In celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15), the San José State University School of Information held a free symposium to discuss best practices in library services to meet the needs of the Hispanic/Latinx community with greater impact, cultural understanding, and sensitivity.
Entitled “Making Vital Connections: Understanding and Serving the Hispanic/Latinx Community,” this inaugural event featured keynote addresses and panel discussions.
I had the honor of sitting on a panel at San Jose Sate University's School Hispanic Heritage Symposium.
Innovation is so much more than technology! True innovation will only come when we break the incestuous cycle of white supremacist knowledge production. We need new voices and those voices are standing right here. Real innovation will come when people who created Hip-Hop, Jazz, Rock and Roll--when the people who created flavor in American cuisine and who pretty much generate American culture throughout the continent are involved in information production and knowledge creation. Indigenous, Black, Brown, and other people of color will create a groundswell like never before once they are allowed to fully function within the academy. We will change education's structures, its techniques, its goals, its meaning. We are the harbingers of change and we are here now.
Education is Stale
Education is stale, the ideas are backward and the time for change is now. New blood, new ideas and finally--some progress in society--not just progress in making tools. Western people are the best tool makers, but have little to no idea about how to live with one another and how to create good human relations--which lead to real security. Not the false security that guns everywhere provide, but the real security of knowing that your neighbor’s fate and experience directly relate to your own.
The truth is that Education needs us! We bring flavor, new insights, conceptual relationships that white people don’t even know exist--we bring progress. The academy needs to aggressively recruit people who have backgrounds from ‘marginalized’ communities and then allow these scholars to create radical change within our academic institutions. This change is not something we are asking for--this change is something we bring and are announcing. The backlash is on and we stand ready and strong--stronger than we have ever been. We are at war--it is a cultural war. We are bound to win, we must win--”we have a duty to win.”
Ideas to speed up change:
Create an action research center at your school that focuses on anti-oppression integration in education.
Block hire a BIPOC cohort into your school or organization.
Create support systems for BIPOC and other oppressed groups.
Create support systems for antiracist activators and activists at your school--protect them and promote them!
Create an EDI/Antiracist Handbook for your department--you have the expertise. Research, learn, share and promote antiracist and anti oppression curriculum, pedagogies and systems.
Use antiracism as a model for building other anti-oppression tactics for the liberation of all oppressed groups.
Create and sustain affinity spaces for oppressed groups at your organization.
Create partnerships with schools and other vocational training organizations to form a pipeline of BIPOC employment recruits.
Empower BIPOC leaders to lead.
Until we have a system that has been created with BIPOC and other oppressed groups involved, we will never have equity, inclusion, diversity nor anti-oppression as part of our organizations. We need NEW systems that have been co-created by BIPOC and that are inclusive and are not oppressive. What are you doing today to create this needed change? This will necessitate the destruction of old structures. There are many racists who are deeply invested in these shitstems--they must be defeated and these racist structures destroyed. We will replace them with inclusive systems and structures that will create real progress for society.
It is with great excitement and honor that the Oregon Library Association's Committee on Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Antiracism present the OLA EDI Antiracism Toolkit!
A paper copy of this toolkit will be distributed to every library in Oregon. They will also receive a digital copy to print and share with staff.
We tried to make this toolkit as practical as possible!
A antiracism readiness checklist survey is part of the toolkit. We are asking library staff in Oregon to fill out the survey/checklist so that we may get some informaiton on Oregon libraries (see pre-conference information below). We are asking that the survey be filled out byFriday, March 19, 11:59pm to give us time to prep for our pre-conference session on 4/8/2021.
I am proud to be part of this team!
Oregon Library Association Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Antiracism Committee:
Marci Jenkins/Alma Plasencia --Co-chairs
Kristen Curé
Martìn Blasco
Emily Ford
Max Macias
Melissa Anderson
Scott Rick
(Other authors of content listed in the toolkit)
Please note that there is also a recording of a training that we did for the Oregon Library Association's PLD. The training was geared toward library directors. It stressed how libraries could use the toolkit. Many of the authors of the toolkit shared why they wrote what they wrote, how it relates to antiracism, how libraries can incorporate the toolkit into their organizations and anything else they had to say to library directors in Oregon.
We hope this toolkit not only benefits libraries move toward antiracism in Oregon, but also throughout the country. It is practical, useful and can be used as a model for expanding antiracism into other organizations and structures.
The OLA EDI and Antiracism Committee will also be conducting a free Oregon Library Association pre-conference session in April. Register here.
Thursday, April 8 | 1:00- 4:30 pm EDI Anti-Racism Toolkit; what we have done, where we are now and where we are going? The EDI Antiracism Committee will present the OLA EDI Antiracism Toolkit metrics . This interactive data presentation will display the areas where Oregon libraries are thriving and the areas where we need help moving forward when it comes to EDI and Antiracism work. We will examine together the concerns, red flags, and talk about future initiatives concerning this theme. We will discuss awareness and engagement with the existing OLA EDI Antiracism work and library employees’ advocacy. We are presenting as a committee, there are 8 librarian in our group. Marci Ramiro-Jenkins, Librarian/ EDI Antiracism Special Committee Chair McMinnville Public Library.
Respectfully,
Max Macias on behalf of the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Antiracism Committee
Scientists, Mathematicians, Computer types and other data driven colleagues, please join us for a special antiracist session about how we can center racial equity throughout data integration in our work at PCC.
Our guest speaker is Angela Bluhm! Event Date and Time: November 10th, 2020: 1pm PST
Session description:
Since 2019, AISP (Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy) at the University of Pennsylvania has led a diverse workgroup of civic data stakeholders to co-create strategies and identify best practices to center racial equity in data integration efforts.
Angela Bluhm is an Analyst for the Educator Advancement Council in the Oregon Department of Education. Angela worked with the AISP while serving as Research, Data, and Communications Coordinator for the Oregon Longitudinal Data Collaborative in the Chief Education Office and later in the Higher Education Coordinating Commission (HECC).
Angela will discuss the work of the AISP, the Toolkit for Centering Racial Equity Throughout Data Integration, and ongoing work with Data and Equity.
Someone on a list I'm on recently posted that they were hesitant to renew their ALA membership because of the recent ALA press release scandal. You can read about it on Librarian in Black here: http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/alastatements/. The person who posted asked the group what they thought about renewing their memberships. Below is my response.
I'm not a member of the ALA, but I work with them on issues concerning Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. I'm on the ALA EDI implementation Work Group and I try to represent marginalized people who can't afford membership or conference participation (among other things).
I would say that ALA has been made progress due in large part to work by people like Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Trevor Dawes, Martin Garner and many others who are strongly committed to EDI in ALA and in libraries in general.
I would also say that the constituency should scrutinize candidate's actual work on EDI.
In my blog post on the 2015 ALA election I explicitly state that there was only one real candidate who seemed to address EDI.
It seems that, up until recently, the ALA has not really taken this issue seriously. They have focused on programs that teach marginalized people how to operate in oppressive systems without creating any real change. Instead, there should be a focus on changing the structural barriers and structural racism that exist within the organization. This kind of structural racism has caused the ALA to make little to no progress in the area of ethnic representation in the library field. Look here for some information on this: https://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/09/little-to-no-progress-in-ethnic.html .
ALA is too expensive, is too financially restrictive and is too exclusive for many librarians to participate in a genuine and engaged manner. ALA is making slow progress in this area, but it is making progress. I would say that ALA is listening and things are changing slowly.
Some things that would help ALA create change:
Strong leadership who emphasize the importance of, and the dedication to ED,I as an organization
Putting more money toward EDI and making it a real priority in the organization
A more diverse (in all areas) membership to increase new ideas and development of the organization
Structural change that makes the organization more accessible to people who can't go to conferences and who can't pay full membership dues
More discussion before making press statements that seem to support fascism
A more meaningful relationship with membership.
It should be something more than just getting a copy of American Libraries in the mail every so often
Less of a European hierarchical infrastructure and more of a participatory flat infrastructure
ALA and libraries in general seem to be a very classist organizations with the majority of librarians who are 2nd generation of deeper middle class. This impacts work in areas such as community engagement, programming and staff relations. This also impacts areas like LIS research--where there is nary a study on White-supremacy and Information in the US; where the area of Culture and Information Literacy has been hardly touched.
I am hopeful ALA is changing in the areas mentioned above.
Subject: ALA Task Force Seeks Your Input on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Greetings!
The ALA Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion was created in the spring of 2014 by then ALA President, Barbara Stripling. The Task Force is currently in the information-gathering phase. To aid with information gathering, it has launched a series of short surveys to be conducted at times to coincide with the ALA Midwinter Meetings and Annual Conferences through 2016. These surveys are designed to help understand the culture of the association, the profession, and our communities with respect to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
We recognize that incidents of racial bias and injustice continue to occur across the country on a regular basis. This third survey, however, focuses on the economic implications of participating in ALA functions.
The survey can be accessed at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/TEDI3. Responses will be collected through March 18, 2015. ALA members and non-members are encouraged to participate.
Please take a few minutes to answer the survey, which should take no more than 7 minutes to complete. “Embracing and celebrating diversity, and creating a more inclusive profession have been long-standing goals of the American Library Association. With your help, we hope to ensure these values are upheld,” said Task Force co-chairs Trevor A. Dawes and Martin L. Garnar.
The ALA Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion’s charge is to develop a plan and strategic actions to build more equity, diversity, and inclusion among our members, the field of librarianship, and our communities. The most important Task Force outcome is the public and honest conversation generated by its plan and recommended actions. The final Task Force report will include recommendations for ensuring that a continuing focus on equity, diversity, and inclusion is embedded throughout the ALA organization.
Questions about the survey can be sent to the Task Force at diversity@ala.org.
Should technical issues arise, please contact the ALA Office for Research and Statistics at ors@ala.org or call 1 (800) 545-2433. ext. 4273.
The number one issue I encounter when dealing with racism on an organizational/institutional level is the lack of ability to put the organization's resources toward ending racism and the lack of diversity in the institution.
Many US Organizations state they value "diversity." What does that mean?
Diversity, inclusion and equity aren't seen as an issue of sustainability for our organizations and institutions. These issues are looked at like pinstriping on a sports car. It seems they are not as important to our organizations as the engine, or even the tires of the car...
Our nation will not survive if we do not deal with the issues of race that exist in our culture.
Unconscious bias is built into most education, entertainment and other forms of information.
We need teams of analysts to investigate these biases, analyze them, describe them for laypeople, and prescribe fixes for them. We need these teams within our organizations and in general society.
In the organization, these teams need autonomy in order to properly do the job of analyzing as objectively as possible. They also need power in order to properly execute the changes they find are needed within an organization.
Organizations need to create such teams and give them the full support of the instead of just giving this subject lip service and keeping actions at the "cultural petting zoo" level.
Educating a diverse workforce and attaining the mission of almost any organization will entail that the organization work to meet the needs of a diverse membership and makeup.
Is it about money, or is it about fixing a broken system?
Indeed, if diversity, equity and inclusion were desirable goals for institutions from the US government down to our local community colleges and school districts, then these organizations would allocate and use their resources at the same level as other "crucial" goals and 'outcomes' of these institutions.
The thing is--these organizations almost NEVER allocate proper resources, nor processes to achieve these goals.
These resources range in type from the will to create change (and deal with the consequences of those who are upset by said change), to spending money to train, and educate the members of the organization.
In the US our culture shows that it values something by how much money, or how much 'integrity' an issue, or thing has to us.
People are willing to stand up for their guns, but when it comes to POC--they don't seem to care.
This integrity, in the sense I am speaking about, is the will to deal with those of the dominant culture who might become upset by the appointment, or the recruitment of ethnic minority faculty, staff and membership.
I see people stand up firmly for their gun rights, for the right to fly their confederate flags, for the right to shoot someone if they feel their lives are in danger--yet when it comes to standing up for the lives of their fellow countrymen--all of the sudden--they are worried about offending people.
Denial is the current mental health state in the US.
"Why should I suffer! I never discriminated against anyone, I never owned slaves!"
"Some people might get mad if we were to appoint POC faculty, or staff members!"
I hear again and again.
However, they don't understand that POC are already upset. That we deal with microaggressions on a daily basis, that we deal with fear and the knowledge that discrimination exists in our culture.
"Will it be us this time? "
"Was that discrimination?"
"Did they really just say that?"
"Maybe they didn't mean it."
The hell POC live when it comes to race in this culture. The hell of sending your child out to school and not knowing if they will be judged according to what they do and who they are instead of the color of their skin, or by their accent is never acknowledged, nor is it even a reality to those with privilege.
Those in power don't care about the hell POC exist within when it comes to race and employment in the US.
They are more concerned with upsetting someone from the dominant culture.
They don't care one iota if we are upset...
That should send us ALL a really clear and strong message when it comes to rectifying the racial situation in the US today.
meth·od
ˈmeTHəd/
noun
plural noun: methods
a particular form of procedure for accomplishing or approaching something, especially a systematic or established one.
We need new methods and we need not be afraid of approaching our organizations with this knowledge in mind.
We need to stress that our organizations put their resources, both financial and spiritual toward ending racism in our organizations, toward achieving those lofty mission outcomes and toward achieving equity.
Our organizations and institutions will benefit from this and we will achieve a return on investment that will be staggering--if only we have the courage to make our organizations put their money where their mouths are.
We must create some change with direct action and stop repeating the same things we have been doing for the past 30 years.
I know and understand that diversity is more than race, but I submit that within race exists a rich diversity. That is to say, if one recruits a rich and large pool of faculty of color, then one will have a richly diverse pool in more than just race, but also of class, gender, abilities, and other measures of diversity that organizations use. We need to work on race at the moment.
It isn't just getting people the MLS, or MLIS. I've had mine since 2009 and it hasn't done me much good. Libraries, the ALA and Education is not really interested in equity, inclusion or diversity, If they were, then they would put their money where there mouths are and make it a priority. I have been working in libraries since 1987 and personally have not seen a change in representation. I also have numbers that prove the field has become less diverse.
I think working together is the way to go, but I also think acknowledging "whiteness" and the privileges that go with it is an important step toward working together. I'm not even White and I benefit from these privileges because of my lighter skin. I know I have more opportunities (generally) than my darker brothers and sisters.And god forbid they have an accent. It isn't that hard to acknowledge the privilege--yet people constantly fight this acknowledgement.
We all benefit from the slavery, land-theft and genocide that occured and continues to occur in the Americas. Even the poorest people in our culture have a higher standard of living because of the slavery, land-theft and genocide that has happened and is still ongoing. It isn't hard to see this and acknowledgement is the answer. Nobody wants anybody to feel bad, but we want acknowledgement. I liken it to an alcoholic who is in deep denial. Things won't ever get better until one can acknowledge one has a problem.
