Hello everyone. This is Diane Rasmussen Makati
with UK Column News. I'm really happy today to be
joined by Vicki Baggett all the way from Florida.
And we're going to be talking today about library books and
education and what's going on and what's being placed in front
of our children and wherever the conversation ends up going as
two people who are very passionate about education.
So, Vicki, welcome to UK column. Would you like to tell us a
little bit about yourself and how you got involved in this
fight in the first place? Thank you so much, Diane, for
having me today. You know, the overseas is
definitely on my bucket list, so hopefully we'll get to meet in
person one day too. As you said, my name is Dickie
Baggett. I am a 34 or 35 year veteran
English teacher. I have been teaching middle
school, high school and college English for that long.
And about 3 years ago, my school district had sent as an optional
classroom novel study a book called Perks of Being a
Wildflower, a Wallflower. And I had never heard of this
book. And I have my masters and and
postgraduate classes in English, which is, you know, this is
literature. And so having never even heard
of this book, I was a little bit concerned right off the bat, of
course, I take the book home and I start reading it and I was
appalled. This book contains situations
of, you know, a, a kid watching his sister have sex, references
to, oh, OK, a guy and a girl are going to go have sex.
They don't have a condom, so they're going to use a Ziploc
bag instead. It was just highly
inappropriate. And as a seasoned teacher, I'm
also head of the English department at my school.
One of the things that I can tell you is going on, you
probably maybe have seen this over there as well.
In our country, what's happening is fewer and fewer people are
actually getting true courses and and licensed in their
fields. They might get a degree in,
let's say, hotel management and then they decide, I'm tired of
this. I think I want to be a teacher.
And so all of a sudden they get hired because they have a four
year degree. They're put into a classroom,
whatever field might match their, you know, their
background. And then they're given anywhere
from three to five years to get certified.
So that potential teacher has three to five years to do untold
damage to children. I've seen it over and over and
over again. So this is happening everywhere.
And we especially see this at the middle and the high school
levels. When your students, your
children are supposed to start having specialized learning
when, when they have teachers who, who maybe they're trying to
give all they have, but those fields are not their areas, then
it's the kids who suffer. So when I took this book home
and I, I read it, I was heavily concerned.
The first thing that I thought about was, Oh my goodness.
Because our school district has put our stamp on this potential
classroom novel. New and inexperienced teachers
are going to think this is a green light and they're going to
bring this book in and use it as a classroom novel and
discussion. So I immediately went to my
principal and my principal said, well, it's optional, you don't
have to use it. And I'm like, yeah, but you and
I both know younger teachers who have no experience are going to
seek see this and say, oh, well, hey, I've got a classroom set,
I'm going to use it. And so he suggested that I call
downtown or district level media English supervisor, which I did.
She and the director of high school education came up to talk
to me about it and they said, well, OK, you I guess you need
to fill out a form the. And I did it was like 1 little
page, a little form. Hey, this book is inappropriate.
I mean, I know as a parent, if a classroom teacher required this
novel of my children and, and I teach senior English, I don't
care if my kids a senior, this was not there.
There are way too many great books out there that do not have
this sort of of sexualized content.
So I would have been very upset. So I filled out this form while
I was waiting to hear about this.
I decided I thought, you know, all these years I've been
sending my students to the library.
I just want to go down there and see what some of the latest
books are. And I just started pulling some
books, books that I had not heard of.
I thought I was going to faint. I, I, I kid you not, I felt as
if I were in some sort of a porn shop.
It was, it was hideous. It was, it was unbelievable.
So at that point, I contacted our Superintendent for the
entire school district, which is Escambia County, Florida, and I
made an appointment with him and I took that little form.
I had made a copy of it, and I started filling out one form per
book that I felt like he needed or somebody downtown needed to
look at these books. I didn't know what I was doing
filling out these forms, and obviously our district didn't
either. We'd never had anybody to to
challenge any books. I did not know that the whole
world was going to see my forms. This was a conversation supposed
to be between me and the Superintendent.
The next thing I knew, all these forms were published online on
our county website, and they were very simplistic, like some
of these where it said, what is it about this book that you find
concerning? I had written things like racial
commentary or extreme profanity. I did not pull in textual
evidence. I did not know to, as I said, I
did not know that this was going to be, you know, for the whole
world to see. This was just something I wanted
him to get a group together and let's look at these books.
Oh, my goodness. That's all it took.
The media goes crazy. You know, I'm the, I'm all over
the news. Washington Inquirer does a
story. I mean, it's everywhere.
And of course, you know, English teacher questions, books and
libraries and all this stuff. And because I had not pulled in
textual evidence, which, hey, I'm a writer, I know how to pull
in textual evidence. But because I had not done that,
people were like, she's totally making this stuff up.
So I got smart after that, I kept right on going and I kept
on. At this point, I've changed up
everything. I started, I was like, OK, you
want to see the truth? Let me show you some things.
And I started pulling in the textual evidence.
And then of course, you couldn't question.
Here it is three years later, the the first set of books that
we went through, it was like this long drawn out process.
Our our district setup review committees that were completely
stashed. Committees had people on them,
primarily librarians who wanted to keep this stuff.
They too were trained in particular about they, they all
had the same MO. They all said things like, well,
children want to see themselves in these books.
So we need to have diversity. We need to have all sorts of
things. In the state of Florida, as in
many other states, we have laws you cannot have.
You cannot have sexual content that that is prurient in nature.
Prurient means anything that gets you hot and heavy, OK.
You cannot have anything that is educationally unsuitable or age
inappropriate that the MO every single time from these review
committees, even if you had one or two people who were saying,
hey, this is not appropriate for kids, the majority would say,
well, they see this anyway. They see it on TV, they see it
on the computer, they see it on their cell phones.
Irrelevant here. We have books in our libraries
that we're paying for as taxpayers.
Our school district is providing.
So we are offering this as if we're saying, hey, we approve
it. Here you go.
This has been rocking on for three years.
I had to appeal 3 years ago when we had the review committees.
I had to appeal the review committee's decisions and our
school board agreed with me because our school board's going
to be held accountable. OK?
We already know in the state of Florida, we have a governor who
came in and fired every single board member in a particular
county because they were not doing their jobs.
So your board is going to be held responsible.
But our school board agreed with me and they started taking out
some of these books now. It was, it was contentious.
It was really, really heated debates at the board meetings.
But ultimately the board has the final say.
So our Superintendent ended up being relieved of his duties.
So we have a different Superintendent now and here it
is three years later. We have now started back with
the review committees. We are involved in two lawsuits.
1 is because how dare we remove a book that contained, it's
called Antango Makes. 3. You may have heard of it.
This book is about two male Penguins who you know, they,
they raise a Penguin. They, they take care of an egg.
We know that that happens already in the Penguin culture.
The reason this book was challenged and then appealed and
then our board voted to remove it is because of that one line
where the zookeeper says, oh, they must be in love.
It's that indoctrination. And so we wanted parents to have
the right to know, hey, this book has this and we did not.
Our county, obviously, and our school board agreed, did not
think this was age appropriate. So the authors of that book,
they're suing our school district and that lawsuit is
still ongoing. I don't know what's going to
happen with it. You know, the second lawsuit
that we have is from Pin America.
They're of course they have come in and they've said, well, the
you are deliberately pulling books that target LGBTQ.
They target minority students or minority characters or the
authors or minority or L GB TQI can tell you I I don't know
about that. The majority of the books and
the authors that are coming in, probably most people don't even
know somebody's sexual orientation, An author's sexual
orientation, who cares? The bottom line is if the
content is not educationally suitable, a school district has
the right to decide and to govern as it sees fit.
But that lawsuit is ongoing as well.
And, and their contention is that you know it, it can't, you
can't have viewpoint discrimination.
So again, we don't know how either of these will play out.
I have a feeling, to be honest with you, Diane, I have a
feeling these will probably especially the Pan America case
may even go up through into the Supreme Court because if you
know about the PICO case, it was never decided.
It was kicked back down to the lower courts.
And so you've got this First Amendment argument.
You know, kids have the right to have this and be exposed to
that. But OK, this is true.
But if you if you say that, then are you not saying that they can
and have the right to be exposed to any book that's ever written?
So I mean, it's a slippery slope.
We don't know how either lawsuit will play out.
But my county of Escambia County, Florida is, you know,
they're, they seem to be trying to do the right thing.
As a teacher in the county, you know, I'm, I'm proud that
they're standing strong. Do they do everything perfectly?
Of course not, they're just human beings just like I am, but
I do believe that their ultimate goal is to do what's right and
to do what's honourable for children.
Now we are still trying to weed out books and I don't know if
you heard what just happened a couple of weeks ago.
And I truly believe this was a, A, a nod to my board members.
A couple of weeks ago on May the 20th, we had a board meeting and
people got up to speak about some of the books that have now
started. They've started the review
committees back again and the same thing that happened three
years ago is happening yet again.
Where this time though, they seem to be straddling the fence.
Let's take it this book out of 9th and 10th grade, but leave it
in 11th and 12th grade. So what that it has the F word
600 times. So what that it has an actual
sexual penetration saying it is it's it's totally ridiculous.
Well, on May the 20th, we had this board meeting and people
were up there talking about these things.
And if you know our new attorney general, his name is James
Oothmeyer. He had actually, unbeknownst to
us, he had actually written a letter to Hillsborough County
that's also in Florida. And in this letter he literally
told them they better get their act together as board members.
And the Superintendent, the Superintendent is supposed to
appear before this attorney general tomorrow, June the 4th.
And he said, you better get your act together.
I want this these books with sexual content removed.
And he actually gave passages from particular books.
Well, I had just seen this letter right before the board
meeting. So when I got up to speak, I
actually quoted some of the passages.
And then I looked up at the board members and I said, guess
what? I submitted these books to our
district in 2022 and in 2023, they're still on a waiting list
for review committees. Why?
Let me read you some of the passages.
The first passage was about a woman who who is having a a a
situation with a vibrator. It was so embarrassing.
Everybody on the board just literally hung their heads while
they were listening to it. When I got finished reading
these passages, one of the board members said this is awful and
we don't need books like this to go in front of a review
committee. And what he said was the board's
going to be held responsible. Just like in Hillsborough
County, we're going to be on in the hot seat with the attorney
general if we don't start removing these books.
And he said, I believe every book that has already been
removed in a school district within the state of Florida, I
believe we need to go ahead and remove them all.
So in other words, if a book has been removed in the neighboring
county, he wants it removed in our county.
Well, the four other board members 100% agreed with him.
It was wonderful. This is going to literally save
so much time. We won't have to have these
stupid review committee meetings on all these books.
So right now it's my understanding they're going
through and they're coming up with a list of all of the books
and it's going to, it's going to be hundreds of books, possibly
even thousands. So Hillsborough County within 24
hours after receiving that letter from the attorney
General, they removed, according to their response to the
attorney general, they removed 389,000 of their 2.2 million
books. That's a lot of books.
Now, I don't know the basis for the removal.
It could have been, you know, it could have been the copies.
But if they have that many books that potentially contain
inappropriate content, then, you know, they better get their act
together. Let me, I'm going to read to you
the attorney general's quote that I found so unbelievable.
Oh, he showed up two days after that board meeting.
He showed up in Pensacola, FL, which is right down here where I
am, and he was talking about inappropriate content in library
books. He and he was talking about
vaping, just different things. But this is what he said.
Listen to this and I truly believe it was a nod to my board
members. If you want to subject our kids
to dangerous, harmful content and pornography at a young age,
we will take action that will not be acceptable here in the
state of Florida. That's what he said.
In other words, you know, I mean, he's not putting up with
it. And so I hope this summer, I
hope while our schools are closed and the libraries are
closed, I really, really hope that we see a great change
taking place. I wanted to show you, Diane,
just what I'm talking about here is a book.
It's called Queer, the ultimate LGBTQ guide for teens.
OK. This book was found at a local
elementary school in Santa Rosa County, Florida, the next county
over. I do a lot of work in that
county too. Of course.
I'm just going to read 1 section to you.
This is on page 161. The name of this chapter is
called Starting Solo. Starting Solo.
Before you start having sex with someone else, you may want to
have some with yourself. Apart from being fun and safe,
masturbation is also a fantastic way to learn about your own body
in terms of where and how you like to be touched.
And because you're the only one involved, you're rarely you'll
rarely be disappointed. The fantasies you have while
touching yourself can sometimes teach you a lot about yourself.
Skip down to the next paragraph though.
People often masturbate before they have sex for the first
time. They don't stop masturbating
just because they've started having sex with other people.
Masturbation is different from having sex because you have no
one else to be concerned with but yourself, and you can do it
anytime you like and you don't need anyone else's consent.
Now again, this was found in AK through 8 school
kindergarteners. Kindergarteners Page 165
Touching and rubbing. Genital stimulation can come
from anybody part. You can use your hands or hips
or feet. You rub your private parts or
someone's thigh, arm, butt, genitals, ankles, wherever.
Oh, there's a whole section here digging it and it talks about
anal sex. So our librarians and the people
who approve these books have the ability to morally change
children with what they put in the library.
I just could not believe that this book was found in AK
through 8 school. Now of course, you know when you
bring this to a district's attention, if they do not agree
with you, you're going to have their opinion.
Is what they're looking at. They're not looking at the law.
Is this educationally appropriate?
No, it's not. Forget your opinion.
You may think that discussing this is appropriate.
I may think it is too. I don't, and I'm sure you
probably don't either. The bottom line is, is this
beneficial for children? That's what people are are not
looking at. They're not looking at the law.
This book called Almost Adulting.
This is a book by Arden Rose and I found this book at a local
high school and I was flipping through reading it.
Page 147 Listen to this the narrative talking about watching
the movie One Night in Paris. The first porn I ever watched
was One Night in Paris. Yes, Paris Hilton.
The video embarrassingly revolved around blowjobs, but I
still gained some valuable carnal wisdom within those 20
minutes of male centric pleasure.
I didn't understand why you would willingly let a dude pee
in your mouth. By the end of the video I was
confused, disgusted, but mostly fascinated.
I went down a sordid rabbit hole.
That night I learned what BBW meant.
Big beautiful woman. I learned what being
uncircumcised actually meant. I still think it looks like the
penis is chilly and has to wear a turtleneck.
It's kind of cute in a gross penis Y way.
I was thoroughly interested in all the unfiltered smut my
greedy little pubescent eyes beheld.
My masturbation habits got upsetting.
Like I got visibly excited when the 7th period bell rang to
indicate school was over so I could run home and rub one out.
OK. This, however, is mild.
I mean, I could go on and on. It, it goes into your public
libraries. My mother and I, every summer
we, you know, we hit all the library book sales.
I'm a book freak. I'm, I'm like the, the student
in the Canterbury Tales. I spend everything I have on
books, and this was what I found in the library book sale in the
children's department. So I'm flipping through it
because I don't know if you guys have this over there, but it's
something called graphic novels. Graphic.
Yeah. I didn't even know what this was
when I first heard about graphic novels.
I'm like, OK, what does that mean?
Very detailed. I'm not a reading teacher.
I'm. I'm a literature writing
teacher. So I'm like, what is that?
Well, of course, no, it's like comic strips, that sort of
thing. And it's really used for lower
level readers. OK, I buy into that.
That's fine. But here's the issue.
I see now that a lot of publishers and, and writers and,
and all these book companies, they are using that as a tool to
certainly come in, to come in after our kids.
I will tell you, I was looking through this book and I thought,
oh, OK, this is just, this is just a, a comic book.
Now remember, I found this in the children's section and while
I was looking at it, all of a sudden I came across this
picture, a man and a woman naked, engaged in sex.
And I, I go to the librarian and I said, now remember this was a
volunteer librarian for the Friends of the Library Book
Sale. And I said, Oh my goodness, do
you understand? You have this in the children's
library book sale section. This was, this was at a Public
Library. I can even show you the stamp
Foley Public Library in Baldwin County, Alabama.
And that was one picture. There were several others and of
course he was visibly very upset.
I ended up I decided to again. I had never heard of this book,
so I decided we have in my state, it's required.
We have a database. Thank the Lord this all happened
because of COVID, but we have a database where parents can log
on and see the books that are available to their children.
Well, I logged on and I decided to look up this book called
Maestro. And so I was blown away because
guess what it was in my county that is a picture of I don't
have to read this book. There was a picture of a man and
woman a a naked picture. They were engaged in sex 100%
illegal. So I immediately while I was on
my trip with my mother, I'm taking pictures and I send it to
my school district. Well, I have to submit a form.
So I go ahead and submit the form and immediately they pulled
the book. Guess what?
It's still on the list to be reviewed.
Why? It violates the law.
Get rid of the book. You know what I'm saying?
Children cannot have access to it right now, which is good, but
why the delay? Get rid of the book.
So these are the things I think the attorney general's talking
about. He's not going to put up with
it. You, I don't care that this was
found in a high school. This is against our law.
We have a law. It's number 847 point O 1-2.
You can't have pictures, anything like that and give it
to children all in the name of education.
This is this is not if, if these writers want to be seen and read
and so forth in school, then do what's appropriate.
Why did this author feel the need to have that picture?
You know, according to the law, he just limited where this book
is found. This book, if you want, if you
want to show it to your kids, go buy it from Amazon or whatever.
Go check it out at the Public Library.
But I mean, this is the sort of thing that we're finding a lot
of. Now.
I will tell you something else that I have found which is very
interesting because our attorney general, of course, is being
notified about this. Parents, when they have children
in the school, they have their own login for the it's called
the Destiny database system. Santa Rosa County is using one
called the library system, I think is what is called Library
Connect. Something like that.
And then students have a different login and the public
doesn't have to login at all. You just go to the website and
you can see. What we're finding is that
illegally librarians are hiding books within certain logins.
In other words, let's just say, and I'm using this as a, for
instance, let's just say I had found this book and I submitted
it. The law states within five days
this book has to be off the shelves while it is going
through a reconsideration process.
Well, we're finding that the public, when they would log on,
of course, the book would not be there.
Parents when they log on, the book would not be there.
But when students log on, they would have access to some of
these books through an audio or through an e-book.
That is felonious intent. And I really, really believe
that hopefully things are going to change because people are
waking up and they're starting to see, especially when we have
leaders now who are realizing the damage that this sort of
thing causes when you have librarians who are deliberately
hiding things from parents and from the public.
They're making it available to children.
And I'm using this book as an example.
This this one is not the case that I have found, but I have
found several others. So we're just, we're in a
situation though, where I truly do believe, I want to believe
in, in, in the good that's happening.
I do believe we still have a lot of woke librarians, woke
principals. We have woke parents and they
for some reason, they want children to be sexualized.
I have found books that have comments and situations about
trans characters and I have found these available to five
year olds. Why?
That's a really detailed overview of the the situation in
Florida. So I want to thank you for that.
That was great. It's like, I guess I have some
follow up questions now about, about all this because, you
know, we're seeing similar things in the UK.
But of course, as I said, our structures are different.
Our schools are governed differently, our libraries are
governed differently. But one thing that we do have in
common between the UK and the US is that the, we have something
similar to the American Library Association, which is what I was
trained and qualified under, you know, about.
Well, I finished my, my master's in 2001.
And to me, it's amazing how different it is now to what it
was then because we were not trained to be putting the stuff
in front of children. You know, there was a, a
different thing, a different thing about censorship.
And, you know, even at that time, this wasn't that long ago
really, that in 2001 that we were talking about things that
actually didn't work very well. But how do we protect children
from using the computers at the libraries, right?
So if there's a, you know, filters that didn't work out,
but because if they would, for example, if they would type the
words breast cancer, then that would try to, you know, filter
that out because that would say, well, they're potentially
searching for pornography. We're trying to keep them away
from that. But then they didn't work
because there are ways around them.
And then legitimate searches for things they might need to write
a report about for school would get blocked erroneously, right?
But that was just, that was just 25 years ago and it was that way
when I was still in library practice.
And it just, it's amazing to me how this is all changed in such
a short amount of time, like I said.
So over here we have an organization called Sillup,
which is the reciprocal to the American Library Association.
It's the Chartered Institute for Library and Information
Professionals. And the reason I was able to
move over here and I actually trained librarians for 10 years
over here was that they have reciprocal accreditation
agreements. So if you do an American Library
Association accredited master's degree, which is the degree that
you have to have to be a librarian, a lot of people don't
realize you're supposed to have a master's degree to be a
librarian. Then you can also work in the
UK. It's the same in Canada, it's
the same in New Zealand, Australia, some European
countries, increasingly Asian, some Asian countries are
starting to look at this as well.
And it's so a lot of times, even if American students came over
here and then they could go back home and work because they just
wanted the experience of living here for, you know, a year while
they did their master's degree. And so we're seeing the same, I
guess, approach to twisting what is the nature of our profession.
I'm talking about librarians, and I would imagine education is
similar, right? So for librarians, the idea that
we're not supposed to censor anything, which I completely
agree with. I'm completely all for free
speech, but I actually lost my membership in Scillip because I
was speaking out about these kinds of things and putting
things in front of children that I didn't think were appropriate
because they said that I was being, you know, bigoted, that I
was being, you know, not I was censoring and we're not supposed
to do that. Like all of these things that
were brought against me and all these disciplinary things that I
went through and I lost my career as a librarian because I
was trying to speak out against it.
So what's really difficult is being, as far as I don't know
personally any other librarians and probably I don't even know
of any educators that I've heard from in the UK since I've been
reporting on this. Now of anyone saying that they
are against it, now it's possible that some of them are
against it and they're not speaking up because they're
afraid to. The ones that I do hear from are
are just concerned parents. I'm not saying just parents, but
it's not the people that are in the positions where they can
make the decisions and decide what they're going to do in the
schools or in the libraries. It's the parents saying, what
are you people putting in front of my children?
And then in some cases over here, when the parents complain,
they actually get complaints filed against them by the
librarians because the librarians are saying that the
parents are causing problems, saying the parents have have no
right whatsoever to say what goes in front of their children.
And so the reason, you know, the reason I'm, I'm saying this, I
guess is because I'm very interested coming from the side
of being the qualified librarian.
And I was actually a full professor in librarianship when
I lost my career. So I was the top of my field.
Yeah. I was 20 years of teaching in
universities in the US, Canada and the UK.
Very long CV obviously to become a full professor, dedicated all
of my life to achieving that goal.
And then I achieved it. And then it was taken away from
me because I spoke up for what was right or what I believe is
right, what is right. That makes me so sad.
I don't know what to do. My respect for you is up here.
I'm going to tell you I no listen to what I'm telling you.
I hear exactly what you're saying.
When I first started speaking out about this, the next thing I
knew, here I am. Every year as a teacher, we are
evaluated. Y'all probably are over there as
well. Yeah, I did evaluation every
single year. The next thing I know, I'm under
investigation too. Why?
Because these journalists had written articles about me and
had sent, it's called bot emails.
I didn't even know what a bot was, but it's like a prescribed
e-mail form e-mail had sent it to my board members.
Like OK, obviously this woman hates people of color.
Obviously, this woman hates LGBTQ people.
Has she ever mistreated any of her students?
I don't know if any of my students are gay.
We don't talk about that. That's not my job.
My job is to teach English. I mean, this was so silly.
And, you know, I'm just a person.
I live, I live in the woods. I, I call myself Rebecca of
Sunnybrook Farm, OK. I'm just a person who I try to
love everybody. I certainly have an opinion, but
I value other people's opinion too.
When it comes to kids, though, and it's hard for some people to
realize high school kids are still minors.
They may have figures, they may look mature.
They may have beards. They're minors.
And when it comes to kids, I will go down fighting.
And I, too, went through all of this stuff where, you know,
accusations were made. It almost killed me because I've
never had anything like this said about me.
And it was certainly not my local people.
It was people from media, people from that's one thing I can say
these these people who behave this way, they know how to
organize. That was not something I was
used to. And all I knew to do was I just,
you know, I kept praying and I kept trying to stand up and do
what was right as obviously you have done Diane and the, the
sometimes though what I am seeing.
We are put in a different situation for the betterment of
society. I am a person of faith.
I had to lean on God. I leaned on my husband, my
family, my church, and I was like, what in the world?
People are people who don't even know me are social media is the
worst. I had attacks from people I've
never even heard of before. And I'm like, who are you?
You know, it was terrible. So I understand now.
The difference is I have more years in than you.
I'm also a union member. My union does some things I
don't agree with, but I'm smart enough to stay in the union.
They come also the union Rep at my school, which is kind of, you
know, it's kind of like nobody knew what to do with me because
I have not violated any laws. I'm speaking up for something
that I agree with and for me right now, we have an attorney
general who is also agreeing with me and the now the board is
seeing this as well. And they, they want to see
things. My advice to you, my advice to
people like you. I can tell you I'm the only
teacher that I know of in my county and in the next county
over who is publicly standing up and speaking out.
That's OK, because I've taken the hits just like you have
taken the hits. A lot of people are scared.
I have librarians who send me things.
They know that this is not right, but they're scared to
speak up because they need jobs. I understand it.
I get it. I get it.
You know, I, all I can say is if we as adults sit silently by and
let this sort of thing keep coming in and, and being in
front of our children, we are going to have to give an account
of this. We are supposed to be the
gatekeepers, especially in education.
Now, I'm not a librarian, but I'm an English teacher.
And I can tell you when I was growing up, our librarian,
everything that came in, she wouldn't even let us check it
out until she had checked it out herself, You know?
Well, now we have so many more tools available.
You can scan things. You can, you know what I'm
saying? You can look for keywords.
I just don't understand why we don't have more people being
proactive, even silently, even silently.
So, Diane, I admire you. I'm, I'm so sorry that this has
happened, but here's what I want to say.
I, I promise you there's something bigger for you.
And this, it may be this, this precipice of what you're doing
right now, you're getting it out there.
What you've been through. There is a reason for everything
and there is something bigger. Do I think that I have something
bigger? I don't know.
I just know that I can lay my
head down at night and I can feel like I'm trying to do what
I feel like God has placed in my heart to be the right thing.
Even if somebody's not a believer in a higher moral
power, you have to know that putting this stuff in front of
children, putting, putting this about masturbation in front of
kindergartners, this is not right.
This is not right. And so if we don't have more
people taking a stand, they, OK, they may have a perfect life
here on this earth, but they will be held accountable.
They will be held accountable. And so thank you, Diane.
Thank you. I'm sorry.
I'm so sorry that that's happened.
But you know what? You were too good for that
position anyway. You are going to be able to
reach a whole lot more people doing what you're doing right
now. So you just stand strong.
Thank you. No, it is true that I, I have an
incredible platform here with UK column and you know, I think
we're, we're truly free speech independent media company, which
is not true, including the media companies that published
whatever horrible things were published about you.
You know, one thing that I want to comment on is the political
situation. So having grown up in America,
it it's very different than it is over here.
And, and I think one thing that happens in America is because
essentially we have two parties, right?
You're either one side or the other side, and, and that you
have to agree with everything on one side if you're a Democrat or
if you're a Republican. And So what happens in America,
and I say this after living there for the majority of my
life, and I've been over here now for 10 years, is the
majority of librarians are, are Democrats in the states.
They're all liberal left wing and they identify as, you know,
anyone who hates Trump or who hates Biden or Harris or whoever
is in charge is a complete idiot.
And and you know, all, all the Trump haters are stupid and all
of the smart people love Biden, Harris, Obama, whoever it is.
But along with that comes this this same idea of basically
being allowing children to read whatever it is that they want to
read. If you look at some of the
funding behind the American Library Association and how the
money gets to them and who backs them.
Amanda Jones, for example, Right.
We all know Amanda Jones. We don't love Amanda Jones, but
we know who Amanda Jones is. That book, that librarian, which
I have written reviews about and talked about here on this
channel, she has, if you look at the back of her book, she has an
endorsement from Oprah. The documentary that was made
called That Librarian or I think it was about several of them
doing something similar to Amanda Jones had a documentary
that was executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker.
There is globalist, a so-called Foot Flamanthropist to fund
things in the American Library Association, including things
like the Freedom of Freedom to Read project.
And I'll be including, you know, really, really rich men that who
knows what they do behind closed doors.
We don't want to know. We kind of know, but we don't
want to know. And, and so they have all the
big financial backers behind them.
They have the support of the Democrat Party and whatever
donors they have, and it's really the funding of the
American Library Association that gets things in and because
Philip is smaller than the American Library Association,
but they just kind of follow what Ala does.
And I know that from being a both of them in the past for for
many years. And and so I think, you know,
this is something that that that I believe because the reporting
that I do now in UK column, we look at a lot of the larger
agenda, like what's actually driving this stuff, right?
And one of the things that has been driving, for example,
putting sexual content in front of children are the big
organizations like the World Economic Forum, United Nations,
the World Health Organization that actually has guidance.
That one of the, the writers who's written the material for
me recently, because I'm a, I'm the commissioning editor for UK
column has found evidence of saying that children are sexual
beings from birth. And therefore This is why we
need to expose them to sexual content.
And they in the UK, there's actual guidance from the
government policies saying, and this, this is something that
we're fighting a lot. They call it things like
relationships and sexuality education or RSE, different
names in different parts of the UK.
Let's say this is what they should be, you know, at age 6,
they need to learn how to identify a penis at age 7, they
need to learn like all of these things that it's, and it's all
from these larger organizations in a lot of cases.
And then they, they, you know, basically our, our current Prime
Minister, Keir Starmer is a very active, very strong promoter of
the World Economic Forum, as is King Charles.
And so they're the ones putting these policies forward.
And so they're going to actually come back to London to put them
in place. And the whole country has to
follow them. And So what we're fighting
against here are really, really, really big things.
But I think the things that are going to make the difference, if
we are have any chance at all of fighting this are people like
you and me and our colleagues in the World Library Association.
Thank you again for allowing me to be a member.
It's really great. It this is what we have to be
doing because I'm, I'm really, really afraid that the majority
of the public are not aware of what their children are being
exposed to. And I know that in a lot of
cases in both of our countries, children are told if you want to
become, if you decide that you're gay or you decide that
you want to transition, you, you don't have to tell your parents.
There's, there's official guidance about that over here.
If you want to change from Joanne to Joseph and you don't
have to tell your parents. We'll keep it private.
You can tell a teacher. And so parents are not even
involved in understanding what their children are being allowed
to do in the schools. Yeah.
In Florida, our attorney general just I mean, that's in place.
You cannot hide that from parents.
You cannot like and, and you're not as a teacher, I'm not
supposed to talk about that with a kid.
You know, it's, it's not my place to so I'm, I'm thankful
that we have those laws, but I, I definitely agree with you.
It we've got some, we've got some hard hitters with the world
Library Association and, and buddy, they know their stuff.
They're coming out strong and that's it's going to take many,
many of us like you, for instance, with your show,
different people have ways that they're getting things out.
I have a weekly video that I do every Wednesday it's called
Watchmen Wednesday. I put it on YouTube.
Clean books, Dash VBI have a website I'll send you the link
that had it has all my videos. It has all of the forms of books
that I've submitted. I work with rated books.
You know, I mean, there are so many organizations that are out
there who are trying so hard to get the word out that here's
what we have found in this content.
Parents, you know, be aware. It's certainly is your right as
a parent to expose your child or whatever you want to.
But you need to be aware what I have also found and maybe you
can answer this in the Destiny program.
I don't know what y'all call your databases over there but in
the Destiny program for instance I found a lot of books that
would say things about the books.
For instance, Julie is going to find herself taking a trip to
Paris with her her with with some cousins and their best
friend. Never does it mention that Julie
is going to fall in love with the same sex best friend and
therefore that book is going to be about a same sex
relationship. So what I have found in a lot of
the content is that the Destiny, the Mark report, it's called a
Mark report over here. The Mark report is not current
or it's not complete, I guess I should say.
And that's not fair. That's not fair to parents.
Some parents may not want their child exposed to that,
especially at an early age. And so we need full
transparency. No trying to.
I don't think that anybody's trying to ban books.
I'm so sick of hearing that if you can still purchase a book
somewhere, the book is not banned.
It's just that the average person who does not want kids
exposed to this, they do not want, or he or she does not want
that person's tax money spent for this.
Speak. Go by the classics for crying
out loud. Go by something that's
educationally suitable. Teaching a kid how to masturbate
is not going to help the kid graduate high school.
No, come on. No, that's one of the things
that I hear frequently from librarians is the, the idea of
the banned books that if you look at the, there's the freedom
to read project, the Ala, there's the every library
project. And, and, and, and they've
really got people believing and that and, and librarians
obviously seem to believe this themselves, or at least if they
don't believe it, they don't say anything that books are bad.
There is not a single book that is banned in the United States.
I used to, I used to teach library cataloguing.
And so basically the, the process of, you know, putting
all the information into the system so that you can search
for it. I taught that for years.
I did research on it. I used to, I used to do it.
And, you know, we used to have these discussions about what do
you know, is there anything that we would ever ban?
The answer was, was always no. But it used to be that we had
age appropriateness, right? Like when social media started
becoming popular, we used to say, well, you know, if children
are going to be accessing, what was it then?
Myspace, you know, way back in the day when all this first
started, kids read Myspace and other earlier sites to make sure
that they learn how to use it appropriately.
Don't talk to certain people. Ask your parents if something
happens. You know, all of the guidance
that we used to teach for children to be able to use it
and all of that. But then when it comes to the
issue of censorship and banning, you know, I still believe even
after all of this going on, that anyone over the age of 18 can
read whatever they want, like it.
You know, I personally don't spend time reading that kind of
stuff. But if you want to, that's your
choice. And that's what we were taught
to believe as in my training as a librarian, that you shouldn't
make assumptions or make decisions for people.
Your job was just to be neutral and provide the information.
And for example, you know, one of the things when I was
finishing my master's degree, it was, you know, I graduated in
December of 2001. So 911 had just happened.
And we were having discussions about, say, for example, someone
who looks like they're from a certain part of the world walks
in the library. And do you provide them with
maps of airports? Did you, did you give them books
on how to fly? The answer is yes, you do,
because you're not there to pass a judgment.
You just give them what they need and whatever they do with
it when they leave, you know, if they're over 18 and obviously
there's nothing you can do about it.
And it was the thing when I worked in university libraries
because university students are over 18.
And so, you know, there was, there was no restriction,
shouldn't have been any restriction on what they were
looking up on the library computers or what they were
taught in university classes or anything like that.
But something has happened. It's very, very serious and
very, very evil in the past few years.
And I have to say, I didn't even realize that it had happened
because I was actually never a children's librarian.
I did all kinds of training for different kinds of librarians
and I had librarians who went on internships in different kinds
of libraries. But you know, because it just
all happened so quickly and all of a sudden this was out there
and I was just as a as a shock where when you found when you
found cool. So it we really, we have a lot
of questions to ask. And one of the things I will say
about librarians in general is that they are very happy to go
on to bandwagons, right? Like if they're told, oh, we
have to be inclusive and diverse, then that's what
they're going to do. And that's all they're going to
talk about, right? You, if you look at the
professional library literature nowadays in the journals and so
on, American Library Association.
Otherwise, every other article, if not every article these days
is all about how do we provide better access during Pride
month? What kinds of displays do we
want to have for what are we going to do to better support
the LGBTQ students that come in? I never heard a word of that 25
years ago in our strength. So it's just something's
happened very quickly. And and, you know, when it comes
down to it and you know, I want to wrap up here in just a
minute. Unfortunately, we're just about
time. Is that our, you know, one of
our basically our founder of UK column, Brian Garish, He talks a
lot about this being a spiritual battle, like you said.
And then there's a battle between good and evil.
And what happens to those of us who are trying to fight for the
light side or the good side ends up getting really pushed down by
it. Because I know I feel that way
sometimes. I know Brian feels that way.
Any of us who are fighting these, these evil forces, they
will, whatever spiritual thing is going on, you know, if you
want to call it Satan as a Christian or whatever it is that
you think it is or something happening where they're after
us. And that's where our, I think
our really, our faith in what we're doing has to stay strong.
And that's what they hate. That's what the other side
really hates. And then they accuse us of the
likes of being hateful. Yes, I agree with you.
And I will, I want to say too, you know, one of my questions
was, and I, I'm, I'm a very active member of my church.
I love my church. That's my second family.
But my question was, OK, where are the churches?
Where are the churches in this battle?
This is very, very, very serious.
But I had a woman who said something to me this week, and
it kind of, it kind of has made sense.
She said, Vicki, if I'm standing next to you and I'm not touching
you and you're telling me all this stuff, if I'm not touching
you or talking to you, is it affecting you?
And I said, well, no. She said, but then if I keep
poking your shoulder, is it affecting you?
And I said, yeah. And she said, OK, What's
happening is so many people right now, even people within
the church. They're living their lives and
they don't think this effects them.
Most of the warriors that I have in my county who are speaking up
and stepping out, their grandparents, their
grandparents. I have very few parents and I, I
get a lot of parents are so busy.
Most people are working two and three jobs.
I get every bit of that. But I'm sitting here thinking,
oh, my goodness, I But then I did have a parent again.
I have a lot of parents who will send me books.
Hey, look at this. You know, I had a parent who
said to me, I do not want my name used in anything because I
feel as if my child will be targeted.
And you know what? I sat back and I said, Oh, my
word, you're probably right. You're right.
We are living in such a vicious, vicious time.
You can't do anything. You stand up and you speak out.
The next thing you know, people have made-up all kinds of crap
about you on social media. I told a reporter I he was
asking me about racial stuff, and I said what I said.
My best friend is a black woman and she is it's somebody I love
dearly. As a matter of fact, I teach in
her former classroom. I think that she's one of my
dearest friends. The next thing I know, that's
the headline of a news article. My best friend is black and he's
playing up on the fact that I even said that.
And I'm like, really? It was, it's just ridiculous.
What these so-called journalists, I call them
bloggers, it's what they'll do to try to get a good story.
They inflate everything. So I, I, I do get that some with
parents, but as far as the churches, you know, it is a
spiritual battle. And I, I finally had some people
within the church, you know, they, they realized what was
happening. And a lot of them are elderly.
They certainly can't come to board meetings and things like
that. But you know, what they can do
is they can pray. And prayer is prayer is probably
prayer is, is a Direct Line to God, you know, And so that
battle is the bad good is going to win out.
It's just making it through the process.
But what I have found that helps me is I try to stay in the word
because let me tell you something, reading some of the
junk that I'm reading, it's porn.
It affects your mind. I have to walk away.
I have to try to cleanse myself. When I am at the board meetings
and I'm reading some of this stuff, my husband sits out there
in the audience like this because it's so bad.
And when I get finished, I am so ashamed that I have had to say
these words. It affects me so bad.
Now there are some words I won't say, but some passages is what
I'm talking about. It's it, it's degrading, but
people need to understand this is what our children are being
fed now. People say, well library books
are self selected, it doesn't matter.
A media specialist is paid from an instructional fund, therefore
a media specialist. A librarian is considered an
instructor. Therefore the books within her
possession or his possession, there, they can be used for
instruction. I should be able to walk into
any school library, check out a book and go to my classroom and
read passages from that book. Or if a student were to check
out a book and do a book report and that student wanted to read
some passages, the student should be able to.
Well, let me tell you that's not the case.
That's not the case. No, no, and you know, it's, it's
interesting to, it's interesting what you're saying about
churches because one of the things that, and I, I hope this
is not the case with your, your church.
I, I really hope this isn't true.
But in the over here in the Church of England, the, the
protect and teach group that I work with, and I've interviewed
Kathy Mudge and I've worked with her.
She's her, her group is all about, you know, being against
indoctrination. Schools has found evidence from
the Church of England providing guidance for transgender
children and how to be inclusive to trans LGB.
In the church, my church is a little Southern Baptist church
and Oh my goodness, no, we are conservative and we, we love
everybody. We love everybody.
We love the Sinner and hate the sin, you know what I'm saying?
But yeah, we're, we believe that a lot of people are confused and
we ourselves included, we sin every single day.
I mean, you know, we all are, are, are imperfect creatures.
That's why we're here on this earth.
This is a test, you know, but I just want to keep working in
this area as I'm sure you do, Diane, because this is a test.
I don't want to fail, you know, And when, when things are put in
front of me, I don't know, these books, sometimes I think they
fall off the shelves and land in my lap.
And it's like, I've had students who have left books in my
classroom before and I've, I, I will pick the book up.
I'll read them. And I'm like, Oh my word.
I found one the other day with a six page sex scene, you know, I,
I, I don't know. Is this necessary?
No, it's not. We were.
We were just talking about Othello.
I just finished teaching Othello in my dual enrollment class.
Hello, Shakespeare, the greatest of all times.
Othello is loaded. You've got your interracial
marriage, you've got murder. You've got sexual content.
It's not graphic. He alludes to so much happiness
to their sheets. You know, everybody knew what
what it was being talked about. I mean, come on, We can read
between the lines. That's what makes it so great.
The I really feel like these new writers that are writing this
graphic stuff is because they can't write.
So that's the way they have to write to try to get attention.
I mean, I'm just blown away. I have a, a friend who is a
professor in English who has said that that the publishers
for current, at least here in the UK for, for current children
and young adults literature, that they won't take anything
the at the publication level as well.
If it's not, doesn't have some kind of content like this in it.
Like basically that's what the publishers are looking for
because that's what they think is selling.
And so those are the authors who are getting the contracts.
Yeah, that does not surprise me. But you know what I think should
happen? These authors should band
together and completely self publish or come up with their
own group. They've got to find a way around
it because that don't sell yourself in order to be out
there. Don't sell yourself like you
know, or sell your soul or sell your morals.
In other words, compromise your morals.
I just wouldn't do that. No, unfortunately we're, we're,
we're just out of time here. Is there anything else that you
would like to say to our audience that we haven't talked
about already? I just want to say thank you for
this opportunity, Diane. I appreciate you.
I appreciate your platform. I feel like, you know, I really
feel like this is something, like you said, it's happening
everywhere and the more people talk about it, the more others
are going to know. That's very important.
But I just want to warn parents, it's as dangerous with the
online platform as it is with the printed platform.
You know, you've got Sora, you have Libby, all of these or
those those online platforms I have found where kids can log on
and they have access to Pornhub from school, you know, so I
mean, parents really, really, really need to be on top of
their game. I would not do not trust things
do not trust just because something's something has a
green light from the school system.
Don't think that it's it's all that because it's not in the
adjacent county. They were using a tutoring
company that came from China and had access to things that really
the state of Florida said no. And when the state of Florida
found out they they had them remove that.
So I mean, but kids had access to tutors from there.
And there's, in other words, that's some that's a type of
influence that may not be applicable to young kids.
So parents just really, really need to be vigilant.
And you use everybody used to assume that people wanted what
was best for their kids. It is not that way anymore.
It is not that way as you said. There's something definitely
evil and wicked happening right here in front of our noses.
And if we as adults and parents close our eyes and pretend that
it's not happening, we are complicit in the whole thing.
Thank you for having me on here today.
I absolutely agree. Thank you again Vicki.
This was a really wonderful conversation and I hope it
inspires more people to get out there and see what's in your
libraries. Whether you're a parent or a
grandparent or not, we all have duties to protect the children
in our society. So thank you again for your
passion and your time and your dedication to what you do.
It's absolutely wonderful to hear.
Again, this is Diane Rathus Mcaddy with UK Column News Been
talking to Vicki Begat today and please watch us.
And we have plenty of other coverage on this topic as well.
If you look at the UK column website where I'm interviewing
lots of people who are doing similar work and it's very, very
difficult and exhausting work, but it's to me one of the most
important things that we can be doing is trying to protect and
safeguard the future of our children.
Thanks again and thank you again.
Thank you, Diane.