Tag: book burning

Man burns 100 library books; residents donate 1,000 more to local libraries

In Beachwood, the community is rallying together after a man reportedly burned 100 books from the local library — and filmed himself doing it.

For Kate Anderson Foley, books are more than just words on a page.

“These are our words, these are our lived experiences,” said Foley.

As the author of a children’s book about a young girl named Ida finding her voice in a world filled with hate, Foley has experienced that power firsthand.

“She comes to the realization there are many people like her, like us, that are gathered here to be able to say, let’s stand up and speak out,” said Foley.

What angers her most is when those pages are destroyed.

“It’s hurtful, no doubt about it,” said Foley.

On Monday, members of an Interfaith Group Against Hate (IGAH) gathered outside Fairmount Presbyterian Church to stand united against hate. This comes after reports that a man checked out 100 books related to race, religion, and LGBTQ+ topics from the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Beachwood — then burned them in a video posted to social media.

On April 22, the man checked out 50 books from the library relating to those topics and posted a photo of a car trunk full of books with a caption relating to “cleansing” the libraries, Beachwood Police said.

The books in the trunk of the car in the photo appeared to match the topics of books checked out by the man and had Cuyahoga County Public Library stickers on them.

The library was tipped off to the photo, and when he returned to pick up 50 more books, he said his son was a part of the LGBTQ+ community and he was trying to learn more, police said.

When a video of the man burning the books surfaced on social media, the library was tipped off once again. In the video, the books appeared to match the theme and titles of the books listed above. The video shows one book with a Cuyahoga County Public Library sticker on it, and matches one of the specific books checked out by the man.

“It was a man’s voice and image and foreboding tones describing the need to cleanse the community of the library of the books that he was setting a fire,” said Robert Nosanchuk, the Senior Rabbi at Congregation Mishkan Or.

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Book burning at Ontario francophone schools as ‘gesture of reconciliation’ denounced

A book burning held by an Ontario francophone school board as an act of reconciliation with Indigenous people has received sharp condemnation from Canadian political leaders and the board itself now says it regrets its symbolic gesture.

The “flame purification” ceremony, first reported by Radio Canada , was held in 2019 by the Conseil scolaire catholique Providence, which oversees elementary and secondary schools in southwestern Ontario. Some 30 books, the national broadcaster reported, were burned for “educational purposes” and then the ashes were used as fertilizer to plant a tree.

“We bury the ashes of racism, discrimination and stereotypes in the hope that we will grow up in an inclusive country where all can live in prosperity and security,” says a video prepared for students about the book burning, Radio Canada reported.

In total, more than 4,700 books were removed from library shelves at 30 schools across the school board, and they have since been destroyed or are in the process of being recycled, Radio Canada reported.

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Trans Activist Ridiculed For Burning Harry Potter Books

Harry Potter author JK Rowling routinely enrages transgender activists by asserting that biological women are being discriminated against, erased and put under threat as a result of trans people being treated as women.

“When you throw open the doors of bathrooms and changing rooms to any man who believes or feels he’s a woman … then you open the door to any and all men who wish to come inside,” Rowling wrote last year.

Such common sense has been branded as an “attack” on the transgender community.

Respondents to the book burning tweet pointed out the similarity to how religious fundamentalists wanted to burn Harry Potter books in the 2000s.

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