Living Under Racist Terrorism Impacts Learning

Young indigenous victim of colonial settler terrorism.

A whole generation of BIPOC children and college students in the US are being negatively impacted by the climate of fear that is being perpetrated upon them by the unrestrained white-supremacist movement and the government that supports this abomination.  Their mental health, their educations and their lives are all being stunted and slowed down by these racist attacks by settler colonists.

According to Zaretta Hammond in her astounding work, "Culturally Responsive Teaching & The Brain,"  students should be able to feel safe and confident to be able to become a self-sufficient learner.  Becoming a self-sufficient learner means the student becomes involved in their own educational and personal development by reflection and by being warmly challenged by an instructor who has earned their trust.  A dependent learner is always dependent on someone outside themselves to take charge of their education and are thereby passive learners who often give up because they have come to depend upon help.  They have a fixed mindset and not a growth mindset.

Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students.

One of Hammond's four elements of the academic mindset is, "Our belief in our ability to move about our world freely and control our external world."  This helps the student begin to believe in themselves, especially when the observe progress because of their hard work.  If the student does not feel they can move about freely, say for instance--they feel like their parents might be arrested by ICE, or that they themselves might be shot by the police because of the color of their skin--then the student's amygdala will be sent into threat reaction.

Human Brain

If the amygdala is sent into a threat reaction, learning cannot occur.  The amygdala is sent into threat reaction when the brain feels threatened.  It triggers the fight or flight reaction and learning is the farthest thing from what can occur at that point.  The student just wants to survive, they just want to get out of there.  The student cannot learn when this occurs.

As I write these words there is an attack on Latinx people in the US.  White supremacist have purposely targeted us and have murdered many in CA, TX and OH just in the past few weeks.  There has also been a string of immigration arrests in the US--leaving many children without their parents on the first day of school.  This creates a general fear in the Latinx community throughout the US.

WE (BIPOC) ARE BEING TARGETED AND WE KNOW IT!

Black Americans are under constant attack as well.  Not even safe in their own churches, Black Americans have to put up with daily racist humiliations like the recent mounted police officers leading a walking black man through town by a rope.  Black Americans, no matter what their age,  are often shot with no reason by the police and so-called vigilante criminals.  This creates an unsafe environment that is perpetrated by the dominant culture, who are also in charge of the educational system.  This can lead to distrust and set off a threat reaction in the amygdala and thereby impact learning.  

Image Source

All of the above lead to an unhealthy climate for children of color.  Granted, before 2016, it wasn't great for BIPOC kids in the US, but today the climate has worsened.  Today, even US citizens are arrested by ICE because they are Latinx.  This creates a climate of fear for our children.  If they are Latinx and old enough to understand what that means, they fear losing their parents--no matter what their citizenship status.  This creates an unsafe environment that is perpetrated by the dominant culture, who are also in charge of the educational system.  This can lead to distrust and set off a threat reaction in the amygdala and thereby impact learning.  

Our BIPOC student's brains are  are being turned into fixed mindset brains.  We need independent learners more than ever in our struggle for social justice.  Independent learners require a growth mindset.

Illustration from Hammond, Z., & Jackson, Y. (2015). Culturally responsive teaching and the brain: Promoting authentic engagement and rigor among culturally and linguistically diverse students.

Our children's brains are being damaged by this treatment and we need to talk about this.  Our children face so many obstacles already--now we are facing a neurobiological attack in addition to the regular attacks we AND OUR CHILDREN face daily.

Some things YOU can do:

Fight against the current administration's acceptance of white-supremacy.

Make your classrooms more welcoming.

Post up images of BIPOC leaders, educators, business people and scientists in your classroom.

Talk about the racist attacks that are ongoing with your students.

Honor their feelings and ask them to express themselves--to provide counter-narratives to the racist narrative that is ongoing.

Build trust with your BIPOC students.

Demand excellent work from your BIPOC students.

Buy this book and learn more about culturally responsive teaching and the brain!

Culturally Responsive Teaching and The Brain by Zaretta Hammond

Librarians with Spines Vol. 2 Now Available!

We are proud to announce the publication of our new book.  Published by Hinchas Press, edited by Yago Cura and Max Macias, designed by Autumn Anglin.  This book is comprised of 6 great chapters of varied Library/Information Science topics.  Our authors are amazing and the content is unlike any other you will find out there.

Librarians with Spines Vol. 2 is now available here.

Here is the content of the book!

Here is what people are saying about the book!

Intended audience:

LIS Instructors

LIS students

Academic Librarians

Public Librarians

Outreach Librarians

BIPOC Librarians 

Librarians in general

Educators who are interested in libraries

Everyone

Cultural Appropriation is Inappropriate!

There is currently a discussion on the librarian Facebook group ALATT concerning cultural appropriation.

You should hear some of the rationalizations!

Everything from the insulting: "Let me tell you a secret: All Culture is appropriated!"

Then people go on to say, "Yes--like agriculture, rock n roll..." and other absurd comparisons.

This seemingly funny statement, is passive aggressive to the extreme.

These statements belittle people's feelings about their heritage and culture.  This is especially true then aspects of their culture are used in inappropriate manners such as when White people run 'Native American' sweat lodges that allow anyone who pays to come sweat and pray--that is fucking absurd and spits in the face of indigenous tradition!

You may be asking yourself, "Why is Max getting all bent out of shape about this?"

Please watch this video for a better understanding:

I hope more librarians become more empathetic and will listen to people when they say to stop doing things that hurt them, or are offensive or insulting.

Free Speech Programming for Library Ideas and...

I humbly submit some programming ideas for my friends who work in libraries.

Do something different!

• Constitutional rights workshops
• Civics workshops
• How to avoid ICE
• DACA rights workshops
• Cannabis Consumer Workshops (In states where it is legal)
• Medical Cannabis patient workshops
• How to decolonize Education
• Activism Workshops
• Anti-Doxxing Workshops
• FreeSpeech versus HateSpeech Community Discussions
• Black History Programming
• How to monitor the police
• Patron electronic privacy workshops
• Marginalized people in Children's literature
• How to share electronic information anonymously 
• Ethnic Studies Workshops for local communities
• Archiving local neighborhood history
• How to build community
• How to get involved with local  public cable broadcasting
• How to publish a book
• How to blog
• How to be a neighborhood reporter
• How to start a news program
• How to write news articles
• How to be a public speaker
• How to listen
• How to argue
• How to self-reflect
• How to be a DJ
• How to break dance
• How to skateboard
• What is Punk Rock?
• What is Body Modification?
• Truths versus myths about recreational drugs
• What is empathy?
• What is Whiteness?
• What is BLM?
• Marginalized groups in comics
• What is Philosophy?
• What is Hip-hop?
• Where to get Mental Health assistance

The Mottoes of our Libraries Should be #LoveNOTHate #ListenWithYourHeartAndFeel

One of the symptoms of being unconsciously inculcated by #Whiteness is the inability to see the experiences of POC as they are lived by POC.

When I was teaching my children to be empathetic, I always told them that,

When someone asks you to stop something--particularly when they say you are hurting them--you stop what you are doing immediately.  You don't come up with excuses (reasons) why you should be able to continue to hurt them.  You don't continue hurting them.

The inability to see other's pain and to listen to them when they tell you about this pain--particularly if you are causing it--indicates a fundamental loss of humanity.  It also indicates a deeply narcissistic quality that seems to border on sociopathy.

This is an indication of unsound mental health.

A large part of our culture is sick like this.

Our nation is unhealthy in this aspect.

We should not repress this.

We should talk about it, and begin to heal this.

Libraries can help with this.

We can help with empathy programming.

Holding reconciliation talks.

Hold listening sessions for all sides.

But when someone begins to spout racist, threatening language--they NEED to leave the library.

Librarians hold information sacred, and we should continue to do so.  If racists, threatening people want to have a library--they should be able to have one--their own--private libraries.

We can talk about how they want to murder and 'get rid' of us all they want.  OUR public dollars should NEVER go toward supporting organizations that threaten other AMERICANS and other PEOPLE in general.  


#Love, the love of education, the love of knowledge, the love of teaching, the love of collecting and sharing great concepts and ideas is at the heart of what we do.  We can't let hate destroy that!

The mottoes of our libraries should be #LoveNOTHate #ListenWithYourHeartAndFeel

We can work together to help our nation get healthy.

Lets not, as librarians and people, enable our nation to be of unsound mental health.

We need to talk about this kind of stuff in relation to the library bill of rights, the ethics of librarianship and the mission of libraries.

The mottoes of our libraries should be #LoveNOTHate #ListenWithYourHeartAndFeel.

When Someone Claims The Right to Terrorize their Fellow Citizens

There is a split in libraries.  The split is on the question if Nazis and other racists  can use their rights to terrorize their fellow citizens and still be welcome in our libraries.

Racist 'free speech' is a tradition that has been used to create an atmosphere of hate a violence against POC in the US.

Of course this is not how this discussion is framed, nor how it is approached in the library community--which is immersed in a culture of Whiteness.

It is described as a matter of "Free Speech."  I would agree, but I would clarify this by stating it is a matter of White people's right to terrorize their fellow citizens by using speech which creates an environment of terror for POC in the US.

"Jews will NOT replace us!"  is terrifying enough for me to hear, but then I think of the utter terror and alarm it must be raising in my Jewish friends--I share their terror.

"All lives matter!" Yelled at my Black friends who are holding a sign that says, "Black Lives Matter!"

HKCL Central Library

These might just be words, but given the context--they are not just words of expression.  They are expressing something--the desire to intimidate a segment of our citizenry (The Jew statement), and the desire to mitigate the murder of black people almost daily, by stating "All lives matter!"  in response to the plea for help to end this violence against Black people.

POC encounter micro and macro-aggressions daily.  I often wonder if it is a battle worth fighting.  Daily, I begin to ponder the virtues of separatism.  My kind of separatism would be the kind where people of all walks of life could live together in good human relations.  The other 'people' could live somewhere else--those other people would be the racists.  I know this is an overly simplified idea, but I can't see how it isn't more valid than what POC have today.

POC in the US today:

• Are imprisoned a greater rates than White people.
• Are murdered by law enforcement and vigilantes.
• Have to worry about sending their kids out of the house because of racist violence.
• Will be persecuted as criminal in preschools.
• Will be put into a pipeline to prison program by virtue of their skin color.
• Live under a state of siege.

EVERY time I go to the store, or go to work, or anyplace for that matter-- I worry about if I will get pulled over and what will happen.

This is NOT simply a matter of "Free-Speech!"

This is about how POC are allowed to live under such terror daily.

Who allows it?

You, me, anyone who is not fighting against this terrorism.... If you are neutral--then you are supporting this terrorism.  It is NOT something one can be neutral about.

I get it--the US is a society that is built upon unrepentant genocide, land-theft and slavery.  It is something we all grew up knowing.

And WE cannot continue to be okay with that.

This is part of the history that some people want covered up.

We can't cover this up.  We can't repress this.

Just like a drug addict, or someone who is mentally ill and in denial--repression will create pathologies.  Maybe like people shooting one another for no real reason on a regular basis...

Librarians have a place in this fight.

We have a place because we work in an industry that is a purveyor of Whiteness--Whiteness is the notion that White people and White Culture are more important than ANYTHING or ANYONE else--AND we can do something about it.

We can balance out our collections so that don't just have books by rapists  who are forefathers of freedom, but from people who are genuinely concerned with freedom and liberty.  Not just the liberty to kill and steal from those who are weaker than us, but the true liberty of good human relations without violence.

Maybe you don't see this discussion from my point of view, or maybe you can't.

Maybe I'm too crude a writer to get the message across--so I will try to put it simply.

Please empathize with POC in the US.  Empathize with our pain, with the terror we are forced to live within daily, with the fear of incarceration and becoming a political prisoner or a prisoner/worker slave or of getting murdered by the police.  Empathize with the fear we have when we have send our kids out into a world that fundamentally rejects them.

Please try to understand we don't want to hurt you or kick you out of our lands.

But we do want you to leave if you are a racists.

Librarians can offer antifa programming, cultural awareness, truth and reconciliation talks (after proper development), anti-Whiteness programming and other such events.  Our collections can be enhanced with Anti-Racist and Anti-Whiteness purchases.  Our hiring can be more diverse and inclusive of different pathways to librarianship.

Please don't let people come into our library space--sometimes one of the only sanctuaries from this terror--and ruin it by making racist statements, having hate meetings and requesting the library purchase material that espouses a philosophy that I be 'gotten rid or....'

Some Racist Librarian Bullshit...

This is in response to David Lee King's blog post on:

http://www.davidleeking.com/ugly-beliefs-free-speech-and-libraries/  

What kind of drivel is this?

And look at the photo--a photo of a white dude with duct tape on his mouth!!!!

Poor White Dude who can't spout his hate!

Fuck David Lee King! " We stand for the principle that government and public information shouldn’t depend on the whims of the moment.” Quote from Joseph Jane's article that D quoted. It isn't a fucking 'whim' you asshole--maybe to SOME White people Genocide is a whim, the desire for genocide is a whim, or maybe it is that the potential victims are stating a whim that they don't like to be threatened. It isn't neutral if you are backing the ONE side--the white side. Fuck your founding fathers and their rapist bullshit. Fuck Nazi 'free speech.' It sure would be nice if people like mr. King would fight for POC's rights just as much as he is fighting for Nazi rights.

#UnconsciousRacism

#FuckYouAndYourSocialMediaSavvyAsshole

How Do the Seven Major Themes about the Algorithm Era Impact LIS?

 How do these themes impact LIS?

How can librarians and other information professionals work to mitigate themes four and five?

How can librarians and others work to increase algorithmic literacy?

Link to Pew's article Code Dependent:Pros and Cons of Algorithm Age: http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/02/08/code-dependent-pros-and-cons-of-the-algorithm-age/

Book Review: An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (The Lamar Series in Western History)

Buy this book for your Library

An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (The Lamar Series in Western History)by Benjamin Madley is a book that should be in every library in the US.  This book covers an essential history that has heretofore been neglected save for a few works such as Murder State.

• Series: The Lamar Series in Western History
• Hardcover: 712 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (May 24, 2016)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300181361
• ISBN-13: 978-0300181364
• Product Dimensions: 6.1 x 1.8 x 9.2 inches

The book covers the history of the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the state of California from 1846-1873.  During this time, the book traces the beginnings of the genocide from scattered massacres to full scale state and federally sponsored militia and military massacre campaigns.  The sheer brutality and callousness against the indigenous people of California is stunning and hard to read.

CA Indian Population 1845-1880 Genocide in Numbers

This book shows how the pattern of forcing Indians from their home hunting grounds and by the removal of game due to large numbers of immigrants--beginning during the Gold Rush.  The indians then could not feed themselves, so they stole cattle from White ranchers.  The White ranchers would then raise a posse, or a militia force to go "teach the indians a lesson."  The lesson would entail murdering every man, woman and child of the first indigenous village happened upon.  No matter if they were 'guilty' or not.

Vigilantes were supported by the local government and the state. 

 The combination of vigilante massacres with state sponsored militia killing campaigns and the military murder expeditions was lethal and decimated the Californian Indian population.  The Indians had nowhere to hide except high in the mountains, where there was little food.  This forced them to steal from White people, which led to more murder expeditions against them.  It was a cycle that was lethal and effective in 'eradicating' the indigenous people of California.

If you were lucky enough to survive a massacre, you would not have any food, clothing or shelter to help you live.  Many survivors died from exposure or starvation.  As I was reading this, I thought of Ishi--his story is heartbreaking.  You can read about it here: http://history.library.ucsf.edu/ishi.html.

The brutality of the immigrants is mind-boggling. 

The killing was relentless.  The Indians sometimes fought back and killed whites, which raised even more ire and retribution.  The murder unmerciful and was encouraged by California Newspapers.  These papers called for total annihilation of all Californian Indians.  

Slow death at the  reservation.

You may be thinking, "Why didn't the Indians just go to a reservation.  When Indians fled to reservations starved the Indians.  They didn't provide the promised supplies.  Many starved to death. 

This brought about the horrible choice of leaving the reservation and facing:

Enforced slavery.  There were vagrancy laws that stated an Indian had to prove they were not in debt to someone.  This entailed the possession of a certificate that stated they were not in debt.  If the Indian could not prove this, then they were arrested and put up for auction.  They were sold to someone for a period of time, usually years.  During this time they were charged for food and clothes and were never paid enough money to pay off this debt.  Therefore, they could never get their certificate of no debt.  They would be stuck in perpetual slavery.



Or

Being tracked down and murdered by a posse of citizens or a state sponsored militia.  After a theft, they would hunt down and kill any Indian they encountered.  They used this as a chance for "pedagogical violence."  Violence that would teach anyone who heard about it that they should not steal from White people or they would face utter annihilation or slavery.  They often collected scalps and brought them back as souvenirs.  Some local country stores had Indian scalps nailed to their walls well into the 20th century.


The state paid well for militiamen to track down and murder Indians in CA.  They they sought reimbursement from the the federal government.  The federal government paid for the genocide of California Indians and it paid well.  This pay, in itself, was a reason to form a militia and make some money.

State sponsored Genocide in CA.

Sometimes the children and women were kept alive, but sold into the california slave system.  Women were sold into sexual slavery and other forms of bondage.  Children were often sold to estates where they remained the rest of their lives as chattel.



Some Indians turned to gold mining when their territories were impinged upon. Once there was an influx of White immigrants into CA though, there wasn't enough for everyone and the White miners simply murdered the Indian miners and claim jumped their claims.

There is a timeline at the end of the book that tracks the murder of indigenous people in CA according to state historical record that includes body counts.  This is the most well-researched and comprehensive information on this subject to date.

US genocide has yet to be covered in any manner similar to the Holocaust in Europe.  The time is coming though.  The cat is out of the bag.

Other important books on this subject:

Churchill, W., & Mazal Holocaust Collection. (1997). A little matter of genocide: Holocaust and denial in the Americas, 1492 to the present. San Francisco: City Lights Books.

Lindsay, B. C. (2015). Murder state: California's native american genocide 1846-1873. Place of publication not identified: Univ Of Nebraska Press.

Stannard, D. E. (1992). American holocaust: Columbus and the conquest of the New World. New York: Oxford University Press.

HINCHAS PRESS TO PUBLISH ANTHOLOGY OF ESSAYS ON RADICAL LIBRARIANSHIP TITLED, “LIBRARIANS WITH SPINES” PRESS RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE:

Whiteness is Identity Jacking/Identity Jacking is Whiteness

Whiteness tells us our story through the lens of our oppressor?

What does this do to truth, validity, information and the construction of knowledge?

Embedded #Whiteness: A Legacy of Brutality

[This is the last installment of a three part series on Whiteness.]

  Whiteness is a concept that describes the cultural, lingual, institutional beliefs, practices and behavior that maintains access to power and reinforces power for White people and people of lighter skin tones.  
This colonial system was created for and by Europeans for the benefit of Europeans. Everything was in relation to the European--this is a hallmark of the concept of Whiteness--that everything is judged in relation to Whiteness and not something else.  

Whiteness is embedded in the fabric of everyday life in the US

The use of patrols to capture runaway slaves was one of the precursors of formal police forces, especially in the South.

Slave patrols were organized groups of three to six white men who enforced discipline upon black slaves during the antebellum U.S. southern states.

http://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing

The police are still seen by many people to be racial enforcers, they are seen as the colonial strong arm in black and brown neighborhoods--they are most often occupiers--not public servants.

Mistreatment, beatings, rapes, robbing, bribe demands and other behavior is expected by many communities of color when they encounter the police.

I worry that I will be pulled over and shot by a police officer on my daily commute far more than

Famous image of African American flood victims lined up to get food & clothing fr. Red Cross relief station in front of billboard ironically extolling WORLD'S HIGHEST STANDARD OF LIVING/ THERE'S NO WAY LIKE THE AMERICAN WAY. Location: Louisville, KY, US Date taken: February 1937 Photographer: Margaret Bourke-White

African Americans have never been accepted as White.  

They  have been ostracized from the American Way of life for the most part.  

They are colonized subjects within the colony.  

Segregation, lack of educational resources, lack of opportunities are all hallmarks of being Black  in the US.

It behooves those who don’t want these hallmarks to adhere to Whiteness as much as possible.  We see this exemplified in too many POC who have achieved ‘success’ in this society.

 

This is a screenshot I took from an article on Slate.

What is the implicit message here?

How does it relate to the previous image?

South Bronx 1970’s/slaves quarters,  Colbert Co. AL

Things don’t change much in a society based on Whiteness.

Please think about these images for a moment.

Baltimore or
Saskatoon

Contemporary racial disparity based on Whiteness in  Baltimore on the left.

Contemporary racial disparity based on Whiteness in Saskatoon on the right.

Please think about these images for a moment.

 

This is how Black and brown kids are often treated at school.

Our kids are ‘over disciplined’ from an early age--sometimes from preschool on…

http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2014/03/21/292456211/black-preschoolers-far-more-likely-to-be-suspended

Even after Brown Versus Education schools are still segregated.

Black and Brown schools are patrolled by police and brutality occurs often to students of color.

This can take the form of detentions, or suspensions or other academic marginalization ‘consequences.’

Or it can take the form of violence.  As in the case above (Spring Valley HS in SC), or as seen in several other recent videos of police officers brutalizing students of color.  

This cop was fired. 

Schools should be a place where everyone is welcome.

Schools should and must be supportive of people.

Schools should be accepting, edifying and challenging for ALL students.

Schools need to have disciplinary actions that are non-violent.

Schools should not hold up Whiteness as an ideal of education.

Adheres to and believes in Whiteness.

One other thing about Whiteness is that it can be adhered to by non-white people.  

Many people of color and those who purport to want to help people of color adhere to the system of Whiteness that the educational system upholds, supports and requires of POC who want to succeed.  

I say that this is why we have made little to no progress in equity, diversity and inclusion in our school systems and our society. 

Embedded Whiteness

The brutalities that were used to enforce the racial hierarchies of yesterday are still with us today.They used to come in the form of lynchings--back in the days of Jim Crow....

Now they come in the forms of Police shootings of unarmed African Americans and Latinos in far greater numbers than Whites.  

They come in vigilante shootings of unarmed African Americans, for example--the shooting of Trayvon Martin.

 So, what does this have to do with Education? 

Please think about these questions:

·       How do you see Whiteness relating to Education?

·       Can you think of some examples of Whiteness in Education that you have seen?

·       How can we mitigate Whiteness in Education?

·       Should we mitigate Whiteness in Education?

·       How does Whiteness impact Educational Technology?

·       Does Whiteness come in between the truth and investigators?