Nausicaa Codes

On using black liberation to justify hate groups

by Nausicaa Rose
2018-07-12

James LaRue, Director of American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom, recently wrote:

ALA [...] recognizes that “hate groups” is a remarkably elastic term, prone to be thrown about by both sides of a political spectrum. It has been attached to book discussion groups, Black Lives Matter, Muslim groups, and others.

The more I think about this statement the more disturbed I am. Black Lives Matter is a movement that began to put an end to the de facto legalized lynching of black Americans. They advocate for equal human rights for black Americans. While it is true that some have accussed BLM of being a hate group, it is a position that has never held any merit or justification. It a position articulated by those who oppose equal rights for black Americans. I am appalled that LaRue uses his considerable weight within our profession and the weight of the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom to legitimize a position that is baseless and nonsensical on its face. For LaRue to publicly lend credence to the fictional notion that BLM is a hate group or that the concept of hate groups is merely political mudslinging requires a profound level of ignorance or worse: a profound level of intellectual dishonesty. To humor such a baseless claim requires either naively accepting a disinformation campaign conducted by those who support the continuation of race-based lynchings or, more worryingly, some level of agreement with those who see no problem with unarmed, nonviolent people being summarily executed because of the color of their skin.

To make matters worse, he made the same argument on Twitter regarding Martin Luther King Jr. To use a black civil rights movement once to justify making space for hate groups could maybe be forgiven as poor judgment. To do it twice begins to suggest something less forgivable.