A Summary and Rant About the Recently Completed ALA Annual

I saved this for Friday, a few days after the conference ended, to give myself some time to settle down a bit. Also, leaving my thoughts, disappointment, frustration, and call for more action here on the Friday of a long weekend, when I have a positive post set fore the return to work on Tuesday, is better for all of our mental health.

I am going to cut to the chase with my comments. First a reminder on how to participate even if you did not pay for access is in this post I wrote on June 22.

Hands down the best program I attended was Intellectual Freedom Is Meaningless Without Social Justice by Alison Macrina

I missed this program when it aired live because it was in conflict with something else I had to attend. BUT, I knew it was being recorded and Robin Bradford and I we able to watch the video together to help inform our own Anti-Racism work. This is an excellent point. Even those of us who are paid to help others be anti-racist take CE to improve our skills. Robin and I are in contact regularly, sending each other CE information, reading or watching it all, and then meeting to discuss. 

If we are engaging in this work regularly, you all should be too.

I am going to share my notes on the program itself below, but you should also check out Ahliah Bratzler's live tweet thread of her notes and reactions to the program. Ms. Bratzler does an excellent job capturing much of what Ms. Macrina said in "real time." I have far fewer notes, but my focus was also tighter.

Now my notes:

• Alison Macrina is from the Library Freedom Project [https://libraryfreedom.org]
• They offer a FREE crash course. The next round's application process is open.
• The main takeaway I got from this presentation can be summed up as such: Yes, there is power behind freedom of speech but we also need to critique that power because free speech and intellectual freedom are not and never have been applied evenly across our society. Black people in particular, their freedom of speech has not and is not protected.
• Another big takeaway and one that Robin and I also teach-- Taking a stance of "neutrality" without recognition of the social justice implications of that viewpoint is not only wrong, it is harmful. Neutrality amplifies the voice and speech of those who are perpetuating social injustice.
• She used many examples of those who decry that their speech is being infringed upon, notable Tucker Carlson, Nazi groups, and TERFS [trans-exclusionary radical feminist: a feminist who excludes the rights of transgender women from their advocacy of women's rights].
• a major point here: those who books perpetuate injustice, the establishment protects their speech way more already.
• She used the term systemic injustice a few times. I am going to incorporate that into my own work.
• A lot of time was spent giving examples of the reality of how the French speech of marginalized voices is not and never been equally enforced. 
• It is not free speech to protect these hateful groups. In fact, it is socially irresponsible to prioritize the speech of the most vile people in society. 
• She shared Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance. Here is a link for more info, but basically, the more indiscriminately tolerant we are, the more we let hate gain power.
• She spent a lot of time talking about meeting room policies and how to work with the community to make hateful groups who book your meeting rooms feel unwelcome. But she was also honest about hate groups using threats of violence to make a point.
• She talked about the fetishization of the first amendment and how we don't understand it in reality. For example, libraries do not have to be neutral. A library has the right to express its own belief and it can be strong in that belief. What they cannot do is discriminate against the belief of others. 
• This is why libraries should STOP worrying a bout neutrality [but see below for more on this]
• She suggested this book to understand this more nuanced argument: The Case Against Free Speech: The First Amendment, Fascism, and the Future of Dissent by P.E. Moskowitz [I placed a hold].
• We need to move from these outdated notions of FREE SPEECH within our library framework or we are going to help make the problem worse.

Robin and I talk about the false notion of neutrality all the time. We site it as the biggest impediment to libraries doing real action based work to stop systemic oppression. Hearing this sentiment echoed by someone who is approaching it, using the law to back us, up was invigorating. However, much of our positive energy from this talk evaporated quickly when a library worker in Colorado reach out to me with this information from The Board Packet for the Douglas County Libraries:

Click through here and start at page 17 to see and read it all [PDF so screen readers can read it too]. 

This is VERY troubling. These are major libraries in a "blue" state trying to hide behind neutrality to uphold outdated notions and reinforce systemic oppressions. And it is framed to the Board, who may not be aware of the nuance here, that this is a way to "accept" everyone.

So there goes my positive attitude that real change is on the horizon. But better for Robin and I to know about these things so that we can directly attack, oh I mean, address them. We are regrouping to come up with our own response in our programs.

And then, somehow, things went from bad to worse-- although I am not surprised. Readers of this blog know that I have been a long time supporter April Hathcock and the work she has done, often alone and at peril to her physical and mental health, to fight again the systemic racism inherent in ALA and our profession. To read more about that, click here, but short version, April is the person who inspired me to act and use my voice and platform to force people to  recognize that they need to do more than just be "not racist."

Well, April finished her term as an ALA councilor and wrote this "Goodbye" post about how despite her work, nothing changed, and in fact, it seems ALA as an institution is simply digging in deeper toward not acting.

One of the biggest NON ACTION items at ALA was regarding the group of academic catalogers who have worked for 5 years to try to convince ALA to official encourage the Library of Congress to stop using racist subject heading. At Council, despite 5 years of methodically trying to play by the rules, ALA ended up not moving this proposal forward.

Look, it is complicated issue and I have had disagreements with those involved in trying to make these changes. I have questioned them for being too slow. They have countered that I am too naive and not in tech services. Well, I gave them space....for 5 YEARS!....and it did nothing. 

I am done with patience and with academic libraries. Instead I am mow pivoting to encouraging those of you who are involved in tech services at public libraries, especially large ones, to start publicly defying LC and to stop using their subject headings. 

Boycott LCSH and force their hand at change. At this point using "illegal aliens," for example, in our catalogs is WRONG. We know it and yet we argue that we "can't change because LCSH are the standard." 

Well, as Robin said as we watched the program above [where the use of boycott's by Black Americans as a way to stop Jim Crow laws worked because their speech was silenced or punished--but action still worked]-- ALA knew about Black people being kept out of public libraries and refused to "get involved." THIS IS THE SAME. Do not kid yourself. It is.

Do you want to stand by and let this continue to happen? Yes research and scholarship will face difficult and confusion for a while, but NO ONE WILL DIE. We need to get over ourselves. It is a small price to pay-- inconvenience-- to make a change, a step away from systemic oppression. No one said it would be easy or without problems, but real change, especially change that directly addresses systemic oppression, is HARD. Very hard.

Below, posted with permission, are the personal comments on Twitter by a library worker who is in charge of Technical Service for the second largest library in IL [in circulation numbers]. She not only made this public statement, she organized a meeting with the top levels of her library's leadership to discuss this issue. You can see she is responding to April's  comment on this issue too. This is ACTION! 

Click here to access the Tweets in the screen shot

ALA and LCSH-- I am done with your excuses. I don't care. And guess what? I have heard from more than this one library leader. Here is a list of libraries who are already unwilling to wait. [Passed on to me by Karen.]

There will be a revolt and when major institutions STOP using LCSH because they are racist and it is not acceptable. Then all of these people claiming to be fighting for the changes will be left int he dust. ACTION speaks louder than words. And it will take less than 5 years to get someone to notice us.

I have heard way too many excuses as to why it is too hard. Change is never easy. Dismantling systemic oppression is hard, but it is what is right and is just about the only thing keeping me engaged with my profession these days.

I am fighting here on the blog, in my programs with Robin Bradford, and as a Board member for a major Library System. Don't think I haven't put myself on the line-- this is something my detractors say. They claim it is easy for me because I work for myself. Trust me, I do this work in public meetings where I am part of organizations that don't want to hear it either. I have confronted the state librarian in public, I have met with legislators on both sides of the aisle, I have defied my own excellent state library association-- all to force people's hands to make change. Afterwards, people are uncomfortable and want me to know I may have gone too far. You know what? Until there is real change, I have not gone far enough. 

Don't tell me it is too hard and that I need to be more patient. Again, look at April's statement. There are few in our profession whose opinions I hold more dear. That woman has sacrificed her health and safety to try to convince people to change. She is not exaggerating, if anything she is holding back. I know this because I have edited this post over a series of days and have held back. 

This is my fight now. But this is what we are up against:

Click here to access the screen shot text

Don't get complacent. Use the anger of the meetings we just witnesses as energy to fight for change. Join those of us who are putting it all on the line, who are refusing to put up with excuses, who won't let the "politics" of it scare us away, who won't wait, who will act. Why? Because it is wrong to do nothing.

Look, I wouldn't be alive if my great grandfather "waited"around for his fellow Austrians to work thing out politically. He was wealthy and well established. He left it all behind and got out and then fought to get out as many family members as he could. There is a point when only action works.

If you thought I was unwilling to suffer fools before, you haven't seen anything yet.

Use this 4th of July holiday time to contemplate how you are going to make our country better and force up to live up to our ideals. There is nothing more patriotic than that.