[MSN] Hatred or no, library arson sparks action

[Museum Security Network Mailinglist]

Hatred or no, library arson sparks action


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.

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