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The Librarian of Congress, Trayvon Martin, and Blind Spots
Trump has done something again. Maybe. At least someone has done something, saying it was on behalf of Trump. The Librarian of Congress was dismissed from her position as of yesterday. The dismissal came through an e-mail from Deputy Director of Presidential Personnel Trent Morse, at least that is according to The Hill. Of course, “Trump Fires Librarian of Congress” makes a better headline than “Some White House Employee Fires Librarian of Congress.” Not that it matters in the end whether Trump gave the order. After all, how many orders did Joe Biden knowingly give?
Still, it is not really the point who did it. And it is blowing up in half the media. The New York Times, NPR, etc. have stories on the firing. Democratic politicians are quoted about it and how Trump wants to ban and burn books. No word about it on Fox that I have seen as of yet. The only information I have seen from what might be called “our” side is that some foundation declared the now-former Librarian of Congress to be too woke and supporting gender reassignment in children. They said this before the dismissal. Thus, we have half the story at most.
To be clear, the Librarian of Congress’ term would have ended next year anyway, and Trump would have appointed her successor. (If he’s dismissing her now, the likelihood he would have renominated her to another term seems low.) Thus, the most that can be said is that the dismissal is an acceleration of what he would have done anyway. But the part we do not have is the reasoning from the Trump administration’s side. My own guess is that Doctor Hayden either already had programs scheduled to further the woke and DEI agenda and did not cancel them or came up with more in defiance of the administration’s policy. She would not be the first person in the government who was willing to fight the Trump administration, nor the first who found out what Trump’s tolerance for employee defiance is. But again, that is merely my speculation. I have not found any comment on this personnel matter from the Trump administration in research before writing this.
A librarian of my acquaintance brought this story to my attention this morning. She was rather hot about it. Her reaction reminded me of an incident several years ago, when an acquaintance through Facebook brought the Trayvon Martin story to my attention. The acquaintance was a black minister. He pointed me to the story in a British tabloid. I looked it over, and then said, “Are you sure you want to believe this source? It seems as if this is less than half the story.” It turned out I was right then. It was less than half the story. The tabloid’s only picture of Martin was from when he was a twelve-year-old boy, not a hulking seventeen-year-old young man. Eventually, we learned more facts in that case.
In this case, I have no idea if we will learn more facts. Part of that comes from blind spots. There are stories that the feudal-establishment media never covers. There are also stories the freedom media never covers. This could be one of them, unless the feudal-establishment media makes enough of a stir about it. Again, I have my suspicions about why she was dismissed early. Maybe time will tell. Maybe the Trump administration will say that it’s a personnel matter and not be forthcoming. And maybe they will be very forthcoming. Again, time will tell.
Published in Politics
It’s the Library of Congress. Not the War Department or the State Department or the White House Chief of Staff. She was an Obama appointee, and so guaranteed to be conducting black masses in the reading room during off hours. The librarian’s portfolio includes Congressional research services, traditionally strictly non-partisan but there are hints that this was an activist librarian. That would compromise the information provided Congress-critters from research requests. I’ve known Library researchers in previous eons, any direction to align with an ideology would be a disaster. She was fired nine years too late.
That is where I suspect the problem came in.
Some background, via an April 30 Daily Mail article:
“A conservative nonprofit is now targeting top officials in the Library of Congress, as President Donald Trump continues to search for ‘deep-state’ officials in the federal government.
The American Accountability Foundation is launching a campaign to highlight activities of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden and Director of U.S. Copyright Office Shira Perlmutter, accusing them of acting as biased left-wing activists.
‘The President and his team have done an admirable and long-needed job cleaning out deep state liberals from the federal government. It is time they show Carla Hayden and Shira Perlmutter the door and return an America First agenda to the nation’s intellectual property regulation,’ Tom Jones the president of the American Accountability Foundation told the Daily Mail.
…
She also pointedly denounced attempts by parents to remove books about sexual identity targeted at young people from libraries.
Hayden wrote that librarians were ‘trusted people’ in the community and that it was important to have children’s books on sexual identity to offer them.
…
She urged individuals to go to school board and other public hearings to endorse using their tax dollars to support children’s books featuring topics like sexual identity.
…
Hayden also drew controversy for inviting musician Lizzo to play former President James Madison’s crystal flute and take the historical instrument to a concert in 2022.
‘B**h, I just twerked and played James Madison’s crystal flute from the 1800s,’ Lizzo boasted afterwards. ‘We just made history tonight.’ …”
Like Michael Brown, the 6′ 4″, 290+ lb, 18-year-old adult “unarmed black teen.”
Trump’s first term taught him that he must do unto others before they can do unto him. The old guard can’t be left in place to make mischief, or they will. He has probably not cleared out nearly enogh of them yet.
This is the three-minute clip from YouTube. I guess she considers herself to be a “flamboyant” classical music performer in the style of Liberace. :)
Her tone is okay (my daughter is a flutist), but anyone who would play that antique crystal flute in the first place, taking the chance of dropping it that always exists in musical performances, is woefully disrespectful and not trustworthy.
Lizzo plays James Madison’s flute at Library of Congress
I will never understand my fellow human beings. :)
He went on to say it’s not unusual for changes such as this to be made.
I’m not fussed about Lizzo playing Jemmy’s flute. Was there a risk associated with it? Yes. On the other hand, it brings out and displays for all to see that the Library of Congress has far more treasures than books.
I’m far more concerned about the possibility of insubordination and whether that took place.
I don’t really care one way or the other. Just curious why the Librarian of Congress reported to the executive branch and not congress?
You think You were gonna slip that past Us?
I’m sure I have no idea what you mean.
The way the law was written, I reckon.
“A librarian of my acquaintance”
Is that a 5 word phrase meaning “my wife”?
You broke the code.
Call me Turing
In 1802 Congress created the position of Librarian of Congress and gave the president the power to appoint him. I’m also surprised that, despite its name, it is an executive branch office.
We’re learning new things today.
Her Wikipedia bio makes it clear she has been a DEI advocate for decades. She came to prominence as president of the American Library Association when she opposed giving the FBI access to library records when investigating terrorists and publicly debated AG John Ashcroft on the topic. Why should library records be any more sacred than my bank records?
She organized a blacks-only scholarship program at the Baltimore public library and at ALA.
As head of the Baltimore public library, her theme was “Equity of Access.” During the 2015 Baltimore protests against the police killing of some dude (whose name I’ve forgotten and is not mentioned in the Wikipedia article), she proclaimed the city libraries a “place of refuge and relief and opportunity.” Uh no, they are a place of reading and learning.
She opposed the Children’s Internet Protection Act that limited children’s access to porn in libraries. What kind of monster fights for children to be able to access porn in the library?
And of course, she approved that idea that GPentelie mentioned to allow the nasty Lizzo to touch James Madison’s flute. I hope they disinfected it with bleach after she was done with it.
Good riddance.
As I said earlier, I am not against this. It’s good PR for the LoC and for the US government and even for James Madison.
I do agree with this, though. I believe it was Marci who linked to a video above that showed Lizzo. She was also playing other instruments. One was a wooden direct-blown flute (not transverse). My thought was, I hope she wasn’t wearing lipstick.
You’d think if she was used to playing flutes, she would know better.
Maybe.
I ran a small-town museum, and it’s a tough decision how much access to allow the public.
The best preservation conditions for many artifacts is in total darkness at 50° F. and 50% humidity. But then no one can ever enjoy them. On the other hand, if you allow the public total access, environmental conditions and damage from handling will quickly damage and ultimately destroy the artifact.
Regarding this particular artifact, there are 185 crystal flutes made by Claude Laurent in the early 1800s known to have survived; but there is only one crystal flute owned by President James Madison. Since the LoC owns 17 crystal flutes, I would have considered whether to exhibit Madison’s flute to the audience and have Lizzo play another, less valuable flute at the concert. She also does not appear to handle the flute particularly carefully, waving it around and twerking while playing it. She played in the LoC Great Hall, which has a stone floor, and at the Capital One Arena (don’t know what kind of surface that stage has). Maybe it should have been played over a well-padded table so that it would have a chance to survive if dropped.
On the other hand, Lizzo is a classically-trained flautist, so she does know how to handle a flute. Thus, the risks to the flute with Lizzo playing are less than an untrained person, all else being equal.
Overall, it showed great carelessness for the Librarian of Congress to allow Lizzo to play such a valuable artifact, especially when less valuable but similar flutes were available. Also, a more appropriate venue would have been to play it at a Madison event or at Montpelier so that it better fit the context instead of taking it onstage at a Lizzo concert like a trinket.
That makes total sense to me.
It’s definitely a set of trade offs. Still, my own opinion is that that is much less risky or offensive than sex books in the children’s section.
Heck, they could have given her one of the “regular” flutes but told everyone it was the President Madison flute. How would anyone know?
She’s a vampire?
Librarians are much scarier than vampires.
It’s the carelessness part of it that bothered me. The flute is irreplaceable because of its provenance.
As a former curator, you might enjoy this clip of an interview (starts about two minutes into the tour of the Atheneum) with one of the Boston Atheneum’s caretakers of the books from the King’s Chapel library that are housed in a special room at the Atheneum. It’s quite a responsibility for our country.
Inside the Boston Athenaeum, pieces of precious history
Shhhh!
That’s a great video. I lived in Boston a couple years, but sadly I never visited. I spent a lot more time in Widener Library during those two years.