Library in suburban Kansas City offers free books to youths, perhaps unnoticed by parents, that portray whites as racists, colonizers
Free unpublished books with dark and divisive themes that portray whites as hopelessly racist are being given out to youths at a public library in suburban Kansas City, a parent has notified The…
Free unpublished books with dark and divisive themes that portray whites as hopelessly racist are being given out to youths at a public library in suburban Kansas City, a parent has notified The Lion.
“Perfectionism is rooted in white supremacy, and it’s an ideal that is set up to make us – Black people especially – feel like we will never be good enough, productive enough, rich enough, etc.,” proclaims one such advance-copy young-adult book, Forever is Now by Mariama J. Lockington.
“‘We shouldn’t have to watch the hood burn to keep it as our home,’” advertises the back cover of There Goes the Neighborhood by Jade Adia, which appears to lament white people moving into a black neighborhood. “Burn, no. But maybe some heat could work in our favor … White people ‘round here still see the color of our skin and cross the street or call the cops – that’s never changed. Racism is surely alive and well. The only difference is that now, there’s enough other white people around to make them feel ‘safe,’ which is why they’re so obsessed with colonizing the neighborhood. It’s crazy, I know, but maybe there’s a way to work with their racism. To use it against them.”
An online description of the book reads:
“Fifteen-year-old Rhea and her best friends, Zeke and Malachi, are South L.A. born and raised, but a recent wave of gentrification has been transforming the place that they call home. When an eviction notice from a greedy landlord threatens to split up the crew, Rhea and her friends manipulate social media to form a fake gang in hopes of scaring off developers. Their scheme appears to work at first… until a murder is pegged on the nonexistent gang. Yikes.”
Both books were brought home from the Gardner Public Library in Johnson County by Jennifer Williams’ daughters, 13 and 11. Williams homeschools her daughters and allows them some freedom to peruse the Gardner library, while keeping an eye on what they check out.
“That helps me to kind of see if something questionable comes through, while still giving them a little bit of freedom to make their decisions,” she tells The Lion.
But there is no such record for a parent to check on when a book is given away outside of the library’s circulation system, she says.
“To me, as a parent, I feel that it’s sneaky. I feel that it’s pushing an agenda and creating problems that may not even be there in someone’s mind. The more you push it and talk about it, then they hear that over and over again. And I don’t know if we continue to have this problem because our kids are stuck in these institutions that keep perpetuating that, or where the answer lies. But it’s not in continuing to do these kinds of books and pushing them behind the parents’ backs.”
Moreover, the free books at Gardner Public Library, she says – which youths are encouraged to review for the publishers – seem to cover “every single topic” on the left’s agenda involving race, gender and climate change.
“You can quickly see, on reading, the agendas that are being pushed. (The books have) a very liberal, divisive agenda. It’s LGBTQ, DEI, CRT – all of this stuff is very prominent in the topics. I mean, it’s getting them all – at the age of the kids (who are) being mentally affected by it the most, 7th to 12th grade, middle to high school. I mean, you’re messed up enough hormonally, without a whole bunch of other stuff being thrown at you.”
Williams says of all the far-left themes promoted in the books, it’s the “white people are bad” narrative “that breaks my heart so much. I graduated in ’97. My generation said racism stopped with us. Many of my friends have mixed children, and love came from that, in more ways than one.
“Yeah, we have a history as humanity, but you’re never going to get better if you keep hate (alive). My goal was for my children to never hear the ‘N’ word, to never hear that racist talk, and to be in an environment that we want to create, and not continuing to focus on that hate and division. And they were 10, 11 years old before they ever heard that word, and they heard it from Cardi B on the radio flipping through the stations. And I thought, ‘How can we stop this if you, yourself, that hate it are continuing to perpetuate it?’”
Having scanned the other books on the rolling cart at the Gardner library, Williams noticed a complete lack of different voices other than from the left.
“It’s obvious this is a leftist agenda being pushed on the kids, because there were no books about happy people. There were no books about all of us getting along and working together and being a community. There were no books about Christianity or the Constitution or any of these things that have to do with all of us (being) equal. But you know, that ruins the narrative, right?
“If we’re going to hand out free books like this, shouldn’t we be handing out free books so they can see both sides of the story?”
Williams doesn’t accuse the Gardner library, or even the Johnson County library system, of propagating leftist propaganda, but adds, “I do believe 100% that it’s pushed intentionally from a larger agenda, maybe even outside of our state.”
Nor does Williams harbor any ill will toward anyone. But she doesn’t appreciate such a racy and racist agenda slipping under parents’ notice.
“I am not anti-transgender, I’m not anti-gay. I am not anti- any of that stuff. I believe people have freedom to do their thing. I am against agendas that force things on people that are not who they are, and that are not true and wholesome and Godly.”
Williams says she has friends who are gay and transgender, and that she has taught her daughters to love them and all of God’s people.
“I said, ‘We love people. God loves people. Because they’re doing this doesn’t mean that’s what we do. It doesn’t mean that’s what we participate in. It’s not what we feed our minds on. But we’re not going to hate. We’re going to still know that God loves people, and someone else’s walk is their walk. It’s not our walk.’
“I never want to be portrayed that I was saying anything negative against any of my friends that have made a choice that maybe I disagree with. But I will always stand against the hate of this racial division, because that’s all they’ve got left to keep us divided. They know the moment we hold hands in love that God wins.”
The Lion reached out to library leaders asking such questions as whether such free books are available at other libraries in the JoCo system; what ages the books are intended for; and if it’s problematic that the books can be distributed to minors without their parents’ consent or even knowledge, since they don’t appear to be in the library system and obviously aren’t on checkout lists for parents to monitor.
The Lion also asked whether library officials can see how several of the books’ passages would be considered racist and, at the very least, whether the promulgation of such racist stereotypes is healthy, particularly for developing minds.
The Lion also asked what level of scrutiny the giveaway books are given by the library system.