Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Wants To Point Out The One Thing Everybody
Gets Wrong About Libraries
Stylist:
11.27.2019 by Hannah-Rose Yee
In
a town hall advocating for her Green New Deal, the congresswoman took a chance
to stump for publicly funded institutions such as libraries, reminding everyone
in the audience that these places are a vital part of society.
Anyone
who grew up going to the library
knows how vital a role they play in any given community.
Not
just as a place to borrow books for free, but also as a place to gather, to
learn, to play and to spend time in a safe space. As Lucy Mangan wrote in
Stylist, libraries are a “source of food for the imagination, the soul, the
only means of slaking the thirst for discovery, for facts, for stories, for
knowing how the world and the people in it work – for an education in the
round.” We must protect them at all costs.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez feels the same. Publicly funded facilities such as libraries, but
also public education and public housing, are some of her biggest campaign
platforms. They form a cornerstone of her Green New Deal, and are an issue that
she is very passionate about.
“It’s
not that we deserve them because it’s a handout,” she said. “People like to say
that this is about free stuff… These are public goods. I never want to hear the
term ‘free stuff’ ever again… I believe that all people should be able to go to
a public library. Everyone can drive on our roads. Everyone should be able to
send their kids to public school. And every person who needs it should have
access to public housing that looks like this.”
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“Public
education, libraries, & infrastructure policies (which we‘ve had before in
America and elsewhere in the world!) are not ‘free stuff,’” she wrote on
Twitter. “They are PUBLIC GOODS. And they are worth investing in, protecting,
& advancing for all society and future generations.” READ
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