4 April 20–26, 2023 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents ‘Horrifying’ Treatment Driving Away Librarians North Texas is experiencing a shortage of librarians as the culture wars continue to target certain books. BY SIMONE CARTER A s the culture wars rage on with no end in sight, North Texas school librarians have increasingly found them- selves in the crosshairs. Some are now opting to flee the profession, and advocates warn that certain districts are having a tough time finding qualified new candidates. There “definitely is a shortage” of li- brarians in recent days, said Mary Wood- ard, president of the Texas Library Association and the former director of li- brary services at Mesquite ISD. She attri- butes this to the educational fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic and a tempestu- ous political climate. Dallas ISD is one of the districts looking for school librarians; it recently held infor- mational sessions to attract recruits in part- nership with Sam Houston State University, according to WFAA. Librarians were once viewed as helpful civil servants in an honorable profession, but today they’re often vilified, Woodard said. Many have been attacked on social me- dia and some even fear for their families, she added. “It really is just horrifying the way some of these folks have been treated, just for try- ing to have things in their library collections that are reflective of the diverse community that they serve,” she said. Book censorship has skyrocketed in re- cent months, with conservative parents and groups attacking school boards and public libraries for titles — particularly those touching on racism and LGBTQ+ issues — that they deem offensive. Many of these skirmishes are playing out across the coun- try, with Texas leading the way. One particularly heated book battle is un- folding in Llano County, some 220 miles southwest of Dallas. There, county commis- sioners are considering shuttering the pub- lic library rather than return a dozen banned books to the shelves, according to Book Riot. Parents may question whether a certain book is age-appropriate, but there are al- ready processes in place to handle chal- lenges and find resolutions, Woodard said. Lately, though, some parents haven’t fol- lowed long-standing procedures, and school boards haven’t required that they do. Some conservatives have complained that “pornography” can be found in the li- brary, but Woodard said that’s not the case. For a work to be considered “obscene,” it has to lack all literary, scientific, artistic or politi- cal value, according to the First Amendment Encyclopedia. “What’s right for one kid is not right for another kid, and it is really up to their par- ents to say what they can read and what they can’t,” Woodard said. “When the state tries to come in and just say categorically, ‘No one can have access to this material,’ that’s where there becomes a problem.” Texas Library Association Executive Di- rector Shirley Robinson said she’s heard an- ecdotally of librarians running for the exit. Some may ditch the schoolhouse for a public library so they can work in an environment that’s less challenging in terms of book ban- ning, she said. “There are people who have just outright left because they were in a district, particu- larly in North Texas, where it was such a toxic and challenging environment that they could not utilize their professional expertise in the way that they had been trained and have been practicing librarianship for, you know, their entire careers,” she said. The conservative-majority Texas Legis- lature is targeting libraries in a slew of bills this session. A previous version of one such bill, by state Sen. Angela Paxton, a McKin- ney Republican and spouse of Texas Attor- ney General Ken Paxton, would have prevented librarians from pointing to a book’s educational merit as a defense against criminal charges, according to The Texas Tribune. Robinson called the prospect of librari- ans being criminally prosecuted “terrifying.” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick praised Paxton’s bill, which would require parental notice when their student checks out a title, after it passed the Texas Senate on Thursday. “Texas parents have an expectation that when their child goes to their school library, they are doing so for educational purposes,” he said in a press release. “Some of the books that have infiltrated our school libraries are obscene and have no place in an educational environment.” Small but very vocal groups in Texas are now showing up to school board, city coun- cil and county commissioner meetings with a long list of books they believe are porno- graphic or obscene, Robinson said. There, they’ll read passages out of context and ef- fectively drown out the voices of the rest of the community. Another thing that scares Robinson is that many librarians are now self-censor- ing. “I mean, there’s a lot of fear of losing jobs, of being shamed within the community, of being attacked on social media,” she said. “That really erodes public trust and, of course, confidence of a librarian in their profession. So, we’re seeing a lot of that.” Librarians are exhausted after dealing with attack after attack over the past cou- ple of years, and they need the communi- ty’s support, Robinson said. She noted that the TLA-organized grassroots coalition Texans for the Right to Read is pushing back against censorship and book bans, and she encourages citizens to stand up for librarians. To Robinson, the library is the heart of the school campus. Librarians do much more than just hand out books; they also of- fer support for teachers and provide initia- tives like after-school programming, she said. They’ve even helped to fill in during the educator workforce shortage. “Add on the stress of what’s happening and what might be coming within our regu- latory environment, and then the emo- tional pressure and mental load of dealing with angry parents — and school board members and community members saying terrible things about you,” she said. “Of course, the natural conclusion is going to be that we are going to lose librarians in the profession.” ▼ CRIME ‘A SURGING JUMP’ MURDER NUMBERS IN DALLAS ON AN ALARMING RISE. BY KELLY DEARMORE T he number of murders in Dallas so far this year is alarmingly high, accord- ing to new reports. On March 20, WFAA reported “there have been 62 homicides this year, that’s a 35% increase from the same time last year.” That chilling statistic included the March 12 quadruple homicide in a Dallas apartment that police suspect was related to a custody dispute. Last week, The Dallas Morning News re- ported that in March the city had seen an el- evated number of homicides, noting “at a rate of more than one killing per day, March marked one of Dallas’ deadliest months in years.” Perhaps most notably in March, a single week witnessed 13 fatal shootings, with the victims ranging in age from 11 to 61. The shooting deaths from March 9 through March 13 in Dallas included 37-year-old Rickey Gossett and 30-year-old Danielle Jones, who were gunned down outside of Bitter End in Deep Ellum. January through March provided a head-scratching crime scenario in Dallas. CBS 11 reported that violent crime was down in Dallas over the first three months of 2023 compared with the same time last year, but murders still showed a “surging a spike.” According to the Violent Crime Reduc- tion Plan Update provided to the city’s pub- lic safety committee recently, murders from January to March 2023 represented an increase of 29.21% over the first three months of 2022. The presentation noted “the rate is being driven by crimes with conflict/arguments.” Following the Violent Crime Reduction Plan Update, Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn expanded on the observa- tion that conflict escalation is helping to push murder numbers higher by tweeting, “Walk Away & Win - we need to come to- gether & teach people that it is STRENGTH that allows someone to walk away and dees- calate a conflict.” The killing hasn’t slowed down much in April, with several shooting deaths already reported through the first week and a half of the month. Murders have been occurring nearly daily in April, with shootings taking place in the Koreatown district, Red Bird, northwest Dallas and Ledbetter in West Dallas. On April 5, 17-year-old Omarian Fra- zier was shot and killed near the West End DART station downtown. | UNFAIR PARK | Fred Kearney/Unsplash Librarians say that the profession is attracting fewer applicants. >> p6
