No More Excuses: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Real Talk

Look, I am a white lady who tries to make visible the microagressions inherent in the way Readers' Advisory is performed on a day to day basis at most public libraries across this country.

I have posted about this topic many times, and most of those posts and my major points are in this slide presentation I give on a regular basis to libraries. This version has my speaker notes too. You can read them. You can also see a recording of this talk from April for free here.

I am not going to repeat myself, you need to do the work and go through the slides, watch the recording and ask yourself the hard questions about yourself and your RA Service.

This isn't about me, or even just you. It is about all of us. It is about listening to those who have been the most hurt by our inherent racism. Even if you have never meant to be racist, everyone has been.  

This is also not the time to try to make yourself look better by talking about yourself and what you have learned when you were racist. It's not about quoting MLK to show you are woke. It is time for you to shut up and learn more from people more equated on this topic than you, than me even.

Here are many options of things you can read for yourself and suggest to others. 

This is an excellent bibliography developed by  Karla J. Strand, DPhil, MLIS, Gender and Women’s Studies Librarian, University of Wisconsin System, entitled "Disrupting Whiteness in Libraries and Librarianship: A Reading List" It is "in progress" and Dr Strand provides contact info if you have things to comment on or add.  

From today's Book Pulse by Neal Wyatt for Library Journal:

• Bustle has “17 Books On Race Every White Person Needs To Read”
• Popsugar names “8 Impactful Books on Race in America White People Should Read.”
• The NYT has “An Antiracist Reading List.”
• LJ has its own “Antiracism: A Starter Booklist.”

And a suggestion from my son [15]. He suggests everyone take 2 hours and watch DO THE RIGHT THING. We watched it as a family back in April. He thinks that movie helped him to understand the issues in a way he could not as an upper middle class, white kid. It also helps, he said because it is not set now or during Civil Rights. It was "not that long ago" And, it is the same issues over and over again. They haven't gotten better. This is paraphrased from him. [We also talked as a family about how Spike Lee also makes that comment by casting Ruby Dee and Ozzie Davis, 2 Civil Rights activist actors, in the parts of the older generation who are ineffective].

Those are my suggestions, each will take you down paths to more suggestions. But you have to put int he work. After you have spent some time learning, it is time to ACT. I give concrete examples of things you can do immediately. No excuses about how and why you cannot act, just ACT. 

I have literally had someone tell me during one of my EDI presentations that she would be shot if she suggested diverse books. So I know the level of excuses people can tell themselves about why it is okay to keep being racist,  to allow microaggressions to continue, to "stay neutral," to ignore, to keep the status quo. It's not okay. It never was, but it especially isn't now.