The New York Times editorial page has been on fire…with insanity. They had a ridiculous piece on abortion, which is par for the course, but we’ll circle back to that later. This one deals with a free library. I’m not kidding. Those little sheds that you see in neighborhoods with free books. Yes, they caused one writer to have an anti-white meltdown. Why? I have no clue. I’m not woke, a liberal, or mentally ill. The writer, who is black, was really triggered that a white couple took books out of her ‘little library.’ Tim Graham at Newsbusters broke it down (via Newsbusters):
“My little library, affirming as it is, is also an illusion; it can’t save our neighborhood,” writes @aubry_erin. “Still, in 2021, it has become increasingly important to maintain and grow Black space, on its own terms.” https://t.co/m9esdMXxOC
— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) December 5, 2021
On Sunday, The New York Times published a nutty little piece by Erin Aubry Kaplan asking "Is My Little Library Contributing to the Gentrification of My Black Neighborhood?"
Kaplan set up a little library on her lawn, but not for the white people! Nooooo!
Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young white couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn!
The moment jolted me into realizing some things I’m not especially proud of. I had set out this library for all who lived here, and even for those who didn’t, in theory. I would not want to restrict anyone from looking at it or taking books, based on race or anything else. But while I had seen white newcomers to the neighborhood here and there, the truth was, I hadn’t set it out to appeal to white residents.
[…]
Now that they were in front of my house, curious about this new neighborhood attraction, I didn’t know how to feel. By bringing this modern cultural artifact here from white neighborhoods, had I set myself up, set up the neighborhood? Was I contributing to gentrification and sending the wrong message about how I wanted the neighborhood to be?
This is one of the most hilarious op-eds I've ever read. If you wanted to satirize this mentality, you could not do better.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 6, 2021
That it made it to the NYT op-ed page is spectacular. As @SethBarronNYC said: "Imagine the editorial process" that led to "the decision to run this piece." https://t.co/S4IHiz2rvG
What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their whiteness and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a Black space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs.
Normal people stopped by and took some books. That’s the core of her tantrum. The ‘whiteness’ angle just makes it racist. She wonders if she was contributing to gentrification. This is the mind of the American liberal—endless hell. Misery is the drug, and it must be taken every hour on the hour. Also, what did you expect? There are white people in America. They read books. A lot of other people of all races and creeds read books. What the hell is this? The funny aspect about the Left’s anti-racism crusade is that they want to fight it..by being racist. The woman just has to put a ‘no whites’ sign on the box. Just like how college campuses have nonwhites-only spaces. It’s neo-apartheid, but the Left is doing it so it’s okay. Do you buy any of that crap?
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