On May 31, 2023 RWBC President Jolie McShane and Patriot Club of America Jeff McDonald discussed pornographic and obscene books in public school libraries on WYPR 88.1. The discussion was joined by the American Library Association(ALA) Deborah Caldwell-Stone the Director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association.
The premise of the WYPR Midday Show was “book banning” by “political activist groups”. As we clearly stated in the beginning of our time slot, this is NOT about book banning but following the law by getting rid of pornographic and obscene books that do not belong in the schools. Sadly, the ALA did not address the pornography issue but continuously claimed that “marginalized children” are being denied these sexually oriented books. The ALA did not provide any statistics as to why these books are good for our children. According to the ALA, a letter from a “child” that these are wonderful books is justification to have these pornographic books in our school libraries.
The ALA claimed, “Gender Queer is just a literary graphic novel memoir and we considered the whole story.” Patriot Club of America and RWBC disagrees with this claim, if we were to show the images we would be accused of distributing pornography. If we were to read from Lawn Boy, WYPR would have to go to a commercial break to avoid violating FCC rules.
Jolie McShane also used the term “marginalized children,” but applied it to the 12,000,000 sexually abused children in our nation (CDC reference: https://www.cdc.gov/violen.../childsexualabuse/fastfact.html) These children are being triggered by the pornography and obscenities in these books AND no one is paying any attention to this silent group.
The coverage was uneven, the ALA was given 20 minutes and then asked to stay on and respond to our position. Then ALA took up most of the next 20 minutes, allowing Jeff and Jolie a few quick comments.
Start at 20 minutes to save yourself from ALA's word salad!
Let us know your thoughts!
