Summary
A man checked out 100 books from Beachwood Library in Beachwood, Ohio, covering Jewish history, African-American history, and LGBTQ topics, and later posted social media videos showing the books with captions referencing “cleansing” libraries before burning them.
Princeton University’s Bridging Divides Initiative alerted the library about the posts.
The books were worth about $1,700. Since they are not overdue, the library will bill the man later.
Police say the matter is civil unless he fails to pay. He is now banned from returning to the library.
If everyone did that tomorrow, it would be well worth it…
Before its legal to do that, we can identify and jail assholes who hate. So I propose that this is ok, but also mark every controversial book and follow sketchy guys and gals trying to check those out.
Meanwhile, the library just buys new copies of all the books out of tax money.
That’s assuming that all of the books are still in print and available.
If my personal collection was burned, there are several books that are not replaceable. Especially when you get to books about marginalized groups - things put out by small presses. Limited releases.
I mean it’s not illegal
pretty sure it’s not legal to destroy something you don’t own. The fact that he’s getting fined is a pretty clear indicator.
He’s getting fined by the library. But, it can be illegal to destroy something you don’t own. Take for example vandalism. The key for even that is eluding or attempting to elude cleaning it up/paying to do so. Think about it. Is it illegal to dent someone’s car? Not if you pay for repairs. It’s the fleeing the scene without paying that it becomes a crime.
Same could be said here. Yeah he made a vid glorifying an anti-LGBT stance on YouTube by burningthe books. But its fine if you return a full copy in same or better condition to whom you borrowed the book.
This fucking prick couldn’t read and unluckily could use fire, like a basic caveman.
