Sunshine and Rainbows
Aug. 13th, 2024 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yachiruTitle: Sunshine and Rainbows
Prompt: “The path is made by walking”
TW: Cursing, Homophobia
I moved to a small town three years or so ago. And by small town, I mean a rural Washington town so tiny it has one medium sized grocery store, no stoplights, and is an hour from the nearest Walmart.
I run a library in this town, I do displays and programs. I quite like being surrounded by trees and looking up at the stars at night. You forget what they’re supposed to look like in the city. You forget how to say hello to people or what berry picking with a group of really serious berry picking women look like. They all have secret Huckleberry spots that they’ll only take you to if you get up at five in the morning and agree to haul buckets down the mountain.
June is Pride month and it’s a month I love and dread in equal measure. June means I do Pride displays, colorful rainbow picture books and drag queen motivational books dot my shelves and my walls. I love seeing them but I dread listening to the vocal minority that begins to pop up.
Take those displays down.
Think of the children!
You’re too loud.
LGBTQ people don’t exist here.
It’s as though the displays remind people here that gay people live here. That they deserve representation. That the quiet unheard lives they lead should be enough right? Be invisible, be silent is the message I hear again and again.
The more vocal of them shout slurs at you if you walk through town wearing a rainbow sweater.
The less vocal get together on Facebook and sign petitions to remove books and displays because only straight white Christians should have a voice or be heard.
This year I took it, I took all of it and did something either brave or stupid. I kept the goddamn Pride flag up after June. I put it in the front window so that anyone who drives by sees it. Knows that in my library there is no “tolerating” of others. We accept everyone. We embrace everyone.
Libraries are not neutral, they are radical as fuck. MAGA books are shelved with All Boys Aren’t Blue. Mein Kampf is next to the Quran. No matter who you are, I guarantee your library represents you in some way.
One of the folks who works for our library board has made it their mission to get the flag down. Even threatened to take funding away from our library if we don’t take it down. She’s been recorded at meetings (yes this is a small town which are usually full of messy bitches who live for drama, who will record you saying stupid things) espousing this rhetoric.
Now I am conflict averse to a disturbing degree. I’m the kind of person who won’t send the wrong food back in a restaurant. But I can’t make myself cave on this. Our community is not all white Christian people who marry other white Christian people. Trans kids do exist. They commit suicide in towns like mine. Same goes for anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum. They deserve representation and respect.
Almost weekly someone comes in and asks me about it. Some are curious. Some are mad. Some write notes because they too are conflict averse but still need to get that point across.
It’s incredibly stressful for me. I think about taking that flag down many times. How much easier it would make my life. How I wouldn’t have to deal with angry white women or men who flap their hands to simulate limp wrists.
And I can’t do it.
I can’t take the flag down.
I can’t take that path.
My library has books for everyone. It has a rainbow flag. And you are welcome, no matter who you are or who you love.
Prompt: “The path is made by walking”
TW: Cursing, Homophobia
I moved to a small town three years or so ago. And by small town, I mean a rural Washington town so tiny it has one medium sized grocery store, no stoplights, and is an hour from the nearest Walmart.
I run a library in this town, I do displays and programs. I quite like being surrounded by trees and looking up at the stars at night. You forget what they’re supposed to look like in the city. You forget how to say hello to people or what berry picking with a group of really serious berry picking women look like. They all have secret Huckleberry spots that they’ll only take you to if you get up at five in the morning and agree to haul buckets down the mountain.
June is Pride month and it’s a month I love and dread in equal measure. June means I do Pride displays, colorful rainbow picture books and drag queen motivational books dot my shelves and my walls. I love seeing them but I dread listening to the vocal minority that begins to pop up.
Take those displays down.
Think of the children!
You’re too loud.
LGBTQ people don’t exist here.
It’s as though the displays remind people here that gay people live here. That they deserve representation. That the quiet unheard lives they lead should be enough right? Be invisible, be silent is the message I hear again and again.
The more vocal of them shout slurs at you if you walk through town wearing a rainbow sweater.
The less vocal get together on Facebook and sign petitions to remove books and displays because only straight white Christians should have a voice or be heard.
This year I took it, I took all of it and did something either brave or stupid. I kept the goddamn Pride flag up after June. I put it in the front window so that anyone who drives by sees it. Knows that in my library there is no “tolerating” of others. We accept everyone. We embrace everyone.
Libraries are not neutral, they are radical as fuck. MAGA books are shelved with All Boys Aren’t Blue. Mein Kampf is next to the Quran. No matter who you are, I guarantee your library represents you in some way.
One of the folks who works for our library board has made it their mission to get the flag down. Even threatened to take funding away from our library if we don’t take it down. She’s been recorded at meetings (yes this is a small town which are usually full of messy bitches who live for drama, who will record you saying stupid things) espousing this rhetoric.
Now I am conflict averse to a disturbing degree. I’m the kind of person who won’t send the wrong food back in a restaurant. But I can’t make myself cave on this. Our community is not all white Christian people who marry other white Christian people. Trans kids do exist. They commit suicide in towns like mine. Same goes for anyone on the LGBTQ spectrum. They deserve representation and respect.
Almost weekly someone comes in and asks me about it. Some are curious. Some are mad. Some write notes because they too are conflict averse but still need to get that point across.
It’s incredibly stressful for me. I think about taking that flag down many times. How much easier it would make my life. How I wouldn’t have to deal with angry white women or men who flap their hands to simulate limp wrists.
And I can’t do it.
I can’t take the flag down.
I can’t take that path.
My library has books for everyone. It has a rainbow flag. And you are welcome, no matter who you are or who you love.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-18 09:30 pm (UTC)