EDI Real Talk for Well Meaning White Ladies

I spend a lot of time yelling at explaining to well meaning white lady librarians how their actions are racist. I use myself and my own missteps as an example, I talk about how our white privilege is untrustworthy and veils the truth from us, and I explain how we unknowingly uphold systemic racism and if we only listened to marginalized people, truly listened, and didn't get upset when they point out our missteps, but instead pledge to do better and be more cognizant of our privilege, then and only then can we begin to address centuries of inequality.

Here are my slides from my most recent RA and EDI talk. They now include links to two longer conversations I had this summer [both with Robin Bradford and others] on the final slide. The access to these recording is free and we have honest conversations.

I have given many of these talks and there is a question I get almost every time, and it is troubling because it underscores the systemic racism that is literally the foundation of our 88% white lady profession. It even came up in a presentation that I was an audience member for yesterday. I feel like it is past time to address it here on the blog because I am beyond out of patience with these queries.

It goes something like this: Urban Fiction and BIPOC Romance are very popular at our library. We order tons but they always get stolen. I can't afford/justify buying more copies if they just get stolen. 

Here's the problem with this question-- it is racist and the asker has no idea they are being racist. First, why is is racist? Well, you  are saying that your "Black" books are being stolen at a higher rate than any other books. Here's the thing because I worked in a library in a minority majority community and know this first hand, yes our urban fiction titles went missing often, but 1, they are not always stolen and 2, so do other books. Let me start at 2. You Wicca and occult and nonfiction ghost books also get stolen in super high numbers. Again, I know this from experience. These are stolen so often, we kept a copy of each behind the desk so that we had them on hand when they were needed for assignments. The thing about these books is that you don't notice they are gone as often because they are not nearly as popular as urban fiction in terms of day to day use. If you aren't asked for them constantly and/or patrons don't seek them out almost daily, you don't realize they are missing. You don't refuse to buy more of these books even though the few times a year you are asked for them and can't find them. Saying that "Black" books are stolen by readers more often is upholding the racial stereotype that Black and Brown people steal more often than White people. Refusing to buy more copies is admitting you are racist, and I know many of you don't want to be seen this way and/or haven't even realized you are doing this. That's an excuse for not knowing before, but know that I have explained, you cannot do this anymore. 

Back to argument 1 "they are not always stolen." Here is something I learned supervising a fiction collection for teens and adults in a majority minority, working class community for 15 years, next to the high school-- our policies for access to materials disproportionally effect marginalized communities. I am a HUGE proponent of libraries being fine free [more on that topic here]. Fines are one of the biggest EDI issues we need to address. For years, before fine free was a topic libraries even considered I was infamous at my library for waving fines for everyone, yes even the Brown families who only checked out videos and were always late returning [the racist argument a lot of you use for keeping fines]. Again, you wave for the little old white lady, but what about the kid who brings in the family's bag of laundry quarters to pay their fines so he can check out books. Yeah, he got waved, every time. He was a "repeat offender" because of his family's precarious financial and immigration statuses. 

Yes, I often got in a bit of trouble, but when I was sent to someone higher up to explain myself, well, they could never actually write me up because I was putting our citizens first. My way of looking at things has started to gain steam as libraries being going fine free, but back to why those "Black" books get "stolen" more often.

Yes sometimes they are stolen, but often that is because the person checking them out doesn't have a library card because they are worried about racking up fines they cannot afford or they don't have the proper ID to get a card. By the way we make the address requirement way too hard. Years ago at my library we changed it to, if you are a kid in school you get a card if you don't have one. That is your residency check. 

Side note: Also stop with your minors need an adult to sign for them nonsense. It's library materials. Calm yourselves down. Your items are not that important that an adult needs to give a kid access. Check yourself here. In my community, adults were afraid ICE would come if they got a card. We stopped trying to convince the adults it was safe and just got cards in every kids' hands and let their parents use them too. It hurts NO ONE. Seriously, why do you care if a kid gets a card without a parent. We should be about access not gatekeeping.

Back to residency checks. For adults, we required something with your name on it. Literally something. It didn't even need your address. For the address check we mailed you the card. You got an immediate temp number to use for 3 weeks. If you got the card in the mail that was our check that you lived there. Guess what white ladies? Many of my marginalized patrons were living many people in an apartment. They didn't have an official utility bill with their name on it. Nope to cell bill because pay as they go. Nope to a lease with their name on it. A bank account? Now I know you are out of touch. Again, it is very much a privilege issue to think that everyone can produce the documents we require. 

Now, there are many from marginalized populations who don't live in as progressive a community as the one I worked in [and boy do I have stories about the libraries I have yelled at even as they paid me to come and present for them] or they don't trust that the library wants to help them. So yes, maybe they steal that book they are dying to read. Or, more often, I found that my patrons, especially my Latinx HS students, read the book at the library only and then hid it somewhere so no one wold check it out until they finished it. The vast majority that were missing, turned up eventually. Also, even the ones that were stolen, it was for the right reasons, to read the book, not to steal something. Often a book came back many months later tattered, from a kid that it was passed to by someone else in the community as a "must read."

Last time I  checked, our job is to get books in readers' hands. If there are books that are so popular and we have policies that make access to library cards difficult, but patrons still find a way to read them, we should celebrate this! Buy more copies. Better yet, transfer money from the midlist white books that are god awful [I'm looking at you American Dirt] to buy more books by POC. Books all of your patrons want to read.

And this leads to another question I get, people saying well my community is 80% white so shouldn't I buy more white books. Or, they won't read about people of color. This one is for another time because that one is so racist I cannot deal right now. But as a quick counter to that, I point you to the Goodreads Horror Best of Year 2020 where Silvia Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic beat Stephen King by OVER 38,000 votes. Don't tell me white people don't read books by POC. The 4th and 5th place books were by a young Black woman and a Native American. So again, not an argument. These are THE BEST books of 2020. And they aren't all by straight white people.

I am tired you all. Very tired at how unwilling you are to address your place in the systemic racism in everything we do. I don't need you all to be all "OMG I can't believe how racist I have been," or "stop blaming me, I don't mean it." I don't care. And I'm not blaming you. I am just trying to make clear what you have been unable to see. 

Acknowledge your place in these problems. Acknowledge, your policies that create barriers to access. Acknowledge how your privilege clouds your vision. Check yourself and your assumptions. Stop making excuses and just make these changes in your life. Be the example for others. Challenge your administration to examine the systemic racism embedded in their policies. I will yell at them for you for free even. Seriously. I know many of you won't be heard by the higher ups, but they will listen to me. And I hold no punches.

This is but one example. I hope it makes you take a hard look at yourself. I have, and I have found problems with my own behavior and I use myself as the main example in my training programs. I am constantly checking myself, but more importantly, I have friends from marginalized communities who I trust who either call me out or I turn to for help and advice. Please think about your assumptions and policies with fresh eyes. That would be a great goal for 2021. 

---End Rant---