Over the weekend, you might have seen the now-deleted post on Forbes explaining why the author thinks Amazon stores should replace libraries. If you didn’t see it, consider yourself fortunate. Because it was a steaming load of shit written by someone who clearly hasn’t set foot in a library in years and is also so out of touch with his community and, I don’t know, people in general, that he genuinely thinks it’s a good idea.
He maintains that streaming services, Starbucks, and these bookstores would replace libraries because libraries are no longer vital to communities. He was also upset at his roughly $450 per year in taxes that go to supporting libraries. For what it’s worth, he lives on Long Island. This is a drop in the bucket compared to what Long Islanders pay in taxes for everything else. Didn’t see him complaining about those, though.
Because we need to call his ill-informed, horribly written piece of drivel what it actually is.
Poor shaming.
Well, maybe not so much shaming because he didn’t outright mock anyone who’s poor or try to make them feel bad about it or anything else that’s generally involved in shaming someone. But what he did do was let everyone know what a classist, elitist douchebag he is.
His post made it clear that knowledge, and access to that knowledge, should be made available only to those who can afford it. Unfortunately, this is a systemic, pervasive school of thought. Look at how we treat inner-city and rural schools compared to private and suburban schools. Hell, even in my district there’s a huge disparity in the quality of schools, particularly on the elementary school level.
In general, those who can afford it are routinely offered more AP classes, after-school clubs, student enrichment, and even basic necessities like heat. At home, internet is available at any given hour. Completing assignments isn’t a problem because access isn’t a problem.
And that’s what this man missed. (I mean, if I’m being completely honest, he didn’t miss it. He deliberately ignored it.)
Not everyone has those means. And they especially don’t have the means to buy books, pay for internet so they can have things like Netflix, and spending hours in a Starbucks probably isn’t possible, either. Because when you add all of those together, it’s way more than $450. Libraries provide a vital lifeline to those families who cannot afford that extra $450 per year.
So, again, his proposal to eliminate libraries and replace them with Amazon bookstores (and, side note, did anyone else wonder why he was pushing Amazon bookstores rather than independent bookstores or even Barnes and Noble? Just how much Amazon stock does he own?) is another way to say to low-income and poor people that it’s no one else’s job or responsibility to take care of you, you should be able to do this all yourself, and if you can’t, tough fucking shit.
You can’t sit with us.
I can’t, for the life of me, wrap my head around that school of thought. Why would you want to restrict people’s access to books or anything else libraries provide? And while you might not use the library because you have the luxury of choice not to, why take it away from anyone else who wants to use it? I know plenty of people who don’t use the library and they don’t give one iota of a fuck if I do. And I can guarantee they haven’t drilled so far down into their tax bill to pontificate on the internet about how the few dollars they do pay for libraries isn’t worth it.
Here’s the thing. I want information to be equitable and widely available. I want people to be able to read the news, see movies, and listen to music. Our entire society is enriched when people have access to all the art libraries provide, not to mention all the public services and events.
The other side of this is people who think knowledge should be available to only those who can afford it are the first to criticize a low-income mom or dad for their kids not being well-read or doing poorly in school. They’re the first to reproach the homeless man for blocking his entrance to Starbucks or not applying for a job when the library would give him access to the internet to look for employment or a place to stay warm. They’re the first to complain about people congregating in open spaces (legit question: do you think this guy hates public parks, too?) or not being able to find something they need on the internet. They’re first to reprimand parents for not putting their kids in summer camp or keeping them from experiencing the summer slide.
You can’t complain about something and then take away the method to fix it. That’s like the dumbest self-fulfilling prophecy ever.
Libraries provide a crucial function to members of a community on every income level. For me, I’ll gladly pay whatever the hell my tax bill is to my library because am 100% confident the amount of money I save by borrowing books is far greater than what I pay. Using his formula, if my tax bill is $450 and I read 80 books per year, I’m saving $750 per year, assuming $15 per book. And that’s just me. That doesn’t include the books my daughter reads. It doesn’t include the crop swap or food-for-fines drive that it does every year. It doesn’t include the vast children’s programming. It doesn’t include the free lectures, book clubs, or historical value my library adds to my town (no joke, it’s been around since 1847 and houses some really, really old books, maps, registers, and town history). Oh, not to mention the basement space that is occupied by an adult literacy program.
I will GLADLY pay those taxes to ensure that any and every family in my town has access to the exact same things that I have access to. I don’t give one flying fuck what their paycheck looks like.
The good news is that Library Twitter unleashed a fucking hellstorm on this guy. It was absolutely deserved, too. And if you want better written information or greater detail, I highly suggest checking out some of these threads and accounts because they’re way better than what I’ve done here:
- Drunkest Librarian
- Irondequoit Library
- This thread by this woman: https://twitter.com/ZannaAce/status/1021042748516945921
- This opinion on CNN on why everything the Forbes guy said was wrong
- And that one story I saw that talked about librarians at one library holding a sleepover for all the stuffed animals left behind and sharing pictures of it
You can go down a serious rabbit hole if you want to but the gist all this whole debacle, for me at least, is that despite the number of people who hate poor people and enjoy enacting policies and ideas that would further disenfranchise and repress them, a whole lot more of us love our libraries and think people who want to get rid of them are fucking idiots.
That’s absolutely an idea I can get behind.
Oh, and as for the guy who wrote the original post?
P.S. I love Amazon. I use it with regularity. But never, ever will I suggest that it replace a library because, at the end of the day, I’d have no problem kicking Amazon out of my budget. Or Starbucks. Netflix might be harder but I could let it go. But I can’t say that I’d be able to go even a week without utilizing the library. In fact, when I moved here, one of the first things I did was check how far the library was from my house.
Loading InLinkz ...
