Hatred or no, library arson sparks action
Hatred or no, library arson sparks action
By Eric Zorn
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Published June 20, 2006
As arsons go, they don't get much smaller than the tiny fire police say was deliberately set last week at the John Merlo branch of the Chicago Public Library.
Staffers detected the fire quickly and used an extinguisher to put it out before anyone was hurt. The library remained open, and if you visit there today, the only reminders of the incident are gaps on several shelves where destroyed books used to sit.
But the location makes it a bigger event. For both symbolic and safety reasons, the idea of arson in the stacks, no matter how relatively unsuccessful, is chilling. Public libraries are not only embodiments of liberty but, with all that paper, prospective tinderboxes.
More chilling still to many is that the unknown arsonist chose to set the fire in the heart of the Chicago area's largest unified collection of gay and lesbian-oriented books.
The two-story Merlo library at 644 W. Belmont Ave. is in the North Side area where many gays and lesbians live, and branch manager Cynthia Rodgers describes the 1,000-book collection as "our pride and joy."
She lost 77 titles from that collection to the fire, and another 23 from the African-American collection immediately behind it. She will quickly replace them all, she said.
"The timing and the target leave little doubt about the intention of the arsonist," writes columnist Paul Varnell in Wednesday's issue of the Chicago Free Press. "Someone clearly wanted to lash out against gays."
Varnell points out that June is Gay Pride month; Chicago's spectacular parade next weekend will pass half a block from the library's door. The city will host the international Gay Games in July. And anti-gay activists recently submitted petitions to put an anti gay-marriage advisory referendum item on Illinois' November ballot.
"I connect those same dots," said Rick Garcia, head of the gay-rights group Equality Illinois. "This fire wasn't set in the travel section. It wasn't set in the cooking section. It was set in the gay and lesbian section."
Garcia said he has received numerous calls and e-mails from members of his community decrying the Chicago Police Department's refusal to classify the arson as a hate crime and wondering why mainstream news organizations haven't made a bigger deal about the fire. (The Tribune ran a six-paragraph item last week.)
It was unusual, no doubt. Book burnings in public libraries are essentially unheard of in the United States, said Deborah Caldwell Stone, deputy director of the office for intellectual freedom for the American Library Association, based in Chicago.
"We do see vandalism and protesters taking books out of libraries and not returning them," Stone said.
But arson strikes deeper, she said, "because books and fire together are a traditional symbol for censorship."
Seen this way, the torching of the books at the Merlo library was an ominous and threatening gesture.
But seen another way, Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said, it could be a coincidence. The fire took place in the far northeast corner of the library stacks--one of the most secluded spots on the top floor--and the sign above it reads "Books in foreign languages and fiction," not "gay books."
The arsonist (or arsonists; there are no witnesses or surveillance video) left no note and did not use an accelerant, Bond said. This suggests the crime was neither particularly well planned nor intended to make the sort of unambiguous statement made by those who, say, paint swastikas on synagogues.
"There's no evidence that this was a hate crime" other than its location, Bond said.
And news organizations need that kind of evidence to turn a little fire into a big story.
But Varnell, whose intuition is all the traction he needs, has a response that works whether the arsonist was a zealous homophobe or a random firebug: He's urging his readers to earmark donations to the Chicago Public Library Foundation (chicagopubliclibraryfoundation.org) for the Merlo branch gay collection.
Restoration is not enough, he writes. "It must be expanded" to show anyone who delights in this crime that "any attack on gay people will be met by an even stronger response."
The ashes may be mysterious, but the message to rise from them will be perfectly clear.
----------
Comments: chicagotribune.com/zorn
By Eric Zorn
Copyright by The Chicago Tribune
Published June 20, 2006
As arsons go, they don't get much smaller than the tiny fire police say was deliberately set last week at the John Merlo branch of the Chicago Public Library.
Staffers detected the fire quickly and used an extinguisher to put it out before anyone was hurt. The library remained open, and if you visit there today, the only reminders of the incident are gaps on several shelves where destroyed books used to sit.
But the location makes it a bigger event. For both symbolic and safety reasons, the idea of arson in the stacks, no matter how relatively unsuccessful, is chilling. Public libraries are not only embodiments of liberty but, with all that paper, prospective tinderboxes.
More chilling still to many is that the unknown arsonist chose to set the fire in the heart of the Chicago area's largest unified collection of gay and lesbian-oriented books.
The two-story Merlo library at 644 W. Belmont Ave. is in the North Side area where many gays and lesbians live, and branch manager Cynthia Rodgers describes the 1,000-book collection as "our pride and joy."
She lost 77 titles from that collection to the fire, and another 23 from the African-American collection immediately behind it. She will quickly replace them all, she said.
"The timing and the target leave little doubt about the intention of the arsonist," writes columnist Paul Varnell in Wednesday's issue of the Chicago Free Press. "Someone clearly wanted to lash out against gays."
Varnell points out that June is Gay Pride month; Chicago's spectacular parade next weekend will pass half a block from the library's door. The city will host the international Gay Games in July. And anti-gay activists recently submitted petitions to put an anti gay-marriage advisory referendum item on Illinois' November ballot.
"I connect those same dots," said Rick Garcia, head of the gay-rights group Equality Illinois. "This fire wasn't set in the travel section. It wasn't set in the cooking section. It was set in the gay and lesbian section."
Garcia said he has received numerous calls and e-mails from members of his community decrying the Chicago Police Department's refusal to classify the arson as a hate crime and wondering why mainstream news organizations haven't made a bigger deal about the fire. (The Tribune ran a six-paragraph item last week.)
It was unusual, no doubt. Book burnings in public libraries are essentially unheard of in the United States, said Deborah Caldwell Stone, deputy director of the office for intellectual freedom for the American Library Association, based in Chicago.
"We do see vandalism and protesters taking books out of libraries and not returning them," Stone said.
But arson strikes deeper, she said, "because books and fire together are a traditional symbol for censorship."
Seen this way, the torching of the books at the Merlo library was an ominous and threatening gesture.
But seen another way, Chicago police spokeswoman Monique Bond said, it could be a coincidence. The fire took place in the far northeast corner of the library stacks--one of the most secluded spots on the top floor--and the sign above it reads "Books in foreign languages and fiction," not "gay books."
The arsonist (or arsonists; there are no witnesses or surveillance video) left no note and did not use an accelerant, Bond said. This suggests the crime was neither particularly well planned nor intended to make the sort of unambiguous statement made by those who, say, paint swastikas on synagogues.
"There's no evidence that this was a hate crime" other than its location, Bond said.
And news organizations need that kind of evidence to turn a little fire into a big story.
But Varnell, whose intuition is all the traction he needs, has a response that works whether the arsonist was a zealous homophobe or a random firebug: He's urging his readers to earmark donations to the Chicago Public Library Foundation (chicagopubliclibraryfoundation.org) for the Merlo branch gay collection.
Restoration is not enough, he writes. "It must be expanded" to show anyone who delights in this crime that "any attack on gay people will be met by an even stronger response."
The ashes may be mysterious, but the message to rise from them will be perfectly clear.
----------
Comments: chicagotribune.com/zorn
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