QUESTION
How would you rate the book banning crisis across the US on a scale of 1 to 10?
1:13:51
·
146 sec
Council Member Carlina Rivera inquires about the severity of the book banning crisis across the US, asking for a rating on a scale from 1 to 10. Emily Drabinsky, President of the American Library Association, labels it a crisis, highlighting the attack on public institutions and democracy. Jonathan Friedman, Director of Free Expression and Education Programs at PEN America, stresses the unprecedented attack on the educational and information infrastructure, including libraries, universities, and museums. Both emphasize the broad and multifaceted nature of this crisis.
Carlina Rivera
1:13:51
So on a scale of 1 to 10 with one being not at all a crisis, to 10 being extremely serious.
1:13:59
How would you rate the book banning that is taking place across the US?
Emily Drabinsky
1:14:04
I think it's absolutely a crisis, and we see it.
1:14:07
I when we think of it as one prong of an attack on our public institutions and on our democracy.
1:14:13
And perhaps the most you know, I was listening to the librarian's talk earlier, the heads of New York City Library Systems, and we are the only public building that anyone can just walk into and and ask for anything.
1:14:26
That makes us quite an open sight for kind of organizing against us in our interests.
1:14:32
And so thinking too about the relationship between that and under funding the library, if you weaken the institution such that it can't fulfill its mission, you open it up as a target for exactly the kind of crisis we're experiencing now.
Jonathan Friedman
1:14:45
I can't stress enough that we are already living through something that is multifaceted and quite unprecedented.
1:14:53
Nobody We have never seen so many bills in so many states all at once trying to control education and the ideology a kind of effort to exert ideological control in so many different ways.
1:15:08
And it's critical that people understand that this isn't just about a lot of times people say, well, this is just about school libraries or maybe it's about school libraries and public libraries, but this is also about academic libraries.
1:15:18
It's also about universities.
1:15:20
A lot of parts of the country right now.
1:15:21
It's pivoting to include museums.
1:15:24
And we have also seen laws against, you know, bookstores or online retail or online database in libraries.
1:15:30
So this is the entire infrastructure that is used to organize and circulate information and ideas.
1:15:37
And in that sense, a crisis of this level attacking that in so many different ways is, you know, it it doesn't necessarily impact any of us maybe in New York City day to day intangible ways, but it is all around us and it is getting worse.
Carlina Rivera
1:15:53
And I thank you for sharing your experience and Alaska.
1:15:58
I it might seem far away, but it's it's really not.
1:16:03
And I would never want you to go through that again, especially not here in New York City.
1:16:09
And so the role of these tax funded institutions, which is really one of the things we're focusing on today.