Some notable examples of books that 10th grader Reina Takata can no longer find in her public high school library in Ontario, Canada include The Diary of a Young Girl by Holocaust victim Anne Frank, the wildly popular Harry Potter series, and the Newberry Medal-winning novel Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry about cultural conflict in 1930s Mississippi. Why no? Because the Peel District School Board ( PDSB ) eliminated those titles as part of a new” equity-based” weeding procedure last spring, leaving library shelves as empty as Biden’s America supermarket shelves. The shelves at Erindale Secondary School were stocked with books since late as May, but they eventually started to run low, according to Miss Takata, CBC Toronto. ” I came into my school library and there are rows and rows of empty shelves with absolutely no books ,” she remarked when she got back to school in the fall. ( Takata herself took the picture of the bookcases in the library at her Mississauga high school. ) She estimates that more than half of the library books at her school have vanished. This is natural and affordable given that libraries in Canada and the United States have long followed accepted weeding procedures to get rid of damaged or out-of-date books. However, Reina Takata and several other students and parents worry that some schools may have removed thousands of books just because they were published in 2008 or earlier as a result of this new policy emphasizing the communist buzzwords” equity” and” inclusion.” Parents, retired teachers, and members of the community known as Libraries No Landfills say they have no problem with conventional weeding but are worried about the removal of fiction and nonfiction books solely on the basis of their publication date. The group is also worried about how personal standards like” inclusivity” should be applied from school to school. Trustees Karla Bailey and others voiced their displeasure that” there are so many empty shelves” in the schools during a May 8th board committee meeting about the just weeding process. The books are being weeded by the date, not by any additional criteria, Bailey told the committee when you speak to the librarian in the library. No one has a problem getting rid of books that are stale, torn, prejudiced, or out-of-date. However, it is unethical to weed a book or take it off the shelf based solely on this date. Yes, I did see it happen. Who decides what is appropriate to put in the library and who makes decisions about what’s wrong in our libraries? Tom Ellard, a PDSB parent and the creator of Libraries no Landfills, told CBC Toronto,” That’s questionable.” However, the PDSB, which appears to think that democratic ideology is the final arbiter, can see that it is unclear to the teachers who gave us this information as well as to me as a parent or taxpayer. ” Books published prior to 2008 that are damaged, inaccurate, or do not have strong circulation data are removed ,” the board said in a statement. So far, everything is nice. The board did, however, add that older books may remain in the collection as long as they are” precise, serve the curriculum, align with board initiatives, and are adaptable to student interest and engagement.” Translation: As long as the content doesn’t challenge the prevalent woke worldview that the curriculum encourages, books from before 2008 can remain on the shelves. [ Emphasis added ] The Peel District School Board stated that it” workes to ensure that the books in our school libraries are culturally responsive, pertinent, equitable, and indicative of the diversity of our schools and the broader society.” The issue is that progressive activists, who completely control schools and libraries and have a woke agenda to determine what information and ideas are available to their students’ fresh, malleable minds, are the ones who get to decide what is pertinent and diverse. A manual for the procedure titled” Weeding and Audit of Resource in the Library Learning Commons collection” was among the domestic PDSB documents reviewed by CBC Toronto. According to the documents, an” just curation cycle” for weeding was developed to support Directive 18 from the Minister of Education based on a review and report by the 2020 Ministry on rigorous discrimination within the PDSB. In order to use resources that are diverse and culturally responsive, related and reflective of students, and the Board’s larger school communities, the board is instructed by Directive 18 to conduct a diversity audit of schools. The Board will evaluate books, media, as well as all other resources already in use for teaching and learning English, History and Social Sciences. The board document describes PDSB’s” just curation cycle” as” a three-step process that holds Peel staff accountable for being thoroughly aware of how systems operate, so that we can dismantle inequities and foster practices that are culturally responsive and important.” Second, teacher librarians were told to concentrate on reviewing books that were released in 2008 or earlier, which is 15 or more years ago. The criteria of the” MUSTIE” acronym, adapted from Canadian School Libraries: False – information may be factually inaccurate or out-of-date, were then to be taken into consideration by librarians as they read through each of those books.
Irritating – refers to the book’s physical state and may need replacement.
superseded: a fresh edition or more recent resource has surpassed the book.
Trivial– badly written or presented, with no evident literary or scientific merit.
useless– doesn’t satisfy the community’s needs and interests.
It might be easier to find the book or the information in it somewhere.
An anti-racial and inclusive audit is the second step in curation, and quality is defined as” resources that promote anti – racism, cultural responsiveness and inclusivity.” A representational audit of how student diversity is reflected in books and other resources is the third step. Remember what these seemingly innocent terms basically mean:” Anti-racism” refers to discrimination against whites rather than racism itself because only white people are thought to have the political clout to be racist.
Similar to how Ibram X. Kendi, the best-selling author of How to Be an Anti-Racialist, acknowledges that equity is manifest discrimination to make up for past injustice, it is not” equality.”
Identity politics, which is by its very nature divisive and only includes the left’s designated victim categories, excludes the” heteronormative” white males and anti-feminist women who are thought to fall under the oppressor category.” Inclusivity” and” diversity” mean the embrace of identity politics. People with opinions and beliefs that are” on the wrong side of history” are also excluded from” inclusivity ,” as should go without saying.
Insufficiently woke classics from eras prior to our current state of enlightenment( i.e., before 2008 ) are considered to be” causing harm” and cannot even be donated because” they are not suitable for any learners.” This term refers to books that support and promote the prevailing cultural trends.
David Green, a trustee and board chair, told CBC Toronto that the weeding procedure” rolled out right.” Yes, it did. A motion to ensure that those weeding books during the anti-racist and inclusive phase of the curation cycle would need to document the title and reason for removal before any books were disposed of was passed at a board meeting on May 24. According to him, the board has asked the Director of Education to make sure that if books are being culled just because they are older,” then that is stopped, and then the appropriate process is followed.” That’s not almost enough; there should be no anti-racist or diverse phase at all in the curation cycle. This neo-Marxist agenda is being carried out while its zealous activists are hell-bent on making sure that school libraries stock pornographic works of gender ideology intended to quickly instill a sexual consciousness in very young schoolchildren. This is in contrast to the Left’s shrill, false accusations that conservatives are frenzied, anti-intellectual book-banners. Because leftists don’t believe in parental rights and think the State should be raising our children, they accuse parents who object to this overt grooming of being bigots and have national law enforcement look into them as local terror threats. Make no mistake, if school libraries in America haven’t already adopted the above” equity” book weeding policy, it will soon do so, possibly even in public libraries and bookstores. And unless and until it is stopped in its tracks by a determined, nobly fearless opposition, this agenda to destroy the literary heritage of the West will only intensify. In the meantime, anyone who cares about passing on that legacy to the second generation should start gathering and hoarding physical copies of classic books in home libraries because today’s school, public, and bookstores primarily see themselves as agents of a revolution against rather than as guardians of that postcolonial legacy. Mark Tapson can be found at Culture Warrior.
Reina Takata, a 10th grader in Ontario, Canada, can no Why not? Miss Takata told CBC Toronto the shelves at Erindale Secondary School used to be “When I returned to my school library in the fall there were rows and rows empty shelves with Libraries in Canada and the United States have been following standard weeding plans for years to get Libraries not Landfills is a group of parents and retired teachers who are concerned about the The group is also concerned with how subjective criteria such as “inclusivity” will be interpreted Bailey told the committee that “when you speak to the librarian at the library, books are “None of the committee members has a problem with removing outdated, racist, or It is unacceptable to remove a book based on its date. And yes, I saw it.” “Who decides what material is appropriate for the library and Tom Ellard, a PDSB Parent and founder of Libraries not Landfills told It’s unclear to me, as a parent, or to the teachers that have provided The board released a statement explaining that “Books that were published before 2008 are removed The board was instructed to complete a diversity audit of schools. The board is instructed to conduct a diversity audit in schools. Then, librarians had to review each book and use the acronym “MUSTIE”,
Unpleasant: This refers to the physical state of the book. It may
Superseded: A book that has been replaced by a more recent edition or resource
Trivial: of no literary or scientific merit, poorly written or presented.
Irrelevant: Doesn’t meet community needs and interests.
You can get the book or its material from other sources.
The terms “anti-racism” and “inclusivity” are not synonymous with racism
Equity is a present discrimination to correct past discrimination, as Ibram Henry Rod
“Inclusivity” means embracing identity politics. This is divisive by nature (It is obvious that “inclusivity”, too, excludes those with beliefs and opinions
“Cultural responsiveness”, on the other hand, refers to books that support Insufficiently woken classics from the eras before our current state of Before 2008, they are considered “harmful” and cannot be donated because “they are not
He said the board has asked the Director of Education to ensure that if books are being He said that the board had asked the Director of Education for the Director to ensure that if The curation cycle must include no antiracist or inclusive phase. Parents who object to the blatant grooming of their children are branded as bigots by federal law enforcement and investigated as domestic terrorist threats. Leftists do not believe in parental rights and believe that the state should raise our children. And this agenda to erase the West’s literary heritage is only going to intensify unless and until it is stopped in its tracks by a determined, righteously fearless opposition.Meanwhile, anyone who cares about passing that heritage on to the next generation should begin collecting and hoarding physical copies of classic books in home libraries, because our school libraries, public libraries, and bookstores today by and large no longer see themselves as the caretakers of that civilizational legacy but as the agents of a revolution against it.Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
