CV NEWS FEED // At a conference on socialism this Labor Day weekend, American Library Association (ALA) President Emily Drabinski expressed her desire to make libraries and schools fronts for “socialist organizing.”
Drabinski, who describes herself as a “Marxist lesbian,” was elected president of the ALA in April of 2022. The ALA is a nearly 150-year-old library organization with a membership of around 50,000. Her unapologetic advocacy for far-left politics has caused several states to break ties with the organization.
Psychologist Karlyn Borysenko recounted her experience going undercover at Socialism 2023 on her Substack, “Actively Unwoke.” She described the event as “the largest socialist conference in the country.” Drabinski “was initially scheduled to be a speaker” there, Borysenko wrote, “but after a media firestorm over her Marxist leanings that led to several state library associations parting ways with the national organization, her session was quietly canceled.”
However, Drabinski “still went to the Socialism Conference and still attended sessions. I know because I ran into her,” Borysenko wrote.
The conference, which took place from Friday to Sunday, included panels such as “Fighting For Our Lives: Abortion and Trans Rights Under Attack,” “How Capitalism Kills: Social Murder and COVID-19,” “Sex Work, Policing, and Border Abolition,” and “Fighting Fascism in Florida.” The three-day far-left extravaganza also featured a “Radical Drag Show” as entertainment.
Borysenko’s unexpected run-in with Drabinski occurred during a Saturday panel titled “Freedom to Learn: Black And Asian American Solidarity Against Attacks on Antiracist Education,” Borysenko wrote:
After the presenters held a rousing discussion, including discussing how to smuggle socialist ideas like Critical Race Theory into the classroom even when the law outlaws it (they call that fugitive pedagogy), there was an opportunity for attendees to comment.
Emily got in line at the microphone.
She was called “comrade” just like the others in line.
“I’m Emily, and I’m a librarian,” Drabinski said when it was finally her turn to weigh in on the discussion.
After claiming that libraries “have been under attack,” the ALA president said to the presenters:
I think your point that public education needs to be a site of socialist organizing, I think libraries really do too.
I haven’t seen that, working in libraries, but I think there’s a real opportunity here to both connect with what’s happening in public education, what’s happening in libraries, but also we need some help with libraries.
We need to be on the agenda of socialist organizing.
Greg Price, the communications director for the State Freedom Caucus Network, stated that the ALA “gets thousands of dollars from state governments every year. They are the oldest and largest library association in the world and have major power over what books appear in school libraries all across America.”
“They are to libraries what Google is to the internet,” Price said, noting that the openly socialist Drabinski “is the person in charge of it.”
“If you want to know why sexualized content is appearing in school libraries, the ALA is the biggest reason,” he added.
Read more on the ALA:
Texas Becomes Latest State to Ditch Library Group, Citing ‘Marxist Ideology’
Montana State Library Commission Breaks Ties with American Library Association Over New President
Conservative Leaders Call On States to Ditch American Library Association
Library Association Defends Sexually Graphic Kids’ Books Protested by Parents
American Library Association, Others Attack Parents for Protecting Kids from ‘Trans’ Books
