Manning up
Kia ora Brian
I’ve spent time in both churches and libraries, and I can tell you which I prefer. Here’s a story about me and my older kid, although I don’t expect you’ll like it much. You’ve been pretty clear: those ‘family values’ of yours don’t extend to whānau like mine.
Let’s go back a bit, shall we?
I grew up in the church. My church is different to yours - our men in charge dress up in robes to denigrate women and gays with a bit more decorum. And we don’t let our apostles self-appoint. But our different churches have something in common: they’ve both co-opted everyday people into doing and saying hateful things. From a personal perspective - of someone almost co-opted as a vulnerable kid, and later made unwelcome - I’ve wondered how that stuff happens. I think I have part of the answer. It’s the power of a good story.
You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, Brian?
If there’s a tale churches revere, it’s that early one: the one with the mother and child. It’s more complicated than it seems at first glance. The mum is a kid herself, the pregnancy is unplanned, there’s a stepdad involved, and they’re all foreigners in emergency accommodation. But the point is of the story is beautiful. Whānau of every kind are precious. Children should be cherished. The love between parents and kids must be nurtured. These are things we should all stand up for.
You have to wonder how something so beautiful could be twisted and spun in such self-serving ways. ‘Family values’ and the ‘protection’ of women and children have become the war cry of the worst: from white supremacists to misogynists to homophobes, the QAnon guy who shot up the pizza place, and a whole lot of different-flavoured haters in between.1 ‘Family values’ let guys like you, Brian, dress up your impulse to hurt and to hate as if it’s something all spiritual and noble. I suppose you have to. The alternative would be admitting you’re just an everyday a-hole.
Still, this isn’t really a theological story, Brian. I’ll continue. My daughter, the older of my kids, was never going to be welcome in a church like mine or yours - although it would take a few years for the reason to unfurl. And she didn’t care for church anyway. Another place made her feel like she belonged. When she was a preschooler, she and I would go to the public library every Wednesday. It was the happiest time of the week for both of us.
In the library, we’d pick ten books: five fiction, five non-fiction. She understood the difference in a way I sometimes struggle to decipher right now, the world being what it is. And she liked to read for herself, an independence of thought that’s never changed, although we’d talk about the stuff she read together.
The library was a place of acceptance and community, like libraries usually are - but not in some fluffy or flaky way. I admire librarians. They’re often like quiet sentinels who take no crap, recognising that acceptance and community don’t happen by chance, but only when somebody stands at the perimeter, keeping intolerance out. I guess you don’t get exposed to ideas and information every day without a bit of moral courage rubbing off.
Why am talking to you about churches and libraries and family values, Brian? It might seem like a ramble, but I think you’re figuring it out.
Like everyone else, I read yesterday’s news.
It’s Pride Week, and the Te Atatū library was hosting a family event at lunchtime. Drag king Hugo Grrl was running a musical science show for some thirty adults and children. They were all learning together about the weather. And it was you, Brian, who gave your Man Up thugs the order to storm the library. Storm the library. Those were your very words.2
What happened next is difficult to fathom. Your ‘men’ were denied entry, told it was a private event. They pushed their way forward and up the stairs. By now the banging, the footsteps and the yelling could be heard by the thirty people in the science show. Afraid for their safety, they barricaded themselves in the room. One woman who’d stepped out of the event for a moment hid in a toilet with her baby. When it was finally over, the police having cleared the building and given the OK, the frightened families were allowed to leave in single file.3
Still, it wasn’t until I opened my inbox this morning and found Mountain Tui’s post, watched the footage within, that it fully hit me.4
Brian: this was a gathering of families, the very women and children you and your ‘men’ claim to protect. Some of those children were little ones held terrified in their mothers’ arms.
And you know who stood, who really stood, for the families - who tried to protect the women and the children? It was the library staff. They stood at the bottom of the stairs; six of them, if I counted right amongst the melee, against your whole damn mob. They stood as your ‘men’ attempted to force past them, side by side, trying to block the stairwell with their bodies. They stood, one staffer crying out, again and again, You’re assaulting me and Don’t touch me, and another screaming something made inarticulate by fear. They stood until they couldn’t any longer - until your ‘men’ knocked them to the ground and left them there.
They stood for the families upstairs and for families like mine. I wasn’t there, but I stand with them.
My whānau is precious. My children are cherished. The love I have for them is unshakeable. People like us aren’t going anywhere, ever - not for you, Brian, with your band of cowards, your tinpot masculinity that sneers and punches down, your ego propped up by scaring women and children, or the shallows of your fake-tanned soul.
And you want to know the best thing of all? My daughter grew into a better man than you’ll ever be.
Anna
The story of the QAnon pizzagate guy is well known, but is here. At least as disturbing is that organisations genuinely working for the welfare of children have had their already limited resources stretched to breaking by people who hold conspiracy theories about children’s welfare - impeding their ability to work against actual child abuse.
I wasn't there either, Anna, but like you I stand with those families, and yours.
And those principled librarians - they know a thing or two about reading people, it is they who are the authentic guardians of safe, incorruptible community space.
kia kaha.
This brought tears to my eyes. Thank you for sharing your voice with us.