Proposition 2 asks Anchorage voters to incur a $500,000 debt to fund new building projects and spruce up existing meeting rooms at the Loussac Library. As the city’s flagship library, the Loussac has become ground zero for promoting many of the most extreme social and political goals of the far left.
Prop. 2, which is on the mail-in ballot sent to area voters earlier this month, also asks residents to sign off on a $650,000 in bonds to provide upgrades to the Anchorage Senior Activity Center and the Chugiak-Eagle River Senior Center.
Unlike the senior centers, however, the Loussac Library has made a name for itself by adamantly advancing a highly controversial cultural agenda. One of the library’s main rooms – Wilda Marston Theatre – is home to Drag Queen Story Hour, where local drag queens periodically perform while reading LGBTQ stories to small children.
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Last month the Anchorage Library system approved a new Racial and Social Equity Policy to ensure that it is more proactive in highlighting differences in race, ethnicity, language, culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression and other identifiers in the community.
Additionally, the library is committed to using its status as a publicly funded institution to tell area residents that many of them are fundamentally racist and living in a nation rooted in bigotry. In January the library launched a six-month community-wide reading and discussion program centered on a highly controversial book, “Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist ideas in America,” by Ibram X. Kendi. The book asserts that Americans are steeped in prejudice which manifests through systemic racism in education, law enforcement, housing, lending, health care and more. For younger readers, there is a youth-oriented version of the book.
Library Director Mary Jo Torgeson told the Library Advisory Board that she has experienced community pushback from the decision to spotlight Kendi’s book. Whether that impacts how voters feel about spending half-a-million dollars on the Loussac Library remains to be seen.
15 Comments
Lol, you are truly unhinged. Can the hysterics. You sound like someone who doesn’t wash their ass because, you know, touching ass is “gay”.
Lol.. you are a part of the problem… Firstly, there aren’t any “hysterics” in the article.. Secondly, public libraries are not licensed to push, promote, or host any political, or social agendas.. whatsoever.. Public libraries have one purpose, and one purpose only: Provide a safe, clean venue for literature (reading materials), which may be read on site, or in most cases, lent out. Public libraries, the librarians, and their assistants are not licensed to indoctrinate in any fashion whatsoever. I don’t know your politics, and that’s not my business, but it appears that you would become “unhinged” if the public libraries were operated by politically far right staffs, hosting far right politics, and attempting to indoctrinate the public with far right ideologies.. If none of the above matters to you, perhaps “canning” ignorance would be a great idea.
So don’t vote for it then. Obviously you oppose any knowledge being disseminated, other than what you deem to be allowable and ‘correct.’ What Eric Thomas said is true. And one other thing, if you don’t want to be exposed to the sorts of events that take place at the library, don’t go there. It’s really that simple. I support those programs because diversity and knowledge of things that are diverse lead to understanding rather than fear and ignorance. By example, my children and grandchildren have been raised to see that differences in lifestyle, religious preferences and the like are what makes the world interesting. Acceptance of others and their preferences doesn’t lead to hell, it leads to acceptance and peace and less violence towards others. And by the way, I’m sure the author pees sitting down because, you know, touching a penis is a sin. (Unless you’re a child molesting cop or a Baptist preacher)
Try reading, and comprehending the post.. “Oppose ANY knowledge” being disseminated”.. ??? Really ? Debbi, as I said libraries supposed to be just that “Libraries”. They are not there to use taxpayer dollars to host “ANY” political, purposefully biased, or manipulated events. When I, as a taxpayer enter into a library, I am actually there to seek “knowledge. Apparently you are fine with the brainwashing being foisted upon the children in public schools.. That’s you personal view on “knowledge”. But, don’t sit there on your high horse, and suggest that if one doesn’t agree with, or accept your hippy, peace, and acceptance of every thing, that they “oppose knowledge”.. What you, and Eric are supporting is not about knowledge, but rather, suggesting that your radical views are the only ones acceptable. I am a Christian, and while that obviously “offends” you, ( no peace in my case).., you suggest that I “accept” other lifestyles.. That is their business as long as it doesn’t infringe upon me, but I take the scriptures seriously, and literally, and your closing dialogue displays your “ignorance”, and bias towards LEO, and Baptist preachers… Otherwise you wouldn’t have brought those examples up. Hypocrisy is funny, isn’t it ?
Go over to Africa and see how well DIVERSITY works over there. And then come back and preach your retarded communist ideologies. The tax payer should not be funding these communist programs. If you want to teach your kids to accept homos and communists,, that is your business,, just don’t get upset when the rest of us refuse to.
And of course mail in ballot. Let’s get this thing pushed through while we can still manipulate voting in our favor….. uh huh, good grief. Given the economic state of Anchorage as well as all of Alaska, it certainly is intriguing the complete disconnect from any fiscal responsibility any belt tightening.
This new Woke
Is so Wrong
Remind me again why we need libraries? kids have google now. Libraries are obsolete. Let them collapse.
Boy, what a tool you are. For starters, there’s a world of information found in libraries which you won’t find through a Google search. This information can open one’s eyes to a world where the fabric of society wasn’t completely dictated by government mandates and government spending. A world where people could take the risks found in the world of voluntary commerce and thrive rather than accept a comfortable level of wage slavery. Some of us are old enough to have a firsthand recollection of such a world. Perhaps you remember the name Wally Hickel. You might have even heard the story of how he arrived in Alaska with 37 cents in his pocket and through hard work amassed a nine-figure fortune. There are people who don’t want others to know that this was once possible for themselves. They would rather have those people become mindless consumers making Jeff Bezos and the Walton family even richer.
Google will push readers in a certain direction far more than it will give them the opportunity to browse and discover for themselves. It’s also too heavily weighted towards current and recent events, and too heavily weighted towards headline news over high-quality scholarship. I know, anyone who’s happy to have sites like this around to provide them with their daily dose of confirmation bias probably isn’t too interested in that. Still, the drag queen thing is a red herring. The decimation of the Alaska Collection is far more important. Sacrificing educational purpose to revenue purpose by turning over shelf space to create meeting rooms is far more important. That latter point is the purpose of the bond, which begins this piece. The tangent which followed is little more than a dog whistle.
You seem to have missed the sarcasm in my point. Kids dont frequent libraries anymore they live in their phones but nice trigger and what a long speech to attempt to educate someone who already knew all of that. Anyway libraries are a waste anymore this isnt the 60s youngsters are not using these tax waste facilities anymore half of todays generation can’t even think for themselves they darn sure aren’t going to pick up a book
Maybe just leave them for the libs to fund. The libraries can be their worship centers to indoctrinate their own children- that is, those who actually have children.
The average taxpayer who is barely struggling to keep up should not have to fund the propagation of sodomy just so the wokies can feel good about their “diversity”.
Sneaky how these items are attached together. If one wanted to support the Senior Center improvements, but not the library, there’s no way to itemize this.
I agree that the Library’s new agenda should give us pause at the direction this publicly funded institution is headed.
At the risk of sounding hard-hearted, I would encourage voters to vote against this proposition until or unless the two needs can be considered separately.
Vote ‘NO’ on 2! Debi Cooper ..I feel sorry for your children and grandchildren!!
Debi cooper probably has a love affair with her face diaper to. These kinds of idiots can’t be helped.
She is all for “differences in lifestyle, religious preferences and the like… Acceptance of others and their preferences (which) … leads to acceptance and peace and less violence towards others.” She just hates cops and Baptist preachers whom she is ready to hatefully lump together. So much for acceptance and peace.