Showing posts with label Anti-Whiteness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anti-Whiteness. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

San Jose State School of Information Diversity Series: Moving Beyond Diversity to Anti-Oppression

 I was honored to be be selected to speak at San Jose State's Information School last month.

San Jo is my hometown and it was super cool to be able to speak at SJSU!

I hope you enjoy this.


Comments encouraged!

Special thanks to Dr. Michele Villagran and San Jose State!


Monday, August 24, 2020

Librarians with Spines Author Showcase #3 Recording up now!

 [Please share widely!]



Greetings!


Librarians with Spines is proud to bring you another outstanding author showcase recording!


Dr. Miguel Juarez, Rebecca Hankins and Jina Duvernay (Librarians with Spines authors) interviewed Anthony Bishop and Kael Moffat (Librarians with Spines authors) on 8/24/2020.


Topics discussed:

  • Whiteness in LIS
  • Ethnographies
  • Recruitment of BIPOC into LIS careers


Many other LIS topics relevant to students, librarians, library workers and others.


Here is the link!



Respectfully, 

Friday, July 24, 2020

Three Anti-Racist Actions YOU Can Take in Your library RIGHT NOW!

"Anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably." - NAC International Perspectives: Women and Global Solidarity

 
Here are three Anti-racist actions you can take today in your library:

Give your library policies an anti-racist audit.


Form a group from different stakeholders at your library.  

Recruit individuals from the administration of your organization, your union and your HR department--if possible.

Pick a simple policy, practice or procedure to analyze.

Notify any stakeholders who might not be included yet about your intent to audit the policy, practice or procedure.  

Crowdsource your analysis on a zoom whiteboard, or Google Doc, or something that makes collaboration easier. 

Present your findings to the group who owns said policy, practice or procedure.  

Ask for feedback from them on your groups suggestions for anti-racist improvements.

If the analysis is accepted and implemented, ask for a report on the impact these changes have made.

Present this information to your library administration with an executive summary.

Appoint people from marginalized communities to positions in your library.


If you are a hiring manager, find out what it takes to appoint people to positions under your domain.

Form a group from different stakeholders at your library.  

Recruit individuals from the administration of your organization and HR if possible.

Do an analysis of your department's ethnic makeup.

Find qualified candidates for appointment by getting in touch with BCALA, APALA, REFORMA, AILA, CALA, ALA Spectrum and Library Schools.

Work with community organizations to get interns and students from underrepresented groups to come work in your library.  

Provide support in the form of mentorships, affinity groups and antiracism groups--to begin with.

Define racist and other forms of bigotry outside of 'free speech.'


Many racists like to hide behind the veil of free speech, but racist speech and other forms of harassment are not free speech.  

Come up with a policy that bans racist forms of harassment by explicitly defining actions and words that are racist as such.  

For example, if someone is sending out emails to their organization, or simply individuals in their organization questioning if racism exists should be defined as explicit racist behavior.

Don't assume it is a question of free speech right off the bat.  We have restrictions on our behavior, language and other aspects of our lives while at work.

Racist behavior should not be treated as a special kind of offense--it is an egregious offense and their should be dire consequences.  Racism impacts productivity, 

Use these tactics to create an anti-oppression atmosphere for other marginalized and oppressed groups.


I know that this is a fourth action, but hey--it is necessary.

This is a blog post and is not meant to be comprehensive.  However, I would like comments so I can sharpen my suggestions with your practical insights and constructive criticism.  

Please.

My goal is to crowdsource practical ways to implement antiracism policy analysis and antiracism in general into US libraries.  

The time is past for EDI!

We need to work on Anti-oppression and 
Be actively anti-racist!  

Change doesn't happen on it's own, or just by waiting for it to happen.

We can all take active steps toward building the libraries and world we want!


Sunday, May 27, 2018

My Heroes Call Out

My heroes call out to me from across time

Some call out from hundreds of years ago

I can hear some from just yesterday

My heroes call out to me and make my heart strong

They are our alternative narrative

Calling out our history

Calling out our enemies

Calling out our allies

Calling out our resistance

My heroes call out to me and I listen

They are part of what makes our culture great

They are the true Americans

Calling out hatred makes us stronger

My heroes call out that shit

What if Huey P. Newton hadn't called out?

What if Rosa Parks hadn't called out?

What if John Trudell hadn't not called out?

What if Malcolm X hadn't called out?

What if Audre Lorde hadn't called out?

What if Larry Itliong hadn't called out?

What if we don't call out?

My heroes call out to me


 


Sunday, September 3, 2017

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....'