Latest / UK Column Radio / "Don't Sell Your Morals" – with Vicki Baggett of the World Library Association

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"Don't Sell Your Morals" – with Vicki Baggett of the World Library Association · UK Column Radio

0:06
Hello everyone. This is Diane Rasmussen Makati
0:09
with UK Column News. I'm really happy today to be
0:12
joined by Vicki Baggett all the way from Florida.
0:15
And we're going to be talking today about library books and
0:18
education and what's going on and what's being placed in front
0:22
of our children and wherever the conversation ends up going as
0:26
two people who are very passionate about education.
0:29
So, Vicki, welcome to UK column. Would you like to tell us a
0:32
little bit about yourself and how you got involved in this
0:35
fight in the first place? Thank you so much, Diane, for
0:39
having me today. You know, the overseas is
0:45
definitely on my bucket list, so hopefully we'll get to meet in
0:49
person one day too. As you said, my name is Dickie
0:53
Baggett. I am a 34 or 35 year veteran
0:58
English teacher. I have been teaching middle
1:02
school, high school and college English for that long.
1:07
And about 3 years ago, my school district had sent as an optional
1:15
classroom novel study a book called Perks of Being a
1:20
Wildflower, a Wallflower. And I had never heard of this
1:24
book. And I have my masters and and
1:27
postgraduate classes in English, which is, you know, this is
1:32
literature. And so having never even heard
1:35
of this book, I was a little bit concerned right off the bat, of
1:39
course, I take the book home and I start reading it and I was
1:43
appalled. This book contains situations
1:47
of, you know, a, a kid watching his sister have sex, references
1:56
to, oh, OK, a guy and a girl are going to go have sex.
2:00
They don't have a condom, so they're going to use a Ziploc
2:03
bag instead. It was just highly
2:06
inappropriate. And as a seasoned teacher, I'm
2:10
also head of the English department at my school.
2:13
One of the things that I can tell you is going on, you
2:17
probably maybe have seen this over there as well.
2:22
In our country, what's happening is fewer and fewer people are
2:27
actually getting true courses and and licensed in their
2:35
fields. They might get a degree in,
2:37
let's say, hotel management and then they decide, I'm tired of
2:42
this. I think I want to be a teacher.
2:45
And so all of a sudden they get hired because they have a four
2:49
year degree. They're put into a classroom,
2:53
whatever field might match their, you know, their
2:57
background. And then they're given anywhere
2:59
from three to five years to get certified.
3:03
So that potential teacher has three to five years to do untold
3:08
damage to children. I've seen it over and over and
3:11
over again. So this is happening everywhere.
3:15
And we especially see this at the middle and the high school
3:18
levels. When your students, your
3:20
children are supposed to start having specialized learning
3:25
when, when they have teachers who, who maybe they're trying to
3:30
give all they have, but those fields are not their areas, then
3:34
it's the kids who suffer. So when I took this book home
3:38
and I, I read it, I was heavily concerned.
3:41
The first thing that I thought about was, Oh my goodness.
3:45
Because our school district has put our stamp on this potential
3:51
classroom novel. New and inexperienced teachers
3:55
are going to think this is a green light and they're going to
3:59
bring this book in and use it as a classroom novel and
4:03
discussion. So I immediately went to my
4:07
principal and my principal said, well, it's optional, you don't
4:11
have to use it. And I'm like, yeah, but you and
4:13
I both know younger teachers who have no experience are going to
4:17
seek see this and say, oh, well, hey, I've got a classroom set,
4:21
I'm going to use it. And so he suggested that I call
4:25
downtown or district level media English supervisor, which I did.
4:32
She and the director of high school education came up to talk
4:35
to me about it and they said, well, OK, you I guess you need
4:40
to fill out a form the. And I did it was like 1 little
4:45
page, a little form. Hey, this book is inappropriate.
4:49
I mean, I know as a parent, if a classroom teacher required this
4:54
novel of my children and, and I teach senior English, I don't
4:59
care if my kids a senior, this was not there.
5:01
There are way too many great books out there that do not have
5:04
this sort of of sexualized content.
5:07
So I would have been very upset. So I filled out this form while
5:13
I was waiting to hear about this.
5:15
I decided I thought, you know, all these years I've been
5:20
sending my students to the library.
5:22
I just want to go down there and see what some of the latest
5:25
books are. And I just started pulling some
5:28
books, books that I had not heard of.
5:32
I thought I was going to faint. I, I, I kid you not, I felt as
5:39
if I were in some sort of a porn shop.
5:43
It was, it was hideous. It was, it was unbelievable.
5:47
So at that point, I contacted our Superintendent for the
5:51
entire school district, which is Escambia County, Florida, and I
5:55
made an appointment with him and I took that little form.
6:00
I had made a copy of it, and I started filling out one form per
6:04
book that I felt like he needed or somebody downtown needed to
6:08
look at these books. I didn't know what I was doing
6:12
filling out these forms, and obviously our district didn't
6:15
either. We'd never had anybody to to
6:18
challenge any books. I did not know that the whole
6:21
world was going to see my forms. This was a conversation supposed
6:25
to be between me and the Superintendent.
6:28
The next thing I knew, all these forms were published online on
6:32
our county website, and they were very simplistic, like some
6:37
of these where it said, what is it about this book that you find
6:40
concerning? I had written things like racial
6:47
commentary or extreme profanity. I did not pull in textual
6:53
evidence. I did not know to, as I said, I
6:55
did not know that this was going to be, you know, for the whole
6:58
world to see. This was just something I wanted
7:00
him to get a group together and let's look at these books.
7:06
Oh, my goodness. That's all it took.
7:08
The media goes crazy. You know, I'm the, I'm all over
7:13
the news. Washington Inquirer does a
7:17
story. I mean, it's everywhere.
7:19
And of course, you know, English teacher questions, books and
7:24
libraries and all this stuff. And because I had not pulled in
7:28
textual evidence, which, hey, I'm a writer, I know how to pull
7:31
in textual evidence. But because I had not done that,
7:35
people were like, she's totally making this stuff up.
7:40
So I got smart after that, I kept right on going and I kept
7:44
on. At this point, I've changed up
7:46
everything. I started, I was like, OK, you
7:48
want to see the truth? Let me show you some things.
7:51
And I started pulling in the textual evidence.
7:54
And then of course, you couldn't question.
7:56
Here it is three years later, the the first set of books that
8:00
we went through, it was like this long drawn out process.
8:05
Our our district setup review committees that were completely
8:09
stashed. Committees had people on them,
8:13
primarily librarians who wanted to keep this stuff.
8:18
They too were trained in particular about they, they all
8:23
had the same MO. They all said things like, well,
8:27
children want to see themselves in these books.
8:30
So we need to have diversity. We need to have all sorts of
8:34
things. In the state of Florida, as in
8:37
many other states, we have laws you cannot have.
8:42
You cannot have sexual content that that is prurient in nature.
8:49
Prurient means anything that gets you hot and heavy, OK.
8:53
You cannot have anything that is educationally unsuitable or age
8:58
inappropriate that the MO every single time from these review
9:03
committees, even if you had one or two people who were saying,
9:06
hey, this is not appropriate for kids, the majority would say,
9:11
well, they see this anyway. They see it on TV, they see it
9:15
on the computer, they see it on their cell phones.
9:18
Irrelevant here. We have books in our libraries
9:23
that we're paying for as taxpayers.
9:26
Our school district is providing.
9:28
So we are offering this as if we're saying, hey, we approve
9:32
it. Here you go.
9:35
This has been rocking on for three years.
9:37
I had to appeal 3 years ago when we had the review committees.
9:42
I had to appeal the review committee's decisions and our
9:47
school board agreed with me because our school board's going
9:51
to be held accountable. OK?
9:53
We already know in the state of Florida, we have a governor who
9:55
came in and fired every single board member in a particular
10:00
county because they were not doing their jobs.
10:02
So your board is going to be held responsible.
10:05
But our school board agreed with me and they started taking out
10:09
some of these books now. It was, it was contentious.
10:13
It was really, really heated debates at the board meetings.
10:18
But ultimately the board has the final say.
10:20
So our Superintendent ended up being relieved of his duties.
10:28
So we have a different Superintendent now and here it
10:32
is three years later. We have now started back with
10:35
the review committees. We are involved in two lawsuits.
10:38
1 is because how dare we remove a book that contained, it's
10:44
called Antango Makes. 3. You may have heard of it.
10:48
This book is about two male Penguins who you know, they,
10:51
they raise a Penguin. They, they take care of an egg.
10:55
We know that that happens already in the Penguin culture.
10:59
The reason this book was challenged and then appealed and
11:03
then our board voted to remove it is because of that one line
11:08
where the zookeeper says, oh, they must be in love.
11:12
It's that indoctrination. And so we wanted parents to have
11:19
the right to know, hey, this book has this and we did not.
11:24
Our county, obviously, and our school board agreed, did not
11:28
think this was age appropriate. So the authors of that book,
11:32
they're suing our school district and that lawsuit is
11:35
still ongoing. I don't know what's going to
11:37
happen with it. You know, the second lawsuit
11:42
that we have is from Pin America.
11:45
They're of course they have come in and they've said, well, the
11:49
you are deliberately pulling books that target LGBTQ.
11:55
They target minority students or minority characters or the
12:00
authors or minority or L GB TQI can tell you I I don't know
12:08
about that. The majority of the books and
12:11
the authors that are coming in, probably most people don't even
12:17
know somebody's sexual orientation, An author's sexual
12:22
orientation, who cares? The bottom line is if the
12:25
content is not educationally suitable, a school district has
12:30
the right to decide and to govern as it sees fit.
12:35
But that lawsuit is ongoing as well.
12:38
And, and their contention is that you know it, it can't, you
12:43
can't have viewpoint discrimination.
12:45
So again, we don't know how either of these will play out.
12:49
I have a feeling, to be honest with you, Diane, I have a
12:52
feeling these will probably especially the Pan America case
12:57
may even go up through into the Supreme Court because if you
13:03
know about the PICO case, it was never decided.
13:07
It was kicked back down to the lower courts.
13:10
And so you've got this First Amendment argument.
13:13
You know, kids have the right to have this and be exposed to
13:17
that. But OK, this is true.
13:20
But if you if you say that, then are you not saying that they can
13:25
and have the right to be exposed to any book that's ever written?
13:30
So I mean, it's a slippery slope.
13:32
We don't know how either lawsuit will play out.
13:35
But my county of Escambia County, Florida is, you know,
13:39
they're, they seem to be trying to do the right thing.
13:43
As a teacher in the county, you know, I'm, I'm proud that
13:47
they're standing strong. Do they do everything perfectly?
13:50
Of course not, they're just human beings just like I am, but
13:55
I do believe that their ultimate goal is to do what's right and
14:00
to do what's honourable for children.
14:03
Now we are still trying to weed out books and I don't know if
14:10
you heard what just happened a couple of weeks ago.
14:13
And I truly believe this was a, A, a nod to my board members.
14:21
A couple of weeks ago on May the 20th, we had a board meeting and
14:28
people got up to speak about some of the books that have now
14:31
started. They've started the review
14:33
committees back again and the same thing that happened three
14:36
years ago is happening yet again.
14:39
Where this time though, they seem to be straddling the fence.
14:43
Let's take it this book out of 9th and 10th grade, but leave it
14:46
in 11th and 12th grade. So what that it has the F word
14:50
600 times. So what that it has an actual
14:53
sexual penetration saying it is it's it's totally ridiculous.
14:59
Well, on May the 20th, we had this board meeting and people
15:03
were up there talking about these things.
15:06
And if you know our new attorney general, his name is James
15:10
Oothmeyer. He had actually, unbeknownst to
15:14
us, he had actually written a letter to Hillsborough County
15:18
that's also in Florida. And in this letter he literally
15:22
told them they better get their act together as board members.
15:26
And the Superintendent, the Superintendent is supposed to
15:29
appear before this attorney general tomorrow, June the 4th.
15:34
And he said, you better get your act together.
15:37
I want this these books with sexual content removed.
15:41
And he actually gave passages from particular books.
15:46
Well, I had just seen this letter right before the board
15:50
meeting. So when I got up to speak, I
15:52
actually quoted some of the passages.
15:55
And then I looked up at the board members and I said, guess
15:57
what? I submitted these books to our
16:00
district in 2022 and in 2023, they're still on a waiting list
16:08
for review committees. Why?
16:09
Let me read you some of the passages.
16:11
The first passage was about a woman who who is having a a a
16:17
situation with a vibrator. It was so embarrassing.
16:22
Everybody on the board just literally hung their heads while
16:25
they were listening to it. When I got finished reading
16:29
these passages, one of the board members said this is awful and
16:34
we don't need books like this to go in front of a review
16:37
committee. And what he said was the board's
16:41
going to be held responsible. Just like in Hillsborough
16:43
County, we're going to be on in the hot seat with the attorney
16:47
general if we don't start removing these books.
16:50
And he said, I believe every book that has already been
16:55
removed in a school district within the state of Florida, I
16:58
believe we need to go ahead and remove them all.
17:02
So in other words, if a book has been removed in the neighboring
17:05
county, he wants it removed in our county.
17:09
Well, the four other board members 100% agreed with him.
17:15
It was wonderful. This is going to literally save
17:20
so much time. We won't have to have these
17:23
stupid review committee meetings on all these books.
17:27
So right now it's my understanding they're going
17:31
through and they're coming up with a list of all of the books
17:35
and it's going to, it's going to be hundreds of books, possibly
17:39
even thousands. So Hillsborough County within 24
17:43
hours after receiving that letter from the attorney
17:46
General, they removed, according to their response to the
17:50
attorney general, they removed 389,000 of their 2.2 million
17:56
books. That's a lot of books.
17:59
Now, I don't know the basis for the removal.
18:02
It could have been, you know, it could have been the copies.
18:06
But if they have that many books that potentially contain
18:11
inappropriate content, then, you know, they better get their act
18:14
together. Let me, I'm going to read to you
18:17
the attorney general's quote that I found so unbelievable.
18:22
Oh, he showed up two days after that board meeting.
18:26
He showed up in Pensacola, FL, which is right down here where I
18:30
am, and he was talking about inappropriate content in library
18:37
books. He and he was talking about
18:39
vaping, just different things. But this is what he said.
18:43
Listen to this and I truly believe it was a nod to my board
18:46
members. If you want to subject our kids
18:50
to dangerous, harmful content and pornography at a young age,
18:55
we will take action that will not be acceptable here in the
19:00
state of Florida. That's what he said.
19:03
In other words, you know, I mean, he's not putting up with
19:07
it. And so I hope this summer, I
19:11
hope while our schools are closed and the libraries are
19:14
closed, I really, really hope that we see a great change
19:17
taking place. I wanted to show you, Diane,
19:23
just what I'm talking about here is a book.
19:26
It's called Queer, the ultimate LGBTQ guide for teens.
19:34
OK. This book was found at a local
19:39
elementary school in Santa Rosa County, Florida, the next county
19:44
over. I do a lot of work in that
19:45
county too. Of course.
19:50
I'm just going to read 1 section to you.
19:53
This is on page 161. The name of this chapter is
19:57
called Starting Solo. Starting Solo.
20:03
Before you start having sex with someone else, you may want to
20:07
have some with yourself. Apart from being fun and safe,
20:11
masturbation is also a fantastic way to learn about your own body
20:15
in terms of where and how you like to be touched.
20:19
And because you're the only one involved, you're rarely you'll
20:22
rarely be disappointed. The fantasies you have while
20:26
touching yourself can sometimes teach you a lot about yourself.
20:31
Skip down to the next paragraph though.
20:34
People often masturbate before they have sex for the first
20:37
time. They don't stop masturbating
20:39
just because they've started having sex with other people.
20:43
Masturbation is different from having sex because you have no
20:46
one else to be concerned with but yourself, and you can do it
20:51
anytime you like and you don't need anyone else's consent.
20:55
Now again, this was found in AK through 8 school
21:02
kindergarteners. Kindergarteners Page 165
21:10
Touching and rubbing. Genital stimulation can come
21:13
from anybody part. You can use your hands or hips
21:16
or feet. You rub your private parts or
21:19
someone's thigh, arm, butt, genitals, ankles, wherever.
21:25
Oh, there's a whole section here digging it and it talks about
21:30
anal sex. So our librarians and the people
21:40
who approve these books have the ability to morally change
21:51
children with what they put in the library.
21:54
I just could not believe that this book was found in AK
21:59
through 8 school. Now of course, you know when you
22:05
bring this to a district's attention, if they do not agree
22:10
with you, you're going to have their opinion.
22:16
Is what they're looking at. They're not looking at the law.
22:19
Is this educationally appropriate?
22:22
No, it's not. Forget your opinion.
22:25
You may think that discussing this is appropriate.
22:28
I may think it is too. I don't, and I'm sure you
22:31
probably don't either. The bottom line is, is this
22:35
beneficial for children? That's what people are are not
22:39
looking at. They're not looking at the law.
22:41
This book called Almost Adulting.
22:46
This is a book by Arden Rose and I found this book at a local
22:53
high school and I was flipping through reading it.
22:59
Page 147 Listen to this the narrative talking about watching
23:07
the movie One Night in Paris. The first porn I ever watched
23:12
was One Night in Paris. Yes, Paris Hilton.
23:15
The video embarrassingly revolved around blowjobs, but I
23:20
still gained some valuable carnal wisdom within those 20
23:24
minutes of male centric pleasure.
23:26
I didn't understand why you would willingly let a dude pee
23:29
in your mouth. By the end of the video I was
23:34
confused, disgusted, but mostly fascinated.
23:38
I went down a sordid rabbit hole.
23:40
That night I learned what BBW meant.
23:44
Big beautiful woman. I learned what being
23:48
uncircumcised actually meant. I still think it looks like the
23:51
penis is chilly and has to wear a turtleneck.
23:54
It's kind of cute in a gross penis Y way.
23:58
I was thoroughly interested in all the unfiltered smut my
24:01
greedy little pubescent eyes beheld.
24:04
My masturbation habits got upsetting.
24:08
Like I got visibly excited when the 7th period bell rang to
24:12
indicate school was over so I could run home and rub one out.
24:19
OK. This, however, is mild.
24:23
I mean, I could go on and on. It, it goes into your public
24:28
libraries. My mother and I, every summer
24:31
we, you know, we hit all the library book sales.
24:33
I'm a book freak. I'm, I'm like the, the student
24:36
in the Canterbury Tales. I spend everything I have on
24:39
books, and this was what I found in the library book sale in the
24:45
children's department. So I'm flipping through it
24:49
because I don't know if you guys have this over there, but it's
24:53
something called graphic novels. Graphic.
24:58
Yeah. I didn't even know what this was
25:00
when I first heard about graphic novels.
25:02
I'm like, OK, what does that mean?
25:03
Very detailed. I'm not a reading teacher.
25:06
I'm. I'm a literature writing
25:08
teacher. So I'm like, what is that?
25:10
Well, of course, no, it's like comic strips, that sort of
25:15
thing. And it's really used for lower
25:18
level readers. OK, I buy into that.
25:21
That's fine. But here's the issue.
25:25
I see now that a lot of publishers and, and writers and,
25:29
and all these book companies, they are using that as a tool to
25:33
certainly come in, to come in after our kids.
25:37
I will tell you, I was looking through this book and I thought,
25:40
oh, OK, this is just, this is just a, a comic book.
25:46
Now remember, I found this in the children's section and while
25:50
I was looking at it, all of a sudden I came across this
25:56
picture, a man and a woman naked, engaged in sex.
26:06
And I, I go to the librarian and I said, now remember this was a
26:10
volunteer librarian for the Friends of the Library Book
26:14
Sale. And I said, Oh my goodness, do
26:17
you understand? You have this in the children's
26:20
library book sale section. This was, this was at a Public
26:23
Library. I can even show you the stamp
26:26
Foley Public Library in Baldwin County, Alabama.
26:30
And that was one picture. There were several others and of
26:36
course he was visibly very upset.
26:39
I ended up I decided to again. I had never heard of this book,
26:44
so I decided we have in my state, it's required.
26:49
We have a database. Thank the Lord this all happened
26:53
because of COVID, but we have a database where parents can log
26:58
on and see the books that are available to their children.
27:03
Well, I logged on and I decided to look up this book called
27:07
Maestro. And so I was blown away because
27:11
guess what it was in my county that is a picture of I don't
27:17
have to read this book. There was a picture of a man and
27:21
woman a a naked picture. They were engaged in sex 100%
27:26
illegal. So I immediately while I was on
27:30
my trip with my mother, I'm taking pictures and I send it to
27:35
my school district. Well, I have to submit a form.
27:38
So I go ahead and submit the form and immediately they pulled
27:42
the book. Guess what?
27:44
It's still on the list to be reviewed.
27:46
Why? It violates the law.
27:49
Get rid of the book. You know what I'm saying?
27:54
Children cannot have access to it right now, which is good, but
27:58
why the delay? Get rid of the book.
28:01
So these are the things I think the attorney general's talking
28:04
about. He's not going to put up with
28:06
it. You, I don't care that this was
28:08
found in a high school. This is against our law.
28:12
We have a law. It's number 847 point O 1-2.
28:15
You can't have pictures, anything like that and give it
28:18
to children all in the name of education.
28:21
This is this is not if, if these writers want to be seen and read
28:29
and so forth in school, then do what's appropriate.
28:34
Why did this author feel the need to have that picture?
28:38
You know, according to the law, he just limited where this book
28:41
is found. This book, if you want, if you
28:43
want to show it to your kids, go buy it from Amazon or whatever.
28:46
Go check it out at the Public Library.
28:48
But I mean, this is the sort of thing that we're finding a lot
28:54
of. Now.
28:55
I will tell you something else that I have found which is very
28:58
interesting because our attorney general, of course, is being
29:02
notified about this. Parents, when they have children
29:07
in the school, they have their own login for the it's called
29:12
the Destiny database system. Santa Rosa County is using one
29:17
called the library system, I think is what is called Library
29:24
Connect. Something like that.
29:26
And then students have a different login and the public
29:32
doesn't have to login at all. You just go to the website and
29:35
you can see. What we're finding is that
29:39
illegally librarians are hiding books within certain logins.
29:47
In other words, let's just say, and I'm using this as a, for
29:51
instance, let's just say I had found this book and I submitted
29:56
it. The law states within five days
29:59
this book has to be off the shelves while it is going
30:03
through a reconsideration process.
30:07
Well, we're finding that the public, when they would log on,
30:12
of course, the book would not be there.
30:15
Parents when they log on, the book would not be there.
30:19
But when students log on, they would have access to some of
30:24
these books through an audio or through an e-book.
30:30
That is felonious intent. And I really, really believe
30:36
that hopefully things are going to change because people are
30:41
waking up and they're starting to see, especially when we have
30:44
leaders now who are realizing the damage that this sort of
30:48
thing causes when you have librarians who are deliberately
30:52
hiding things from parents and from the public.
30:57
They're making it available to children.
31:00
And I'm using this book as an example.
31:02
This this one is not the case that I have found, but I have
31:06
found several others. So we're just, we're in a
31:10
situation though, where I truly do believe, I want to believe
31:16
in, in, in the good that's happening.
31:20
I do believe we still have a lot of woke librarians, woke
31:25
principals. We have woke parents and they
31:28
for some reason, they want children to be sexualized.
31:35
I have found books that have comments and situations about
31:42
trans characters and I have found these available to five
31:47
year olds. Why?
31:51
That's a really detailed overview of the the situation in
31:55
Florida. So I want to thank you for that.
31:57
That was great. It's like, I guess I have some
32:00
follow up questions now about, about all this because, you
32:06
know, we're seeing similar things in the UK.
32:09
But of course, as I said, our structures are different.
32:12
Our schools are governed differently, our libraries are
32:14
governed differently. But one thing that we do have in
32:16
common between the UK and the US is that the, we have something
32:22
similar to the American Library Association, which is what I was
32:26
trained and qualified under, you know, about.
32:30
Well, I finished my, my master's in 2001.
32:34
And to me, it's amazing how different it is now to what it
32:38
was then because we were not trained to be putting the stuff
32:42
in front of children. You know, there was a, a
32:44
different thing, a different thing about censorship.
32:47
And, you know, even at that time, this wasn't that long ago
32:51
really, that in 2001 that we were talking about things that
32:55
actually didn't work very well. But how do we protect children
32:59
from using the computers at the libraries, right?
33:02
So if there's a, you know, filters that didn't work out,
33:07
but because if they would, for example, if they would type the
33:09
words breast cancer, then that would try to, you know, filter
33:14
that out because that would say, well, they're potentially
33:15
searching for pornography. We're trying to keep them away
33:18
from that. But then they didn't work
33:20
because there are ways around them.
33:21
And then legitimate searches for things they might need to write
33:26
a report about for school would get blocked erroneously, right?
33:31
But that was just, that was just 25 years ago and it was that way
33:35
when I was still in library practice.
33:38
And it just, it's amazing to me how this is all changed in such
33:42
a short amount of time, like I said.
33:44
So over here we have an organization called Sillup,
33:48
which is the reciprocal to the American Library Association.
33:50
It's the Chartered Institute for Library and Information
33:53
Professionals. And the reason I was able to
33:56
move over here and I actually trained librarians for 10 years
34:01
over here was that they have reciprocal accreditation
34:06
agreements. So if you do an American Library
34:09
Association accredited master's degree, which is the degree that
34:13
you have to have to be a librarian, a lot of people don't
34:15
realize you're supposed to have a master's degree to be a
34:17
librarian. Then you can also work in the
34:22
UK. It's the same in Canada, it's
34:24
the same in New Zealand, Australia, some European
34:28
countries, increasingly Asian, some Asian countries are
34:31
starting to look at this as well.
34:33
And it's so a lot of times, even if American students came over
34:37
here and then they could go back home and work because they just
34:41
wanted the experience of living here for, you know, a year while
34:44
they did their master's degree. And so we're seeing the same, I
34:50
guess, approach to twisting what is the nature of our profession.
34:56
I'm talking about librarians, and I would imagine education is
34:59
similar, right? So for librarians, the idea that
35:03
we're not supposed to censor anything, which I completely
35:06
agree with. I'm completely all for free
35:08
speech, but I actually lost my membership in Scillip because I
35:15
was speaking out about these kinds of things and putting
35:17
things in front of children that I didn't think were appropriate
35:21
because they said that I was being, you know, bigoted, that I
35:26
was being, you know, not I was censoring and we're not supposed
35:29
to do that. Like all of these things that
35:31
were brought against me and all these disciplinary things that I
35:34
went through and I lost my career as a librarian because I
35:40
was trying to speak out against it.
35:42
So what's really difficult is being, as far as I don't know
35:47
personally any other librarians and probably I don't even know
35:50
of any educators that I've heard from in the UK since I've been
35:55
reporting on this. Now of anyone saying that they
36:00
are against it, now it's possible that some of them are
36:03
against it and they're not speaking up because they're
36:06
afraid to. The ones that I do hear from are
36:09
are just concerned parents. I'm not saying just parents, but
36:12
it's not the people that are in the positions where they can
36:15
make the decisions and decide what they're going to do in the
36:19
schools or in the libraries. It's the parents saying, what
36:21
are you people putting in front of my children?
36:23
And then in some cases over here, when the parents complain,
36:27
they actually get complaints filed against them by the
36:31
librarians because the librarians are saying that the
36:34
parents are causing problems, saying the parents have have no
36:38
right whatsoever to say what goes in front of their children.
36:41
And so the reason, you know, the reason I'm, I'm saying this, I
36:46
guess is because I'm very interested coming from the side
36:51
of being the qualified librarian.
36:55
And I was actually a full professor in librarianship when
36:58
I lost my career. So I was the top of my field.
37:02
Yeah. I was 20 years of teaching in
37:06
universities in the US, Canada and the UK.
37:11
Very long CV obviously to become a full professor, dedicated all
37:16
of my life to achieving that goal.
37:18
And then I achieved it. And then it was taken away from
37:21
me because I spoke up for what was right or what I believe is
37:24
right, what is right. That makes me so sad.
37:27
I don't know what to do. My respect for you is up here.
37:34
I'm going to tell you I no listen to what I'm telling you.
37:39
I hear exactly what you're saying.
37:41
When I first started speaking out about this, the next thing I
37:44
knew, here I am. Every year as a teacher, we are
37:49
evaluated. Y'all probably are over there as
37:51
well. Yeah, I did evaluation every
37:56
single year. The next thing I know, I'm under
38:00
investigation too. Why?
38:03
Because these journalists had written articles about me and
38:08
had sent, it's called bot emails.
38:12
I didn't even know what a bot was, but it's like a prescribed
38:17
e-mail form e-mail had sent it to my board members.
38:25
Like OK, obviously this woman hates people of color.
38:31
Obviously, this woman hates LGBTQ people.
38:35
Has she ever mistreated any of her students?
38:38
I don't know if any of my students are gay.
38:40
We don't talk about that. That's not my job.
38:43
My job is to teach English. I mean, this was so silly.
38:47
And, you know, I'm just a person.
38:50
I live, I live in the woods. I, I call myself Rebecca of
38:55
Sunnybrook Farm, OK. I'm just a person who I try to
39:00
love everybody. I certainly have an opinion, but
39:03
I value other people's opinion too.
39:06
When it comes to kids, though, and it's hard for some people to
39:10
realize high school kids are still minors.
39:12
They may have figures, they may look mature.
39:16
They may have beards. They're minors.
39:19
And when it comes to kids, I will go down fighting.
39:23
And I, too, went through all of this stuff where, you know,
39:28
accusations were made. It almost killed me because I've
39:34
never had anything like this said about me.
39:37
And it was certainly not my local people.
39:40
It was people from media, people from that's one thing I can say
39:45
these these people who behave this way, they know how to
39:49
organize. That was not something I was
39:52
used to. And all I knew to do was I just,
39:55
you know, I kept praying and I kept trying to stand up and do
39:59
what was right as obviously you have done Diane and the, the
40:04
sometimes though what I am seeing.
40:07
We are put in a different situation for the betterment of
40:14
society. I am a person of faith.
40:18
I had to lean on God. I leaned on my husband, my
40:21
family, my church, and I was like, what in the world?
40:25
People are people who don't even know me are social media is the
40:30
worst. I had attacks from people I've
40:33
never even heard of before. And I'm like, who are you?
40:37
You know, it was terrible. So I understand now.
40:40
The difference is I have more years in than you.
40:45
I'm also a union member. My union does some things I
40:49
don't agree with, but I'm smart enough to stay in the union.
40:52
They come also the union Rep at my school, which is kind of, you
40:57
know, it's kind of like nobody knew what to do with me because
41:01
I have not violated any laws. I'm speaking up for something
41:04
that I agree with and for me right now, we have an attorney
41:10
general who is also agreeing with me and the now the board is
41:14
seeing this as well. And they, they want to see
41:17
things. My advice to you, my advice to
41:22
people like you. I can tell you I'm the only
41:26
teacher that I know of in my county and in the next county
41:30
over who is publicly standing up and speaking out.
41:33
That's OK, because I've taken the hits just like you have
41:38
taken the hits. A lot of people are scared.
41:41
I have librarians who send me things.
41:45
They know that this is not right, but they're scared to
41:48
speak up because they need jobs. I understand it.
41:50
I get it. I get it.
41:54
You know, I, all I can say is if we as adults sit silently by and
42:02
let this sort of thing keep coming in and, and being in
42:06
front of our children, we are going to have to give an account
42:10
of this. We are supposed to be the
42:12
gatekeepers, especially in education.
42:16
Now, I'm not a librarian, but I'm an English teacher.
42:19
And I can tell you when I was growing up, our librarian,
42:24
everything that came in, she wouldn't even let us check it
42:27
out until she had checked it out herself, You know?
42:30
Well, now we have so many more tools available.
42:33
You can scan things. You can, you know what I'm
42:36
saying? You can look for keywords.
42:38
I just don't understand why we don't have more people being
42:42
proactive, even silently, even silently.
42:47
So, Diane, I admire you. I'm, I'm so sorry that this has
42:52
happened, but here's what I want to say.
42:55
I, I promise you there's something bigger for you.
42:59
And this, it may be this, this precipice of what you're doing
43:03
right now, you're getting it out there.
43:06
What you've been through. There is a reason for everything
43:09
and there is something bigger. Do I think that I have something
43:13
bigger? I don't know.
43:14
I don't know. I just know that I can lay my
43:17
head down at night and I can feel like I'm trying to do what
43:22
I feel like God has placed in my heart to be the right thing.
43:27
Even if somebody's not a believer in a higher moral
43:31
power, you have to know that putting this stuff in front of
43:35
children, putting, putting this about masturbation in front of
43:40
kindergartners, this is not right.
43:43
This is not right. And so if we don't have more
43:48
people taking a stand, they, OK, they may have a perfect life
43:52
here on this earth, but they will be held accountable.
43:55
They will be held accountable. And so thank you, Diane.
43:59
Thank you. I'm sorry.
44:01
I'm so sorry that that's happened.
44:02
But you know what? You were too good for that
44:05
position anyway. You are going to be able to
44:07
reach a whole lot more people doing what you're doing right
44:11
now. So you just stand strong.
44:13
Thank you. No, it is true that I, I have an
44:17
incredible platform here with UK column and you know, I think
44:20
we're, we're truly free speech independent media company, which
44:25
is not true, including the media companies that published
44:28
whatever horrible things were published about you.
44:32
You know, one thing that I want to comment on is the political
44:35
situation. So having grown up in America,
44:40
it it's very different than it is over here.
44:43
And, and I think one thing that happens in America is because
44:47
essentially we have two parties, right?
44:49
You're either one side or the other side, and, and that you
44:53
have to agree with everything on one side if you're a Democrat or
44:57
if you're a Republican. And So what happens in America,
45:01
and I say this after living there for the majority of my
45:04
life, and I've been over here now for 10 years, is the
45:09
majority of librarians are, are Democrats in the states.
45:13
They're all liberal left wing and they identify as, you know,
45:20
anyone who hates Trump or who hates Biden or Harris or whoever
45:25
is in charge is a complete idiot.
45:27
And and you know, all, all the Trump haters are stupid and all
45:32
of the smart people love Biden, Harris, Obama, whoever it is.
45:36
But along with that comes this this same idea of basically
45:43
being allowing children to read whatever it is that they want to
45:46
read. If you look at some of the
45:48
funding behind the American Library Association and how the
45:53
money gets to them and who backs them.
45:56
Amanda Jones, for example, Right.
45:57
We all know Amanda Jones. We don't love Amanda Jones, but
46:00
we know who Amanda Jones is. That book, that librarian, which
46:04
I have written reviews about and talked about here on this
46:06
channel, she has, if you look at the back of her book, she has an
46:11
endorsement from Oprah. The documentary that was made
46:16
called That Librarian or I think it was about several of them
46:21
doing something similar to Amanda Jones had a documentary
46:24
that was executive produced by Sarah Jessica Parker.
46:29
There is globalist, a so-called Foot Flamanthropist to fund
46:36
things in the American Library Association, including things
46:38
like the Freedom of Freedom to Read project.
46:41
And I'll be including, you know, really, really rich men that who
46:46
knows what they do behind closed doors.
46:48
We don't want to know. We kind of know, but we don't
46:50
want to know. And, and so they have all the
46:54
big financial backers behind them.
46:57
They have the support of the Democrat Party and whatever
47:01
donors they have, and it's really the funding of the
47:04
American Library Association that gets things in and because
47:08
Philip is smaller than the American Library Association,
47:11
but they just kind of follow what Ala does.
47:14
And I know that from being a both of them in the past for for
47:18
many years. And and so I think, you know,
47:23
this is something that that that I believe because the reporting
47:27
that I do now in UK column, we look at a lot of the larger
47:30
agenda, like what's actually driving this stuff, right?
47:35
And one of the things that has been driving, for example,
47:39
putting sexual content in front of children are the big
47:42
organizations like the World Economic Forum, United Nations,
47:47
the World Health Organization that actually has guidance.
47:51
That one of the, the writers who's written the material for
47:54
me recently, because I'm a, I'm the commissioning editor for UK
47:57
column has found evidence of saying that children are sexual
48:02
beings from birth. And therefore This is why we
48:06
need to expose them to sexual content.
48:09
And they in the UK, there's actual guidance from the
48:13
government policies saying, and this, this is something that
48:17
we're fighting a lot. They call it things like
48:18
relationships and sexuality education or RSE, different
48:23
names in different parts of the UK.
48:25
Let's say this is what they should be, you know, at age 6,
48:28
they need to learn how to identify a penis at age 7, they
48:33
need to learn like all of these things that it's, and it's all
48:36
from these larger organizations in a lot of cases.
48:39
And then they, they, you know, basically our, our current Prime
48:43
Minister, Keir Starmer is a very active, very strong promoter of
48:49
the World Economic Forum, as is King Charles.
48:53
And so they're the ones putting these policies forward.
48:56
And so they're going to actually come back to London to put them
48:59
in place. And the whole country has to
49:01
follow them. And So what we're fighting
49:04
against here are really, really, really big things.
49:08
But I think the things that are going to make the difference, if
49:12
we are have any chance at all of fighting this are people like
49:16
you and me and our colleagues in the World Library Association.
49:21
Thank you again for allowing me to be a member.
49:23
It's really great. It this is what we have to be
49:26
doing because I'm, I'm really, really afraid that the majority
49:31
of the public are not aware of what their children are being
49:37
exposed to. And I know that in a lot of
49:40
cases in both of our countries, children are told if you want to
49:45
become, if you decide that you're gay or you decide that
49:48
you want to transition, you, you don't have to tell your parents.
49:51
There's, there's official guidance about that over here.
49:55
If you want to change from Joanne to Joseph and you don't
50:00
have to tell your parents. We'll keep it private.
50:02
You can tell a teacher. And so parents are not even
50:06
involved in understanding what their children are being allowed
50:09
to do in the schools. Yeah.
50:11
In Florida, our attorney general just I mean, that's in place.
50:17
You cannot hide that from parents.
50:20
You cannot like and, and you're not as a teacher, I'm not
50:25
supposed to talk about that with a kid.
50:28
You know, it's, it's not my place to so I'm, I'm thankful
50:33
that we have those laws, but I, I definitely agree with you.
50:37
It we've got some, we've got some hard hitters with the world
50:41
Library Association and, and buddy, they know their stuff.
50:45
They're coming out strong and that's it's going to take many,
50:50
many of us like you, for instance, with your show,
50:53
different people have ways that they're getting things out.
50:57
I have a weekly video that I do every Wednesday it's called
51:02
Watchmen Wednesday. I put it on YouTube.
51:06
Clean books, Dash VBI have a website I'll send you the link
51:12
that had it has all my videos. It has all of the forms of books
51:16
that I've submitted. I work with rated books.
51:23
You know, I mean, there are so many organizations that are out
51:28
there who are trying so hard to get the word out that here's
51:33
what we have found in this content.
51:35
Parents, you know, be aware. It's certainly is your right as
51:40
a parent to expose your child or whatever you want to.
51:43
But you need to be aware what I have also found and maybe you
51:50
can answer this in the Destiny program.
51:53
I don't know what y'all call your databases over there but in
51:56
the Destiny program for instance I found a lot of books that
52:01
would say things about the books.
52:03
For instance, Julie is going to find herself taking a trip to
52:08
Paris with her her with with some cousins and their best
52:12
friend. Never does it mention that Julie
52:16
is going to fall in love with the same sex best friend and
52:21
therefore that book is going to be about a same sex
52:24
relationship. So what I have found in a lot of
52:29
the content is that the Destiny, the Mark report, it's called a
52:33
Mark report over here. The Mark report is not current
52:37
or it's not complete, I guess I should say.
52:41
And that's not fair. That's not fair to parents.
52:44
Some parents may not want their child exposed to that,
52:47
especially at an early age. And so we need full
52:53
transparency. No trying to.
52:55
I don't think that anybody's trying to ban books.
52:59
I'm so sick of hearing that if you can still purchase a book
53:02
somewhere, the book is not banned.
53:05
It's just that the average person who does not want kids
53:09
exposed to this, they do not want, or he or she does not want
53:15
that person's tax money spent for this.
53:19
Speak. Go by the classics for crying
53:22
out loud. Go by something that's
53:24
educationally suitable. Teaching a kid how to masturbate
53:29
is not going to help the kid graduate high school.
53:32
No, come on. No, that's one of the things
53:35
that I hear frequently from librarians is the, the idea of
53:39
the banned books that if you look at the, there's the freedom
53:42
to read project, the Ala, there's the every library
53:45
project. And, and, and, and they've
53:47
really got people believing and that and, and librarians
53:51
obviously seem to believe this themselves, or at least if they
53:54
don't believe it, they don't say anything that books are bad.
53:57
There is not a single book that is banned in the United States.
54:01
I used to, I used to teach library cataloguing.
54:05
And so basically the, the process of, you know, putting
54:08
all the information into the system so that you can search
54:11
for it. I taught that for years.
54:13
I did research on it. I used to, I used to do it.
54:16
And, you know, we used to have these discussions about what do
54:21
you know, is there anything that we would ever ban?
54:25
The answer was, was always no. But it used to be that we had
54:29
age appropriateness, right? Like when social media started
54:34
becoming popular, we used to say, well, you know, if children
54:37
are going to be accessing, what was it then?
54:39
Myspace, you know, way back in the day when all this first
54:42
started, kids read Myspace and other earlier sites to make sure
54:46
that they learn how to use it appropriately.
54:48
Don't talk to certain people. Ask your parents if something
54:52
happens. You know, all of the guidance
54:53
that we used to teach for children to be able to use it
54:58
and all of that. But then when it comes to the
55:01
issue of censorship and banning, you know, I still believe even
55:05
after all of this going on, that anyone over the age of 18 can
55:08
read whatever they want, like it.
55:10
You know, I personally don't spend time reading that kind of
55:14
stuff. But if you want to, that's your
55:16
choice. And that's what we were taught
55:18
to believe as in my training as a librarian, that you shouldn't
55:22
make assumptions or make decisions for people.
55:26
Your job was just to be neutral and provide the information.
55:31
And for example, you know, one of the things when I was
55:34
finishing my master's degree, it was, you know, I graduated in
55:38
December of 2001. So 911 had just happened.
55:43
And we were having discussions about, say, for example, someone
55:46
who looks like they're from a certain part of the world walks
55:51
in the library. And do you provide them with
55:54
maps of airports? Did you, did you give them books
55:57
on how to fly? The answer is yes, you do,
56:01
because you're not there to pass a judgment.
56:03
You just give them what they need and whatever they do with
56:06
it when they leave, you know, if they're over 18 and obviously
56:10
there's nothing you can do about it.
56:12
And it was the thing when I worked in university libraries
56:15
because university students are over 18.
56:18
And so, you know, there was, there was no restriction,
56:22
shouldn't have been any restriction on what they were
56:25
looking up on the library computers or what they were
56:27
taught in university classes or anything like that.
56:30
But something has happened. It's very, very serious and
56:35
very, very evil in the past few years.
56:39
And I have to say, I didn't even realize that it had happened
56:44
because I was actually never a children's librarian.
56:48
I did all kinds of training for different kinds of librarians
56:50
and I had librarians who went on internships in different kinds
56:54
of libraries. But you know, because it just
56:58
all happened so quickly and all of a sudden this was out there
57:01
and I was just as a as a shock where when you found when you
57:05
found cool. So it we really, we have a lot
57:10
of questions to ask. And one of the things I will say
57:13
about librarians in general is that they are very happy to go
57:18
on to bandwagons, right? Like if they're told, oh, we
57:22
have to be inclusive and diverse, then that's what
57:25
they're going to do. And that's all they're going to
57:26
talk about, right? You, if you look at the
57:28
professional library literature nowadays in the journals and so
57:33
on, American Library Association.
57:35
Otherwise, every other article, if not every article these days
57:39
is all about how do we provide better access during Pride
57:43
month? What kinds of displays do we
57:45
want to have for what are we going to do to better support
57:49
the LGBTQ students that come in? I never heard a word of that 25
57:55
years ago in our strength. So it's just something's
57:59
happened very quickly. And and, you know, when it comes
58:02
down to it and you know, I want to wrap up here in just a
58:05
minute. Unfortunately, we're just about
58:06
time. Is that our, you know, one of
58:11
our basically our founder of UK column, Brian Garish, He talks a
58:17
lot about this being a spiritual battle, like you said.
58:21
And then there's a battle between good and evil.
58:23
And what happens to those of us who are trying to fight for the
58:25
light side or the good side ends up getting really pushed down by
58:29
it. Because I know I feel that way
58:31
sometimes. I know Brian feels that way.
58:34
Any of us who are fighting these, these evil forces, they
58:38
will, whatever spiritual thing is going on, you know, if you
58:43
want to call it Satan as a Christian or whatever it is that
58:45
you think it is or something happening where they're after
58:49
us. And that's where our, I think
58:52
our really, our faith in what we're doing has to stay strong.
58:56
And that's what they hate. That's what the other side
58:58
really hates. And then they accuse us of the
59:00
likes of being hateful. Yes, I agree with you.
59:04
And I will, I want to say too, you know, one of my questions
59:08
was, and I, I'm, I'm a very active member of my church.
59:12
I love my church. That's my second family.
59:15
But my question was, OK, where are the churches?
59:20
Where are the churches in this battle?
59:22
This is very, very, very serious.
59:25
But I had a woman who said something to me this week, and
59:29
it kind of, it kind of has made sense.
59:33
She said, Vicki, if I'm standing next to you and I'm not touching
59:39
you and you're telling me all this stuff, if I'm not touching
59:45
you or talking to you, is it affecting you?
59:47
And I said, well, no. She said, but then if I keep
59:50
poking your shoulder, is it affecting you?
59:53
And I said, yeah. And she said, OK, What's
59:56
happening is so many people right now, even people within
1:00:01
the church. They're living their lives and
1:00:04
they don't think this effects them.
1:00:07
Most of the warriors that I have in my county who are speaking up
1:00:12
and stepping out, their grandparents, their
1:00:16
grandparents. I have very few parents and I, I
1:00:20
get a lot of parents are so busy.
1:00:23
Most people are working two and three jobs.
1:00:25
I get every bit of that. But I'm sitting here thinking,
1:00:30
oh, my goodness, I But then I did have a parent again.
1:00:35
I have a lot of parents who will send me books.
1:00:37
Hey, look at this. You know, I had a parent who
1:00:42
said to me, I do not want my name used in anything because I
1:00:45
feel as if my child will be targeted.
1:00:50
And you know what? I sat back and I said, Oh, my
1:00:53
word, you're probably right. You're right.
1:00:56
We are living in such a vicious, vicious time.
1:01:00
You can't do anything. You stand up and you speak out.
1:01:04
The next thing you know, people have made-up all kinds of crap
1:01:07
about you on social media. I told a reporter I he was
1:01:11
asking me about racial stuff, and I said what I said.
1:01:15
My best friend is a black woman and she is it's somebody I love
1:01:20
dearly. As a matter of fact, I teach in
1:01:22
her former classroom. I think that she's one of my
1:01:26
dearest friends. The next thing I know, that's
1:01:28
the headline of a news article. My best friend is black and he's
1:01:32
playing up on the fact that I even said that.
1:01:35
And I'm like, really? It was, it's just ridiculous.
1:01:39
What these so-called journalists, I call them
1:01:42
bloggers, it's what they'll do to try to get a good story.
1:01:47
They inflate everything. So I, I, I do get that some with
1:01:53
parents, but as far as the churches, you know, it is a
1:01:57
spiritual battle. And I, I finally had some people
1:02:01
within the church, you know, they, they realized what was
1:02:03
happening. And a lot of them are elderly.
1:02:07
They certainly can't come to board meetings and things like
1:02:09
that. But you know, what they can do
1:02:11
is they can pray. And prayer is prayer is probably
1:02:16
prayer is, is a Direct Line to God, you know, And so that
1:02:21
battle is the bad good is going to win out.
1:02:25
It's just making it through the process.
1:02:27
But what I have found that helps me is I try to stay in the word
1:02:33
because let me tell you something, reading some of the
1:02:36
junk that I'm reading, it's porn.
1:02:38
It affects your mind. I have to walk away.
1:02:41
I have to try to cleanse myself. When I am at the board meetings
1:02:46
and I'm reading some of this stuff, my husband sits out there
1:02:49
in the audience like this because it's so bad.
1:02:53
And when I get finished, I am so ashamed that I have had to say
1:02:59
these words. It affects me so bad.
1:03:01
Now there are some words I won't say, but some passages is what
1:03:05
I'm talking about. It's it, it's degrading, but
1:03:11
people need to understand this is what our children are being
1:03:15
fed now. People say, well library books
1:03:19
are self selected, it doesn't matter.
1:03:22
A media specialist is paid from an instructional fund, therefore
1:03:28
a media specialist. A librarian is considered an
1:03:32
instructor. Therefore the books within her
1:03:37
possession or his possession, there, they can be used for
1:03:41
instruction. I should be able to walk into
1:03:44
any school library, check out a book and go to my classroom and
1:03:49
read passages from that book. Or if a student were to check
1:03:53
out a book and do a book report and that student wanted to read
1:03:56
some passages, the student should be able to.
1:03:59
Well, let me tell you that's not the case.
1:04:02
That's not the case. No, no, and you know, it's, it's
1:04:06
interesting to, it's interesting what you're saying about
1:04:09
churches because one of the things that, and I, I hope this
1:04:12
is not the case with your, your church.
1:04:14
I, I really hope this isn't true.
1:04:16
But in the over here in the Church of England, the, the
1:04:21
protect and teach group that I work with, and I've interviewed
1:04:24
Kathy Mudge and I've worked with her.
1:04:25
She's her, her group is all about, you know, being against
1:04:29
indoctrination. Schools has found evidence from
1:04:32
the Church of England providing guidance for transgender
1:04:36
children and how to be inclusive to trans LGB.
1:04:40
In the church, my church is a little Southern Baptist church
1:04:43
and Oh my goodness, no, we are conservative and we, we love
1:04:47
everybody. We love everybody.
1:04:50
We love the Sinner and hate the sin, you know what I'm saying?
1:04:54
But yeah, we're, we believe that a lot of people are confused and
1:04:59
we ourselves included, we sin every single day.
1:05:02
I mean, you know, we all are, are, are imperfect creatures.
1:05:07
That's why we're here on this earth.
1:05:08
This is a test, you know, but I just want to keep working in
1:05:13
this area as I'm sure you do, Diane, because this is a test.
1:05:17
I don't want to fail, you know, And when, when things are put in
1:05:22
front of me, I don't know, these books, sometimes I think they
1:05:26
fall off the shelves and land in my lap.
1:05:29
And it's like, I've had students who have left books in my
1:05:33
classroom before and I've, I, I will pick the book up.
1:05:36
I'll read them. And I'm like, Oh my word.
1:05:39
I found one the other day with a six page sex scene, you know, I,
1:05:45
I, I don't know. Is this necessary?
1:05:48
No, it's not. We were.
1:05:50
We were just talking about Othello.
1:05:52
I just finished teaching Othello in my dual enrollment class.
1:05:55
Hello, Shakespeare, the greatest of all times.
1:05:58
Othello is loaded. You've got your interracial
1:06:01
marriage, you've got murder. You've got sexual content.
1:06:06
It's not graphic. He alludes to so much happiness
1:06:10
to their sheets. You know, everybody knew what
1:06:13
what it was being talked about. I mean, come on, We can read
1:06:17
between the lines. That's what makes it so great.
1:06:20
The I really feel like these new writers that are writing this
1:06:24
graphic stuff is because they can't write.
1:06:27
So that's the way they have to write to try to get attention.
1:06:31
I mean, I'm just blown away. I have a, a friend who is a
1:06:36
professor in English who has said that that the publishers
1:06:43
for current, at least here in the UK for, for current children
1:06:48
and young adults literature, that they won't take anything
1:06:52
the at the publication level as well.
1:06:55
If it's not, doesn't have some kind of content like this in it.
1:07:00
Like basically that's what the publishers are looking for
1:07:02
because that's what they think is selling.
1:07:04
And so those are the authors who are getting the contracts.
1:07:09
Yeah, that does not surprise me. But you know what I think should
1:07:12
happen? These authors should band
1:07:14
together and completely self publish or come up with their
1:07:17
own group. They've got to find a way around
1:07:20
it because that don't sell yourself in order to be out
1:07:27
there. Don't sell yourself like you
1:07:30
know, or sell your soul or sell your morals.
1:07:33
In other words, compromise your morals.
1:07:36
I just wouldn't do that. No, unfortunately we're, we're,
1:07:40
we're just out of time here. Is there anything else that you
1:07:44
would like to say to our audience that we haven't talked
1:07:48
about already? I just want to say thank you for
1:07:51
this opportunity, Diane. I appreciate you.
1:07:54
I appreciate your platform. I feel like, you know, I really
1:07:59
feel like this is something, like you said, it's happening
1:08:02
everywhere and the more people talk about it, the more others
1:08:06
are going to know. That's very important.
1:08:08
But I just want to warn parents, it's as dangerous with the
1:08:13
online platform as it is with the printed platform.
1:08:18
You know, you've got Sora, you have Libby, all of these or
1:08:22
those those online platforms I have found where kids can log on
1:08:27
and they have access to Pornhub from school, you know, so I
1:08:33
mean, parents really, really, really need to be on top of
1:08:38
their game. I would not do not trust things
1:08:43
do not trust just because something's something has a
1:08:47
green light from the school system.
1:08:49
Don't think that it's it's all that because it's not in the
1:08:53
adjacent county. They were using a tutoring
1:08:56
company that came from China and had access to things that really
1:09:05
the state of Florida said no. And when the state of Florida
1:09:08
found out they they had them remove that.
1:09:10
So I mean, but kids had access to tutors from there.
1:09:15
And there's, in other words, that's some that's a type of
1:09:19
influence that may not be applicable to young kids.
1:09:24
So parents just really, really need to be vigilant.
1:09:28
And you use everybody used to assume that people wanted what
1:09:33
was best for their kids. It is not that way anymore.
1:09:36
It is not that way as you said. There's something definitely
1:09:40
evil and wicked happening right here in front of our noses.
1:09:44
And if we as adults and parents close our eyes and pretend that
1:09:49
it's not happening, we are complicit in the whole thing.
1:09:53
Thank you for having me on here today.
1:09:56
I absolutely agree. Thank you again Vicki.
1:09:59
This was a really wonderful conversation and I hope it
1:10:02
inspires more people to get out there and see what's in your
1:10:06
libraries. Whether you're a parent or a
1:10:08
grandparent or not, we all have duties to protect the children
1:10:12
in our society. So thank you again for your
1:10:15
passion and your time and your dedication to what you do.
1:10:18
It's absolutely wonderful to hear.
1:10:20
Again, this is Diane Rathus Mcaddy with UK Column News Been
1:10:24
talking to Vicki Begat today and please watch us.
1:10:28
And we have plenty of other coverage on this topic as well.
1:10:31
If you look at the UK column website where I'm interviewing
1:10:35
lots of people who are doing similar work and it's very, very
1:10:39
difficult and exhausting work, but it's to me one of the most
1:10:42
important things that we can be doing is trying to protect and
1:10:46
safeguard the future of our children.
1:10:48
Thanks again and thank you again.
1:10:50
Thank you, Diane.