NYT runs earnest essay by woman who was literally shook when white couple violated her 'Black space' by looking at a book in her homemade library

Journalist Erin Aubry Kaplan thought it might be cool to build her own little lending library outside her house.

Little did she know what horrors would come of it:

About a year ago, I decided to build a library on my front lawn. By library, I mean one of those little free-standing library boxes that dot lawns in bedroom communities around the country — charming, birdhouse-like structures filled with books that invite neighbors and passers-by to take a book, or donate a book, or both.

…

Then one morning, glancing out my front window, I saw a young white couple stopped at the library. Instantly, I was flooded with emotions — astonishment, and then resentment, and then astonishment at my resentment. It all converged into a silent scream in my head of, Get off my lawn!

The moment jolted me into realizing some things I’m not especially proud of. I had set out this library for all who lived here, and even for those who didn’t, in theory. I would not want to restrict anyone from looking at it or taking books, based on race or anything else. But while I had seen white newcomers to the neighborhood here and there, the truth was, I hadn’t set it out to appeal to white residents.

…

What I resented was not this specific couple. It was their whiteness, and my feelings of helplessness at not knowing how to maintain the integrity of a Black space that I had created. I was seeing up close how fragile that space can be, how its meaning can be changed in my mind, even by people who have no conscious intention to change it. That library was on my lawn, but for that moment it became theirs. I built it and drove it into the ground because I love books and always have. But I suddenly felt that I could not own even this, something that was clearly and intimately mine.

“My little library, affirming as it is, is also an illusion; it can’t save our neighborhood,” writes @aubry_erin. “Still, in 2021, it has become increasingly important to maintain and grow Black space, on its own terms.” https://t.co/m9esdMXxOC

— New York Times Opinion (@nytopinion) December 5, 2021

Those damn white people and their — *checks notes* — interest in books.

https://twitter.com/SethBarronNYC/status/1467589656418082827

Imagine the editorial process associated with the decision to run this piece.

— KC Johnson (@kcjohnson9) December 5, 2021

https://twitter.com/SethBarronNYC/status/1467597209353007105

Oh, we have no doubt that whoever greenlit this thing thought it was gold.

This is one of the most hilarious op-eds I've ever read. If you wanted to satirize this mentality, you could not do better.

That it made it to the NYT op-ed page is spectacular. As @SethBarronNYC said: "Imagine the editorial process" that led to "the decision to run this piece." https://t.co/S4IHiz2rvG

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 6, 2021

(Apologies – that quote is from @kcjohnson9).

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) December 6, 2021

Glenn Greenwald can be forgiven for his mistake.

But Erin Aubry Kaplan and the New York Times absolutely deserve all the mockery and derision that have come their way.

Someone please switch the words white and black and republish the article, see how it goes.

— SoyRogelio (@SoyRogelio69) December 6, 2021

Guess she could have solved all that by hanging a sign: NO WHITES ALLOWED. https://t.co/gQFURQ9RW9

— Querencia is Obi's Hesquire😌 (@SaintTempestina) December 6, 2021

Just imagine her outrage if they'd passed by without admiring her books https://t.co/Y1d6VO85zU

— Flora's Wagon of Fools (@FlorasWagon) December 6, 2021

I am curious how anyone who saw a cute little library in the neighborhood was supposed to recognize it as set up by a black women for black people? Has this kind or thinking been forced on black people because they have been historically excluded? How do we get passed this?

— Padawan (@snekgirl14) December 6, 2021

If people like Erin Aubry Kaplan have their way, we never get past it.

I read the article, it was definitely a glimpse into a mind that thinks differently. She grapples w her feelings which she stops short of calling racist. Idk, I try to imagine a life that has shaped her viewpoint but really her way of thinking will keep us all at odds, it's sad.

— PLUTO (@AdamantPluto) December 6, 2021

https://twitter.com/EdgarJFriendly/status/1467857537588412423