Making Ubuntu Spaces, Addressing Insecurities and Peopling Our Commons (MAP) [Guest post by Roland Barksdale on Librarians with Spines!

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.