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This Would Never Happen at an Independent Bookstore
On the evening of August 10, Hannah Shaffer of Glen Mills, Pennsylvania, decided to go to the nearby Barnes & Noble outside of Wilmington. She wanted to see Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, who was promoting his book, “It Takes a Family.”…Shaffer, 18, thought Santorum’s public appearance might be a good occasion to ask him a few questions.
“He is my Senator,” she says, and she wanted to challenge him on his notorious claim that legalizing gay marriage was akin to legalizing incest and bestiality…
When she arrived at 6:00 p.m., some of her friends were already there, along with two other young women she didn’t know, Stacey Galperin and Miriam Rocek.
As Shaffer was talking with her friends, Rocek made a joke.
She held up a copy of a book by the gay writer Dan Savage called “The Kid,” which is about how he and his partner adopted a son. And Rocek said, “It would be funny if we got Santorum to sign this book.” (To discredit Santorum, Savage and his readers in 2003 came up with a nasty definition of “Santorum” that now often appears on Internet searches for Santorum’s name.)…
[A] trooper, Delaware State Police Sgt. Mark DiJiacomo, who was on detail as a private security guard, came over to the group of women.
Here is the conversation, as Galperin remembers it: “You guys have to leave.”
“Your business is not wanted here. They don’t want you here anymore. If you don’t leave, you’re going to be arrested. If you can’t post bail, you’ll go to prison. Those of you who are under 18 will go to Ferris [the juvenile detention center]. And those of you over 18 will go either to Gander Hill Prison or the woman’s correctional facility. Any questions?”
“Why?”
Read the whole story at The Progressive.
As it turns out, the women did have questions and yesterday filed a federal lawsuit about the matter. Which is great, and begs the question: what happens when our public conversations take place more and more on private premises? When the town square is replaced by the mall food court? And when indy booksellers, who, while admittedly private businesses, exist out of a devotion to the intelligent exchange of ideas and creative visions, are put out of business by megachains who care about nothing more than maximizing dollars and minimizing disruption to their carefully constructed buying environments?
Well, this. This is what happens.
Via Peek.
Comments
While I think "what happens... when the town square is replaced by the mall food court?" is an important question, I don't think it should simply be seen as an opportunity to bash big bookstores and hail the indy bookshop. Reading the full article reveals that it was not B&N; that brought in the security detail and kicked-out the young women, but instead Santorum's press team and the individual Delaware police officer.
I do see the take-over of the book market by mega chains as a big change to the expression of free speech. However, perhaps it can be seen as a positive, or at least neutral, change in some ways. As the "town hall" (or small indy bookstore) becomes the "mall food court" (or the B&N; Starbucks), a much broader audience is reached. Mega chain bookstores have driven out of business many indy bookshops, but they have made the world of literature, author readings and book groups much more accessible to a wide-variety of people (including strong-spirited Santorum fans). Instead of just lamenting the loss of our small booksellers and bashing the easy B&N; target, let's take the lead of these young PA women by actively participating in our "mall food court" dialogues instead of simply hiding behind the comfort blanket of indy bookshops.
No, this would never happen at an independent bookstore -- because Santorum wouldn’t have been invited to read and his readers wouldn’t know to attend.
Posted by: Kate | July 5, 2020 07:00 PM
Where to start? Of course Santorum would be invited to indy stores -- independent stores aren't necessarily progressive, they're just not in the pocket of the big megacompanies that treat books like widgets.
The rise of the megachains can be linked directly to a decline in the number of different titles published in a given year, and it's no surprise -- anything they promote they're doing because a big publisher is paying them to, not because anyone there cares about that particular book. So all the books that used to do OK because independent booksellers read them and believed in them are having a harder time finding an audience, all the smaller publishers are struggling and failing at an alarming rate, and so many indy bookstores are closing. It's never a good thing for public debate to have one or two multinational corporations deciding which books will make it far enough that you could even discover them, as opposed to thousands of independent booksellers making their own individual decisions on that front.
Fewer books published each year = fewer perspectives heard = a really scary chilling effect on literature & public conversations, not the literary renaissance you imagine.
Also -- Santorum's folks didn't have the authority to throw those girls out. They may have been the ones who objected, but the only grounds on which they could be thrown out are if the owners of the private property say so. If B&N; had refused to throw them out, they would have freely remained. I've been to plenty of book readings in more "liberal" stores where conservative radicals got the floor to say whatever they wanted to to the author. Nobody got thrown out. Because you can't have a real exchange of ideas if some ideas aren't allowed to exist.
The megachains aren't expanding anyone's access to literature, ideas, or even Rick Santorum. Nice fantasy, though.
Posted by: Megan | July 5, 2020 07:17 PM