If You Come After Librarians, You're an Asshole

On Allan Hill and Ellen Weaver, but keep reading for good news and some recs

When Alex was a baby, we went to an estate lawyer to get our wills in order. The lawyer’s office was in an old, shabby building with fading Southern décor near our downtown sports and entertainment arena. The lawyer, Allan Hill, was fine if not a little annoying. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I didn’t like him but…

Fast forward years later and I realize this same Allan Hill is our anti-LGBTQ Greenville County Library Board Chair. He’s really a total asshole in a bow tie, and if you agree, please sign this petition circulating to remove him. He’s joined by other board members and even the director of the Library Beverly James in either being spineless in the face of fascist political pressure or actively pushing their homophobic agenda. I can only imagine the ways these people make life much more difficult for the amazing and courageous librarians who work in the system. Needless to say, we won’t be returning to Allan’s office if we need any estate planning.

Speaking of assholes attacking librarians, this week the news broke that our unqualified State Superintendent of Education, Ellen Weaver, severed ties with the South Carolina Association of School Librarians, because they accurately labeled attempts to remove books from schools as bans and censorship. Weaver, who “earned” her master’s degree in education from Bob Jones in a special accelerated (read, bullshit) six-month program so that she could run for office, used to be the head of the Palmetto Promise, a right-wing interest group propped up by the Heritage Foundation and Jim DeMint. She’s a total partisan nightmare, and severing the State Department of Education’s relationship with SCASL is just another feather in her fascist cap. The SCASL did horrible things like professional training workshops for school librarians. Thanks for saving us from the expert professionals, Ellen! You can support SCASL by buying a membership here.

Ellen Weaver letting her partisan flag fly with folks from other states run by fascists at a Moms for Liberty conference.

Now for something good:

I was sick last week and watched a fantastic film, Shiva Baby, by a young queer Jewish director, Emma Seligman. A friend on Facebook posted about her latest film Bottoms, and I can’t wait to watch it. You should check her out. In my ENGL 1001 class about Barbie we’re starting with a personal essay on how film reinforces or challenges our systems of belief, and I think it’s so great we have films like Seligman’s out there to hopefully keep dismantling this white heteronormative Christian nationalist patriarchy. Ellen Weaver would not like these films (or let them be shown in our SC high schools, that’s for sure).

In Mexico, I’m so happy to report that the Supreme Court upheld abortion rights. I’m overjoyed for all the feminist activists there who have been leading the charge to protect women, but I’m also happy that Mexican feminists are transnational and will continue to support our fight here in the U.S., as this group on the border has been doing since Roe fell (mil gracias!). It’s an important victory not only for Mexico but for the entire region.

This poem popped up in my Facebook feed by Kate Baer, and I’m clearly late to that party, but I went all bought all three of her poetry collections. It’s great mom and marriage stuff, and there’s a whole poem “What Children Say” in her collection What Kind of Woman that was really cathartic for the end of a day of mothering. Here’s the one I saw on the internet:

And finally, I know I’m talking about Barbie too much, but the soundtrack is SO GOOD and I think you should all be listening to it a lot. Happy weekend!