It’s National Library Week, so I’ve been thinking a lot about knowledge and the idea that knowledge should be readily available – for all. An informed populace is crucial to the health of the nation and a bulwark of democracy. The ability to think, to reason, to avoid being fooled, all these notions are tied to reading and easy access to the wisdom of the ages.
And this is exactly why libraries – and their contents – are under siege these days.
HuffPost’s Jennifer Bendery recently told readers:
“Librarians are living in constant fear. They have become the targets
of Republican politicians and far-right groups like Moms for Liberty
Liberty that are hellbent on burning books about LGBTQ+ people,
people of color and racism. Some librarians are quitting their jobs
because of constant harassment; others are getting fired for
refusing to clear shelves of books that conservatives don’t like.”
If that’s not bad enough – and it is – Bendery informs us there’s another evil twist in the tale: “The GOP’s censorship campaign has shifted from book bans to legislation threatening librarians with jail time.” Idaho’s tried several times to enact such legislation; this February, West Virginia passed a bill “making librarians criminally liable if a minor comes across content that some might consider obscene.” Idaho, Iowa, Alabama, and Georgia are also considering various means of keeping books they don’t like off the shelves...and they’re not alone.
The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom shared some frightening statistics: “The number of titles targeted for censorship at public libraries increased by 92% over the previous year, accounting for about 46% of all book challenges in 2023; school libraries saw an 11% increase over 2022 numbers.”
Given these ever-more-frequent, ever-more-strident attacks, what can a concerned reader do to stem the tide of book-banning?
PEN America, an organization whose mission “is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible,” offers a number of ways to make one’s voice heard. Whether you’re a student, a parent, an author, or a librarian, PEN America provides advice, assistance, and resources to keep you informed and ready to push back.
The need to support the nation’s libraries is more urgent than ever. In Bendery’s HuffPost piece, American Library Association President Emily Drabinski draws a chilling conclusion: “What gets lost in conversations about book banning is that it’s really about eliminating the institution of the library, period. It’s not about the books. Well, it is about the books, but the books are the way in to gut one of the last public institutions that serves everyone.”
“You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture,” Ray Bradbury once said. “Just get people to stop reading them.”
Bradbury was one of the 20th century’s finest fabulists, the author of The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and the worldwide blockbuster Fahrenheit 451. Published in 1952, the novel Fahrenheit 451 is set in a future where books are illegal and firemen don’t put out fires – they start them. Printed matter is what they burn.
Bradbury was writing in the tense, paranoid early years of the McCarthy era. But he might as well have penned those words last Thursday.
Support your local library. Speak up for the voices the hate-mongers would shut down. Before – as history’s proven again and again – they try to shut down yours.
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Students fight a book ban by giving away free banned bookswww.youtube.com
The New York Public Library has also weighed in on the matter, you can find its suggestions here.
Karens for Biden and Dicks for Trump: What Your Name Says About Your Vote
A new poll of voters names reveals some surprising results.
It should surprise no one to learn that Donald Trump has locked down the Dick vote.
President Trump and former vice president, Joe Biden, are currently polling around even among men nationwide—each receiving about 48% support, with a handful of voters still undecided. But when that category is narrowed to Dicks, a new poll from The New York Times and Siena college shows that Donald Trump takes a decisive lead, earning 64% of their support to Biden's 36%.
It would be tempting to point to Donald Trump's lifelong pattern of cruel, selfish, and inhumane approach to life as the key selling point for Dicks. And while that may well be a factor in how Dicks plan to vote, Donald Trump is an entirely different category of dick than these voters.
The Dicks that so overwhelmingly prefer him in this new poll are not defined by dickish behavior, but by their first name. Of course they may go by Rich, or Rick, or the uncut Richard—though if they don't like being called Dicks, they should really stop voting like such dicks.
The Poll
The poll asked over 17,000 respondents in 18 battleground states to provide their first names and voting preferences, resulting in a list of 102 names with more than 30 respondents.
The Origin Of The Karen Memewww.youtube.com
While that means the data on a name like Marilyn (44% for Trump, 56% for Biden) is pretty limited, with a high margin of error, the results for more popular names like John (53% for Trump, 47% for Biden) and Mary (48% for Trump, 52% for Biden) are probably pretty reflective of how people with those names are voting.
Of the 10 most popular male and female names on the list, the two with the widest margins are Richard (64% for Trump, 54% for Biden) and—shockingly—Karen (40% for Trump and 60% for Biden).
That result is particularly surprising, given the reputation that Karens have developed in recent years. synonymous with a caricature of entitled, middle-aged white women with swoopy blonde hair and who are eager to call the police on people of color over minor or non-existent offenses.
They're the women who go into stores without masks on, then shout about their civil rights when employees try to enforce mask policies. They're women like Amy Cooper, who called 911 about "an African American man threatening [her] life" when asked to put her dog on a leash by a man wielding dog treats...
That certainly sounds like the kind of person who would support a president with swoopy blond hair and who downplays the coronavirus pandemic and calls Black Lives Matter protestors terrorists. And yet Karens favor Biden by a margin of 20%.
While white women in general favored Biden by about 13% in a recent CNN/SSRS poll—compared to an approximate 2% margin for Trump over Clinton in 2016—this new poll suggests that Karens are an outlier, with a much stronger lean toward Biden.
Have we judged Karens too harshly? Are they not the entitled monsters we have memed them to be?
Are Karens Good Now?
The question of how Karens ended up with this reputation is closely tied to the question of how people with different names are likely to vote. While most of us don't choose our names, trends in baby names across years and regions (as well as cultural and socio-economic groups) can actually have pretty strong predictive power.
For instance, the fact that Jacobs strongly favor Joe Biden and Kamala Harris over Donald Trump and Mike Pence (35% for Trump, 65% for Biden) is hardly surprising when you consider the steep rise in popularity of that name from the 1970s to the early 2000s, and the polling for that name tracks pretty closely to polling for voters aged 18-49. As for Harpers or Masons, it's a pretty safe bet that most of them won't be voting for a few more years—and when they do, it will be for the President and VP Jake and Logan Paul.
This is also an informative way to consider the name Richard, which peaked in popularity in the 1940s. Considering Donald Trump's popularity among men over 70—who don't have to worry about the global climate collapsing in 2050—it's hardly surprising that he has a dominant lead in this group. Likewise for the Donalds polled; the fact that 78% of them preferred Trump probably has at least as much to do with demographics of a name that peaked in the 1930s as it does with Donald's oversized egos.
But the more you look at Karens, the more confusing it gets. The name Karen peaked in popularity in the 1950s and '60s, which means the average Karen is older than the average woman (even the average white woman in the US), yet Karens in The New York Times/Siena College poll buck demographic trends, favoring Biden even more than their younger cohorts.
What could this mean? Have Karens been shamed by meme culture into examining the prejudices and entitled behavior that earned them this level of infamy? Were they always more tolerant than we gave them credit for, taking the fall for the Nancys (57% for Trump, 43% for Biden) and Janets (67% for Trump, 33% for Biden) of the world? Or is the problem more complicated?
Maybe Trump is too much of a Karen himself to appeal to Karens. Trump, who loves to use the threat of police violence to control unruly minorities, may be spoiling the Karens' favorite trick. After all, in any given room only one person can talk over everyone else.
Maybe the Karens are sick of Donald Trump always being the loudest Karen in the room. Maybe they want to know that, if they ever get the chance to speak to America's manager, they'll be able to bully him into giving them a free round of appetizers—or at least a better deal on their health care...
While there are numerous possibilities, for the time being—at least until through election day and however long it takes for the votes to be counted—maybe we can all cut America's Karens some slack and apologize for misjudging them. Sorry, Karens.
Also, if you meet a Dick, keep in mind that there's about a 64% chance that he deserves a swift kick in his richard.
- We Need to Talk About Karens: America Loves to Hate ... ›
- The 5 Types of Voters You Meet Making Calls for Joe Biden - Popdust ›
