything not involving books, periodicals, computers, or literally coordinating who meets in what room could be a full time job.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars of library money was spent on these people?
What am I missing?
I can't help but think about how many more books and computers they could have bought with the money spent on diversity coordinators.
This is why the library thing makes me so angry. It's such a purely good institution in society, and it's always underfunded. I actually could not care less if Harvard hires DEI buffoons. I only think it's nice that they stopped because it's an indication that things are headed in the right direction. But a library? They cannot fucking afford to be playing these stupid identity games. Literally. They have far more important things to spend money on that they already can't afford. These people and their corruption get *everywhere*, even one of the most purely good institutions in a human society going back millennia.
You're not missing anything. It's a toxic stew with a multitude of ingredients: white guilt, grifting, virtue-signaling, the influence of diversity "consultants"; whatever DEI claptrap is being taught in master's programs, mission creep and a lack of oversight from government entities that provide funding.
If I was a taxpayer in that city, county, town, I'd be infuriated (operating from the assumption that funding comes not only from the locality, but also county and state, to some extent). Now if a library want to raise private funds to endow DEI bureaucracies, then have at it.
They have such a huge staff!
It is a truth universally acknowledged that any organisation funded by public money must be in want of a DEI co-ordinator.
You're not missing anything. It's pure window-dressing. Librarians are responsible for making sure the collections and the programming on offer serve the community, which often necessitates knowledge of a lot of different groups of people locally. So you might want to look for a person who has certain types of cultural knowledge or language skills when you're hiring, because they'll be able to better serve certain populations. But I don't know how the hell a "diversity coordinator" is going to help with that.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars? I think you’re overestimating how much public employees are paid.
I'm looking at their website and they say that 8.7 million dollars, or 69% of the budget, is spent on staff. It looks like they have about 70 people on staff. That averages out to 125K per person.
Two diversity coordinators, even at under 100K per annum, is going to be some dollars.
NPR podcast Louder Than A Riot is a hilarious example of organizations casting about for something anything identity related.
Podcast about queer black rap? That’s fucking catnip to NPR. And of course it was a failure, who was the audience? Jessie and Katie mentioned it struggled to even get five figure downloads. But when it was canceled, the New York Times article reported there were internal protests, saying it was racist not to continue funding it.
I've always been confused as to why these outlets pick the most niche communities imaginable to cater to and are then surprised when they fail. "Know your market" is essentially the very first lesson taught in any Business 101 community college class.
Young Thug’s queer right? He has an album cover in a dress. He’s only trial because America is racist and homophobic.
Listen to the second episode of Andy mills new project “reflector”. It’s on the Young thug trial and some of the guest features talking about him will have you rolling your eyes
It seemed really far fetched to me to draw a straight line between Tipper Gore - who was worried about lyrics theoretically influencing people - and young thug - who is accused of organizing actual crimes that he brags he organized. I don’t see the comparison at all: the latter is not a moral panic about lyrics. It’s the crimes people are worried about.
Yeah I just don't see the free speech argument at all. Obviously if someone is talking about crimes generally, and gets caught up in some specific offense that isn't relevant.
But if I am writing long historical fiction novels where women are frequently tortured on a rack and then hung, and then my girlfriend is tortured on a rack and then hung hung and people think I did it...well it seems like you should be able to bring that up at trial.
It doesn't have anything to do with "blackness" or "rap music" and is instead just about common sense and reasonable evidence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQtKJbptcns
Yeah. There was a prof who was accused of being inappropriate with female students. When they found his erotic fiction about his students it was used as evidence.
They spend some time getting into the similarities in the two culture wars, but based on the second half of the first episode in the series I think they’re going to start in on distinguishing them next.
Where do you think I pulled this sarcasm from?
Young Thus has kids with like five different women. He’s probably not gay.
Lil Nas X for sure is and he’s great.
Ohhh there are a lot of gay men in the rap game. But they very much do not want to talk about it.
I've always been confused as to why these outlets pick the most niche communities imaginable to cater to and are then surprised when they fail. "Know your market" is essentially the very first lesson taught in any Business 101 community college class.
It is too bad there aren't transcripts for the BAR pod, because if there were it would be possible to cite exactly how many times the word "community" came up in this episode.
Basically, the Oak Park Public Library's ultra-progressive troublemakers never spoke for themselves. Their grievances weren't their own; they were the community's. Members of the public didn't use the library. The community did. Library users didn't demand that the library board and staff embrace DEI with revolutionary zeal. It was the community who demanded it.
The problem is that "community" as it is used by progressives is a political fiction. Self-appointed activists invoke "the community" to give themselves the appearance of democratic legitimacy. That's one of the ways activists become the unelected representatives of entire demographics when only a fraction of the so-called "community" share the activists' politics and values. It's how a handful of aggressive and persistent activists are able to hijack a public library's board, budget, staff and facility and hold them hostage.
“Community“ also is a way of implying homogeneity of belief and unity of interests, neither of which is likely to be true of any complex group. I’ve become alert to how this often papers over real differences and even disputes. Tensions with the LGBTQ alphabet - between, for instance, lesbians who want a same-sex dating pool and trans women who think they belong in that pool - are seemingly erased by invoking the word community. Similarly, the most radical BLM activists claim to speak for the whole black community, when often they do not.
Absolutely!
Years ago, a friend of mine went to a community board meeting. When I asked him how it went, his answer was “well, now I know what community means: ‘what’s in this for me?’”
(As a side note, my private thought was “well, you went to find out the same thing.”)
Katie came out as heterosexual… ON THE FIRST DAY OF PRIDE MONTH???!?!?!
Anyone else think Katie said “Pee circle” for the first half of the show? I was very confused
I say this with love: Katie can't say words.
YEP
Learned all about "pee circles" from that email "exert"
…what was she saying?
PEACE circles apparently
This was a good barpod episode.
Also, I love dick too.
It's Kafka-esque. Joslyn wasn't one of us. She wasn't at all problematic. She was a true believer in the woke ideology, who did everything she'd been told she was supposed to. If the ideology was what it pretended to be, she should have done extremely well.
But it turns out the ideology rewards schemers and whisperers over competence and sincerity.
Almost any system can be gamed by the scammers and whispers. But I think starry-eyed progressivism is especially vulnerable because the belief in its inherent goodness (besides being insufferable!) will always produce a built-in blind spot. And I say this as someone whose politics still skews pretty progressive, apart from trans ideology.
She might be one of us, otherwise she’d have shut them all down by denouncing her detractors as racist and the library as white supremacist.
I mean, we don’t know what she believed deep. As for “One of us” that’s kind of creepy rhetoric. One of who? The people in this comment section are mostly just normie liberals. On matters of actual public policy there probably isn’t much we actually disagree with her about.
I was laughing so hard at the idea of a drum circle being a central event at a Palestinian cultural festival. I’ve never seen a drum circle that’s less than 90% of the whitest people you’ve ever seen, most of whom are desperately trying to cover up the fact that they have a trust fund waiting for them when they decide to stop cosplaying as working class.
I wondered out loud several times while listening if there was anyone involved in this event who was actually Palestinian or from that region. Based on the names of the people involved, I’m guessing that they are a minority if they exist at all. It’s funny that the people who claim to care so much about Palestinian rights are the one most eager to use Palestinians as a way to take out their petty grievances on others. Definitely smacks of sincerity!
Yeah my mother-in-law and her sister love to play extremely progressive hippies in the Midwest woods, but sometimes it just comes off as a big attempt to distance themselves from the fact they were the daughters of a very rich lawyer from Boston.
I always love when they do performative stuff like drive 200 miles to a climate protest or work for decades to stop development around a lake only to eventually build a new house on it.
It sounds like the actual community event has been going on for many years. That doesn’t sound like the sort of stunt pulled typically off by cringy white people but actually by a community. They’d get bored too quickly and move on to the next shiny thing.
Plus the neighborhood is ethnically diverse and it’s not as if Palestinian immigrants don’t exist - to the contrary it has experienced massive brain drain because who in their right mind wants to stay under the rule of Hamas in Gaza or in the West Bank with its own problems from both Israel settlers and Islamic terrorists?
Yeah, Chicago has a large Palestinian community, so I would think Oak Park has some Palestinians.
What a bizarre coincidence I just a had a family member quit a library that was going through a similarly petty political struggle. There were endless petition and emails, but to the outside observer no real harm being done.
Our family member would confide in me and other close family, who have every incentive to take their side but in the end we would just say, yah know this stuff seems pretty superficial.
That's to say maybe there is something to say about the environment of libraries.
We are definitely open to anonymous emails telling us more!
Libraries can be a weird place to work. Here's a story that sounds similar to the one in the episode: https://hxlibraries.substack.com/p/timeline-the-board-firing-of-niagara
So they canned her for pointing out that censorship is
Bipartisan? I will never understand how some people delude themselves that they are the good guys.
The irony is strong, isn't it?
Unlike those awful conservatives, we support free speech, and if you publicly dispute that fact we will try to ruin your life.
Why does a Library have a CEO? Is there a Library Prime Minister too?
It's a common title for the person who's in charge of public library system with multiple branches. Heads of individual branches are usually called Head Librarian or Library Manager, while the CEO runs the whole thing.
My library is so sane thank god. The admin are great. They’re tough on censorship. Great with young people and the homeless. Run a tight ship. I love them.
Do libraries even provide any essential services to the community anymore? I think the lack of inspiration and ingenuity required in their work would lead to this kind of petty social behavior.
Yes! Still the only place a lot of poor people can access the Internet, printing, etc., for free. In my town they help seniors do their taxes, host monthly tech help sessions where teenagers help older folks with their devices, lend out home improvement tools and cooking supplies and park passes and museum admissions for kids as well as books. My local system supports a lot of small, very rural branches - they’ve been a godsend because I do legal work in some rural places and there’s often nowhere else my low-income clients can access computers. Or nowhere else I can access a computer when I drove three hours out into nowheresville for a prison visit.
My local library also has the identity-flavor-of-the-month displays, of course, but that’s one small part of the overall offerings. I see a lot of ingenuity in their work outside of that.
I understand libraries offer a lot of community services but that just seems like a different thing than a library. I don’t know what a Master in Library Sciences teaches you but it seems like it would be better to have a degree in social work. Maybe we should just call them community centers. I know mine rents out TV’s and Rokus and lets you use Libby and Kanopy for free. I just feel like traditional library services would be such a small fraction of what a library is anymore.
"Traditional" library services have included non-print materials for a long time. They circulated framed prints and vinyl records ages ago.
I take your point, but I think all of this, especially the public administration side of it, speaks to a library job now requiring more knowledge and skill, not less. Somebody has to run even those small branches and figure out how to ensure limited resources feel consistently available to an entire community, and secure continued funding to do that. I also don’t know a ton about what a library science degree requires, and it’s possible that some library jobs shouldn’t require so many credentials, but I don’t think that the function of libraries has exclusively been “acquire book, circulate book, sort book, charge fine” for quite a long time, if it ever was.
My understanding is that an MLS degree is more of information science. How to organize and catalog data. I’ve met a few people whom worked as a librarian for a big corporation. University librarians help people navigate the myriad separate data bases that digitized material is stored in. Much more complicated than a google search.
In public libraries there adult services and youth services in public libraries. Anyone who can’t afford summer camp for kids can rely on programming at the library, after school programs, computer literacy for immigrants, etc..
I appreciate all the information. I was genuinely curious. From the outside, the proportion of space occupied by unused books and DVD’s to other services provided in the libraries that I have been to appears to give the impression that it is still a large part of what they do. So I was just wondering if would just be better for the community if we just gut the libraries of books etc and just designate them as community centers and hire social workers and educators. Would that be better for the community?
It's a question worth asking (and I hope I didn't come off dismissive!). I think the books and curation element are still really important to a lot of people, though. It probably varies by place, but for example, our library system opened up a limited-service branch in an unused storefront in the local mall, geared toward lending over social services, and that's apparently been a massive success. People on that side of town were really wanting a place to go pick up physical books.
It's a bummer that libraries have ended up shouldering such a huge community role relative to their original purpose - I think simply because they're some of the only truly public spaces we really have left, a place you can be without having to buy anything.
Thinking about it, my argument in favor of keeping the books would be twofold: First, because it prevents the library from becoming *only* a place for poor people, homeless people, elderly people, etc. The books are equally for everybody and having books keeps it a true community space, across incomes and ages. Second, the books are deeply tied into the community offerings - author talks, book clubs, kids' storytime, etc. A lot of parents, especially, bring their kids to the library just to hang out. In addition to high-circulation stuff like the latest bestsellers, you can get basically anything through Interlibrary Loan, which has been very helpful to me professionally. And our local libraries curate not just books but local history - we have a massive collection of non-book stuff like music by local artists, and zines. Basically, I don't think books are incidental to the library's mission.
You can still take out books, so that's the traditional service.
I think you’re interpreting this as a bad thing when it isn’t. Institutions evolve over the years to provide the services the community needs. At least they should do that. I think a public library in 2024 that only housed books but provided no actual services isn’t fulfilling it role.
Well, I think it might almost be that in smaller libraries in tiny towns. Although I suppose, even at the tiny library in my tiny town they have occasional events and things like movies and audiobooks.
The important thing I agree is a library provides services that its community needs, including somewhere free and safe to just quietly exist during the day.
I lovvvve my tiny little local branch library! I consider access to books/music/videos/periodicals/computers to be "essential". Also they give us $10/month of free copies - very useful for building my recipe collection that I curate from the cookbooks I check out there. They also give away seeds, and you can check out passes to museums and stuff. And it's a meeting place for a semi-rural community.
There’s a public library next to the school where I teach and dozens of students walk there every day after school. They have literacy programming, snacks, and offer help with homework. If they didn’t do it either we’d have to provide these services (we already do a lot and are stretched thin) or the kids wouldn’t have anywhere to go. This is a poor rural community, so way different than the library in the episode (though, it is only a three hour drive lol), and I think a lot of small communities like ours are very well served by the library.