PLA 2022: Thursday Report

Thursday began with the Big Ideas with Brittany K. Barnett. Click here to read about Ms. Barnett and her upcoming book.  Her overall theme in one sentence...Representation Matters. But here are a few things from her powerful talk that I wanted to share with you:

• As a poor rural, black girl in TX with a mom addicted to crack, who ultimately ended up incarcerated for a time, books were her escape.
• Time spent in the library, how many books she could read in a week, these were things she could control, in a life where very little was under her control.
• Her mother may have an addiction but her love for her daughters was huge.
• She shared her journey to becoming a lawyer. It was a powerful story about her own mentor as well.
• She became a corporate lawyer because she had an accounting degree and, well quite frankly, that's the type of attorney Clare Huxtable was on the Cosby Show. 
• As she learned about the unfair sentencing for crack vs powder cocaine, she began writing to prisoners who were serving life sentences for first time drug offenses. She was a corporate attorney by day and helping "justice impacted people." in free time.
• This term-- justice impacted people stuck with me. Not "formerly incarcerated."
• She talked at length and with a compelling storytelling style about her work over the years to get justice impacted people out of jail and into jobs. "There is noting more urgent than freedom," she said
• The freedom journey does not end when they step out of jail. Barnett has also worked to get them jobs, to start their own businesses, to start to live a meaningful life. 
• There is painful trauma in her story-- she acknowledged that-- but she is also fueled by love, hope, and joy.
• This work transformed her idea of what freedom means. They freed me too, she said. 
• She wrote this book for all of the little, southern, black girls so that they could see what they can be.
• She ended by talking about the power of Judge Jackson and watching her confirmation hearings and how she is making history and will change the world-- with tears overtaking her, rightfully so.

After that powerful moment, I had to go to Prepare Your Library For Today's Censorship Battles:

I was so worked up [in a bad way] that I was writing notes in anger, Tweeting in anger, and texting people in anger. I knew it wouldn't be good, but it was so much worse.

First, please read my Tweet threads here and here. BOTH. It got split up because I was so upset. But I will not repeat the things I wrote there in this blog post. 

To add to those angry Tweets and set the stage, they framed the program with 3 questions. I recount those here and add my commentary:

• Question 1-- What has changed?
• They began by explaining how much more organized today's book banners are. They are organized groups who harness social media, have slick handouts, and are trying to get government officials on their sides.
• Big difference here is also that they are trying to get Boards to ignore their policies in order to remove books.
• Live streaming Board meetings not only allows them to be performative, they want to transform selves into stars as well. The whole "cult of personality" thing [although they were not smart enough to use this phrase]
• They then moved on to Question 2-- What does this mean for Libraries and Library Workers?
• This is where I started to get angry. They just kept listing all of the incidents that are happening. Why are we wasting time at conference recapping the news about censorship. Why are they wasting our time when Kelly Jensen is doing this work for us on Book Riot, and doing it better. Kelly is both reporting AND giving everyone concrete policies and examples to help us all act.
• Where is our ALA driven action? It is absent. No worse, non-existent.
• They talk about how facing a challenge is isolating. I disagree completely. Getting people worried about getting a challenge and telling them it will isolate them is WRONG and leads people to make bad choices. Rather, we should be sharing how a challenge can be a chance for you to gather support, get the whole community behind you, and get crowdsourced help and support. Here's one of the major problems with the official ALA response right here. ALA should be embracing those with a challenge and helping others who want to help to act. Instead Kelly Jensen, a former librarian is doing that at a for profit company. Why is she better at it than our membership organization that is supposed to support us? She is better because she puts action first.
• They are also scaring people by explaining how there were 6 instances were criminal charges were filed. 6! Think about how few that is. But they use the words "criminal charges" to scare people. And then later they told us, "All of the charges were dropped for being unfounded." ARRRGGGGHHH. This is not helping. We should be lifting up, encouraging this good work, not bringing people down and making them an anxious mess. We are right here. And right will win out over time, but it will take a lot longer if we pander to our enemies. And that reminds me....why don't we call them enemies. They are the enemy. If we changed our terminology, we would foster more action. You fight an enemy. You do not appease them.
• Question 3: What Are Best Practices and Strategies to Respond? And here is where it went down the toilet fast.
• They spent 2/3 of the talk scaring the audience, telling everyone that the other side is organized, infiltrating government, and using social media and slick marketing to spread their message. So what's our response? Very weak-- 
• Have conversations
• Build relationships with key decision makers
• Deflect?!?!?!-- this one made steam come out of my ears. They told people that when you get a challenge don't draw attention to the specific materials, rather have a way to push out messages of all of the great things you do that do not have to do with materials. How you help the community. WTF?!?!
• This is the problem. We are being told to meekly deflect and not meet our accusers head on. This measured approach will never work. We are against a well organized enemy who will stop at nothing for attention. They told us this. The time for advocacy and community building is over. We need to get mad and rally the troops-- both other libraries and those in our community who are appalled. And there are more that are appalled than with the banners. They just are afraid to speak up. Many are waiting for the library to help them find their voice. We are failing everyone: ourselves, our patrons, and our futures.
• ALA needs to be there to help rally the troops. Sure they need to always be doing the foundational work, but we also need a guerrilla arm for the action. Conference is the time to call to action, not boring recaps. Again, Book Riot is offering those already. Don't duplicate the work. We have limited  resources. Our libraries need ACTION. We are missing our chance.
• They did have one good point, one I make in the Twitter feeds linked above and one I make everywhere I go. They are disappointed in Boards, particularly school boards for ignoring their own policies. As I tweeted "Everyone listen. Board members by law cannot remove a book. Your job is the building, the budget, the policies, and hiring and firing director. That is it! The professional staff handles challenges. You don’t get a say on day to day operations. Period. Stop giving in to them."
• Support the freedom to read, they tell us at the end. What about the myth of neutrality that they prop up. Oh, not a word about that. Fighting that myth would save us and allow us to directly challenge our adversaries, who use our internal battle around this myth, to hit us where we can't respond.
• And then, after I did the angry Tweets about this program, and knowing stories about the moderator before this began, I had this reply to my Tweets [keeping anonymous as possible per request]:
• "One of those folks is my former director and I… also have feelings about them participating in this session. For a lot of reasons. "
• "The time they told me that yes, literal n*zis could use our programming space for meetings because the Girl Scouts were also allowed to springs to mind."
• "There was such a record scratch in my head when it was said and basically couched in “I’m on the IFC so of course it’s right.”

Of course neutrality didn't come up. The people on the panel are literally the problem, encapsulated on one stage.

One last comment here. This program was so very disappointing in light of Luvvie's talk the day before. Please read my recap. But she was pleading with us to engage with our fears and actively challenge our unjust systems. And yet, here was an official ALA program that asks us to cower, hide, and try to deflect. It was upsetting on every possible level.

Sigh....

On to the next program: Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism in a Sundown Town. This one was fascinating. Here is the description:

Based on research done by library staff, Glendale became the first city in California to pass a Sundown Town proclamation, acknowledging and apologizing for its history of racist treatment of Black people. Glendale Library, Arts & Culture (GLAC) was a leader in the City's effort to build a collective understanding of historic and present-day systemic racism, through partnerships, events and exhibits. GLAC is working towards becoming an antiracist organization internally as well.

And here are the links to their slides and handouts [side note, ALA ppl in program above ddid not post slides. smh]:

• PLA Handout - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Antiracism in a Sundown Town (1).pdf
•  PLA Presentation - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Antiracism in a Sundown Town.pdf

The all white panel was very clear, this is the story of the beginning of anti-racist work. Glendale had a reputation for being racist. The black community is small. And in the summer of 2020 the community decided to do work to dig into their racist history. Because, they said, when black people say your town is racist and tell each other to stay away, trust them. They are definitely right. Don't deny it, dig into why that perception is there.

They did and went out to try to gather evidence of the town's sundown practices. Maybe not ordinances but the official things that were done to keep out black people. The library was part of the process of the town officially trying to prove their racism and bring the receipts.

They searched the archives for the town. First thing they noticed was the erasure of the black experience. Nothing in official archives was about black organization or experiences. NOTHING. So next they used every racist terms they could think of, they even looked up historical racists terms, the more awful the better the results. It was emotionally upsetting work, but it brought results. 

Please look at the slides I linked above  because they had examples from the archives. One example, was from the Glendale Reality Board, a flyer to promote a new housing development which promised "permanent race restrictions." And this was a tame example.

The library took on this research role and became the place to help prove that Glendale was a sundown town that actively worked to keep black people out. Their work was there to prove this as fact and allow more people to come to terms with the racism and listen.

But the research was the first step. With this work the town passed a "Sundown Town Resolution" that acknowledges their racist past, apologizes for it, and pledges for an anti-racist future. This gave everyone accountability that they have to keep going, keep their work moving forward. It is a promise we have to keep, said the presenter. But also, she said, we continue to work to be an anti-racist community. This is not an end action, this is a beginning.

Note: Glendale was the first city in CA and only the third in the country to pass a sundown town resolution. And they hope you might explore this for your community as well. It is a place where the library can easily take the lead.

The second part of the presentation was about the website they created to tell the racist story of their community-- The Glendale Reckoning. The slides talk about what they were trying to do and here is the direct link. Quick note, they used the same 3-D web technology that realtors use to show houses online and they worked on it all from home during quarrantine. The contact info for the woman who presented on it is on the slides. Take some time to look at it.

The third part was the Adult Services librarian who talked about the programming they did, especially a public art component and working with the high schools. Again the slides  have a lot. But they built their library programming off of the final "episode" on the website--"Be the Change." That was her job to help be the change and bring the anti-racist work to the community. She talked  bout converation series and programs [again, slides] that they have started. And it is not just black racism. They also have a large Armenian population. I also liked that  they hosted "parent corners" on how to speak to  your  kids about racism.

They were very clear, this is all a beginning. "We Are a Work in Progress" statement slide is also below and a great way to wrap up the program but keep the conversation going. I would love to see them again in 2 years in Columbus at PLA 2024.

The slides and handout go into much more detail and provide links to much of these notes. Please explore them as well.

And finally, I ended the day here:

Heading to PLA 2022 in Portland? Join us for the “Your Evening is Booked!” author panel.

Date: Thursday, March 24, 2022
Time: 5:005-6:00pm
Location: Conference Center Rooms D137-D140

Featuring:
Therese Anne Fowler, It All Comes Down to This (Macmillan)
Kate Quinn, Diamond Eyes (HarperCollins)
LaToya Watkins, Perish: A Novel (Penguin Random House)
And joining us via Zoom:
Stewart O’Nan, Ocean State (Ingram/Grove Atlantic)
Vauhini Vara, The Immortal King Rao (Norton)

This was a wonderful return to the LibraryReads branded live events. It was a chance for those of us assembled to meet the authors and hear about their books. Some were there in person and some were virtual. But, right before the event, I was texting with Executive Director of Library Readers, Rebecca Vnuk, who was there virtually, and she said they are committed to making these panels hybrid going forward. They are looking into to hiring people to record them at every conference where they will happen and then allow people to watch them after. 

I was very excited to hear this and told her I would pass it on.

But wait....there's one more thing to recap. Yesterday also had Robin and I had a lunch and dinner meeting with two different people/groups where we discussed possible projects in the future [and ate well]. No details yet, but there will definitely be more ways to access our Actively Anti-Racist Service to Leisure Readers coming to you soon.

Back tomorrow-- Saturday with my final recap.