social justice

Goodbye, ALA

Posted on by April Hathcock

Over six years ago, I decided to run for the Council of the American Library Association because I wanted to see how the organization was run, Council being the Congress of the organization.

Today, I just completed my last ALA Council session.

I first decided to run for ALA Council after going with a couple of other Spectrum Scholars and early-career BIPOC library workers to sit in on what was listed as an “open” session of an ALA governance group at ALA Annual 2013 in Chicago. We sat in the small hotel conference room, grabbed some drinks, and waited for the session to start. And waited. And waited. Finally, after about 20 minutes, a group of White women (yes, all White, all women-presenting) came in and immediately shooed us out: “Sorry, this is a closed meeting. The scheduler is wrong. You’re not supposed to be in here.” In a desultory nod to too-little-too-late politeness, one of the women, an ALA staffer, tossed her card at us on our way out when we mentioned being Spectrum Scholars. But that was it. We were Black and Brown and not invited to continue to sit down.

That was my intro to ALA governance. Two years later, I ran for ALA Council. Six years after that, I finished my second and last term. And not much as changed since.

Having gotten a glimpse into the inner workings of the organization, I’m more convinced than ever that ALA has always been and will always be centered on promoting the “neutrality” of white supremacy and capitalism. Despite the endless working groups and task forces aimed at the contrary, there is no interest in changing the organization. Despite the continuous parade of hard-working BIPOC leaders who seem to get sucked into the org and—once their work has been fully taken advantage of—spit back out of the org, there is no interest in making the organization more welcoming to those who do not represent the 87% of White librarians in the profession. ALA is what it is and it will remain what it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I respect those who have been and continue to fight to make the organization a better space. I honor their belief that meaningful change is possible. I just don’t see it ever happening.

This is an org that repeatedly states a commitment to diversity and inclusion and equity as part of its Core Values but still shies away from any actions that hold itself, the libraries for which it claims to advocate, or the government from which it gladly begs and receives funding, accountable.

An org where being quiet and nice and patient is of more value than fighting strenuously for the rights to humanity that so many are denied.

This is an org where the newly (and finally) enacted Code of Conduct is centered on tone-policing the personal social media of those frustrated with the org, most of us BIPOC, rather than engaging in meaningful action to address the micro- and macroaggressions that occur regularly in ALA physical and virtual spaces.

An org with failing finances where high dues and conference registration rates go into inviting overpriced vendors and oppressive government entities into our spaces, while full-time staffers are underpaid, overworked, and furloughed, and volunteer labor is exploited to get business done.

This is an org where the workers of the profession continuously ask “What have you done for me?” and continuously get told their opinions don’t matter unless they pay dues and maintain carefully tone-policed “niceness” in their interactions.

An org that nonetheless wonders why its membership numbers are steadily declining.

This organization is not an organization for me. If I want to put my efforts toward improving the profession and making it more welcoming to those not part of the majority demographic, ALA isn’t the place to do that work. And this is nothing new: bureaucratic organizations have never been sites of liberation, and frankly, they never will be.

I’m glad to be done with my time with ALA. And I’m glad to be able to put my hard-earned time, effort, and money toward more worthwhile groups and efforts, in particular groups and efforts dedicated to seeing BIPOC, and other historically excluded groups, in the profession thrive. Groups and efforts like We Here, WOC + Lib, Green Book for Libraries, just to name a few.

In the meantime, goodbye, ALA. I wish you could’ve been better.

#ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM

Posted on by April Hathcock

Here is the text of my out of office message for tomorrow’s #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM:

Subject: Away and Not Responding in observance of #ShutDownAcademia

Today I am away from my desk and not responding to email in observance of #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM, a day of reflection and learning on ways to engage more effectively in anti-racist practice and activism: https://www.shutdownstem.com.

I will not be reading or responding to any emails received today. Instead, if you are someone who does not identify as Black, Indigenous, or a Person of the Global Majority (Person of Color), I encourage you to take at least a portion of this day to reflect on ways you can grow as an active accomplice in the fight against racism.

If you do not identify as a Black person in particular, I encourage you to take at least a portion of this day to reflect on ways you can grow as an active accomplice in the fight against anti-Blackness.

In addition to the resources on the #ShutDownAcademia #ShutDownSTEM site, I recommend the following posts from my blog, At the Intersection:


I’ll leave you with a poem I wrote a while back that really captures where my heart is right now:


Ode to the Ancestors

It’s exhausting Mr. Du Bois,

that double consciousness wears me thin

I’se tired

Ms. Rushin, my bridge is broken down,

sagging, ain’t taking nobody else nowhere

I gotta take off this mask

Mr. Dunbar, it itches my face and gives me a rash

I’m hungry, starving

Ms. Simone, but all they offer me is the trauma of that strange fruit

My voice is hoarse and I don’t wanna sing no more

Ms. Angelou, I just wanna break out my cage and fly

But I’ll be alright

Ms. Clifton, we’ll celebrate this life I have shaped

I’ll be okay

Mr. Hughes, that dream deferred is still a dream comin

I thrive

Ancestors, because your legacy is my strength

In solidarity,

AH

Feminist Framework for Radical Knowledge Collaboration

Posted on by April Hathcock

  1. How has the patriarchy affected you?

  2. How has the patriarchy impacted your work?

  3. How have you been complicit in perpetuating the patriarchy?

These were the three questions we started with when beginning our reflection on what has become the Femifesto: Feminist Framework for Radical Knowledge Collaboration.

My colleagues Sandra Enimil, Charlotte Roh, Ivonne Lujano, Sharon Farb, Gimena del Rio Riande, and Lingyu Wang began working on this idea several months ago as a proposal for the Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute in Chapel Hill, NC in the U.S., situated on the unceded lands of the Eno, Shakori, and Catawba nations and on land worked by countless enslaved people of the African diaspora. What initially began as a possible toolkit, quickly, through our individual and collective reflection work, evolved into a framework for thinking through equitable collaboration in knowledge work. We approached this work from our own disparate and shared positionalities, positionality being a concept rooted in feminist standpoint theory. We have physical, emotional, and familial ties to Mexico, the U.S., Argentina, Ghana, China, and Korea. Most of us identify as cis-gender women. Some of us are queer. We speak Spanish and English and French and Mandarin and a bit of Korean. We are students and academics and librarians and lawyers. And, ultimately, we wanted to build something that would help others think through and engage with collaborative work centered on the radical empowerment of the collective and the dismantling of oppressive systems and practices.

Femifesto Wordle

Word cloud of the Femifesto: Feminist Framework for Radical Knowledge Collaboration, created by Gimena del Rio Riande

The framework starts with a set of overarching principles, or our “Femifesto,” that serve to inform the context of our work:

  • Ethic of care/Ethical approach – We approach this work as human beings fully recognizing the humanity of those around us, working with us, whose work we rely on. We bring our holistic selves to this work and make space for others to do the same. Scholarship is not just an intellectual exercise: it involves human beings doing work with other human beings on subjects related to the lives of human beings. We bring our full embodied and intellectual selves to this work as we engage in different ways of knowing and unknowing.
  • Intersectional lens – We adopt an intersectional feminist lens for our work because it is the framework that speaks most to us. We see this work as going beyond an essentialist gendered frame to a more anti-oppressive, action-oriented commitment to engaging with our work. When we talk about an “ethic of care,” we’re talking about engaging with power in a way that promotes agency and breaks down barriers erected against those who are marginalized because of race, class, geography, gender, queerness, and (dis)ability. 
  • Radical – We are committed to destroying the status quo for more inclusive, equitable, ethical ways of knowing and doing. We are activists in our contexts, acknowledging our positions of power, privilege, and marginalization, striving to always learn and grow and to encourage others in doing the same. This is hard and vital work and is not meant to be appropriated for the mainstream.
  • Inclusive – We acknowledge that there are many ways of doing, being, thinking, and creating. Inclusivity is more than a checklist of commoditized identities. We embrace an intersectional lens that allows all to bring their whole selves.
  • Language matters, lenguaje se importa – Language is important and should be used as a tool for inclusion rather than a barrier to participation. We strive to make this toolkit and its surrounding community a space for all people of all languages. We encourage those who engage with these principles to adopt, adapt, reuse, remix, and translate them in whatever ways are necessary for their local contexts.
  • Not one size fits all – translators and contributors should add their own examples; local context is valuable and valued
  • Process more important than product or deliverables – Whatever we do requires thought, relationship-building, and critical care. It is far more important for us to take a thoughtful, empowering journey together, than to reach a particular destination in the work we do. It’s about the “how” just as much or more than the “what.”
  • Importance of repatriation – We work to stop justifying the harm we do as humans in a patriarchal system and instead redress historical and continued violence.  

The framework then focuses on three main areas of knowledge work: 1) Building empowering relationships, 2) Developing anti-oppressive description and metadata, and 3) Engaging in ethical and inclusive dissemination and publication. Each area is followed by a set of principles, as well as some best practices and examples.

Doodle of presenter faces and key concepts from the Femifesto presentation.

Notes doodle from our presentation at Triangle SCI created by JoJo Karlin, a fellow attendee.

Having begun construction of this framework from our own relative perspectives, we view this framework as a potential scaffold, or starting-off point. We want others, wherever they are, whatever their projects, to be empowered to build, remix, reuse, translate, grow, and develop on it, through it, and over it, according to their local contexts and community needs. In particular, we envision this framework as a living document, constantly shifting and evolving—a continuous work in progress—while also acknowledging that this work, like any living thing, will meet a time when it will and should die. Our target audience is literally anyone and everyone—whoever sees this framework as something that speaks to them and their knowledge work. We give it to the communities who feel a connection with it, to care for, nurture, disrupt, restructure, and reframe it for as long as feels right and relevant. We firmly believe that is the essence of how knowledge, particularly decolonized and feminist knowledge, can and should be created, evolve, and be shared.

This is just a start, a work-in-progress, yet we welcome others who wish to engage with our work to do so starting right away: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/Femifesto. At some point, we will take our version of the framework and move it to a more stable online space that still allows for community interaction, development, and growth. But for now, we’re ready to dig in, and we hope you’ll join us.

Let’s tear down the patriarchal status quo and build a more radically new and empowered system of knowledge creation and sharing!

Why I Do This Work: Agnes Scott Award Speech

Posted on by April Hathcock

Last month, I celebrated my 15-year reunion as a graduate of Agnes Scott College, a small, liberal arts, women’s college in Atlanta, Georgia. It was wonderful to spend time with lifelong friends, visit old haunts, and see how the campus has evolved and changed. I was particularly heartened to see how intentional about and dedicated to inclusion the college has become: what was once a very predominantly white institution really isn’t any longer. My heart leapt with joy to see all the young faces of color on campus, learning, growing, becoming the badass women leaders of tomorrow. My college days may have been a foreshadowing of what it would be like to join the library profession–white women everywhere–but that’s not the case for today’s Scotties. And I love it.

The highlight of my trip, however, was being awarded the 2019 Agnes Scott Alumna Award for Outstanding Young Alumna. I was so humbled and honored to be nominated by fellow Scottie librarians and archivists Sofia Becerra-Licha, Lindsay Cronk, Ann Lindell, and Jennifer Townes and to be chosen by the Alumnae Board for the award.

Image of gold-colored decorative plate that reads “Agnes Scott College Outstanding Alumna 2019 April Hathcock Class of 2004 Young Alumna Award”

My 2019 Outstanding Young Alumna Award from Agnes Scott

At the awards ceremony, we were asked to give a speech. Below is the text and a video of my speech where I shared some of what motivates me to do the social justice work that I do:

I often get asked why I insist on doing social justice work.

Why I insist on making it a central part of what I do, professionally and personally, how I live, how I navigate the world.

April, why DO you do this work?

Because I am living a life beyond my ancestors’ wildest imaginings, from the warm, sun-kissed plains of the kingdom, to the dehumanizing trauma of the Middle Passage and the Trail of Tears, to the sun-scorched cotton fields of plantation land that once stood where we sit and celebrate now, from the marches against Jim Crow to the fight for Black power and Black excellence.

That is why I do this work.

Because my Daddy, who taught me the importance of faith, duty, and honor, gave 30+ years of his life serving a country that has militarized its police forces and continues to murder innocent Black lives day after day.

That is why I do this work.

Because my Mama, who has committed her life to education, spent part of her schooling in segregation and another part fighting for an equal chance despite the color of her skin, raising my siblings and me to work hard, shine bright, and believe in ourselves no matter how others will inevitably prejudge us.

That is why I do this work.

Because my sister and brother, a doctor and computer scientist, work at the very top of their fields, yet still have to combat racism, sexism, and prejudice of all kinds on a daily basis.

That is why I do this work.

Because I work in a profession that is 87% white and still has a long way to go to truly represent intellectual freedom for all.

That is why I do this work.

Because my queer and trans and nonbinary friends and family have the right to live and love and learn and grow with dignity without fearing for their physical or emotional safety.

That is why I do this work.

Because we have the honor of meeting on land that is the ancestral home of the Muscogee Creek nation, lands that were ripped away from a people whose commitment to culture, community, and the protection of the land persists even in the face of ongoing settler colonialism.

That is why I do this work.

Because the children, regardless of nationality, should never be locked in cages but deserve instead to live in a world where they are free to be who they are, how they are, why they are, fully comfortable and present in their own skin, regardless of the labels others may want to put on them.

That is why I do this work.

Because we live in a country that has elected a leader who has no qualms spewing racist, sexist, ableist, Islam-hating, immigrant-hating, queer- and trans-hating bigotry each and every day and that is beyond unacceptable.

That is why I do this work.

Because I have been blessed beyond imagining with a loving family, wonderful friends, and outstanding opportunities.

That is why I do this work.

Because my alma mater, an institution I love, a place that nurtured for four years of my life, educated me “to think deeply, live honorably and engage the intellectual and social challenges of my times.”

That is why I do this work.

Because I am living in this time, in this place, and I owe it to all the ones who have come before me, and all those coming after me.

That is why I do this work.

And that is why I will continue doing this work.

Thank you so much for this award. Let’s keep doing the work together.

 

Have you learned from my work? Please consider making a contribution at PayPal.me/AtTheIntersection.

My Fire, This Time

Posted on by April Hathcock

I’m reading James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time finally for the first time.

It’s beautiful to see my reality reflected in someone else’s words, even over the distance of several decades. In some ways, it’s disheartening to see how little things have changed; but mostly it’s empowering, just as it’s always empowering to connect to the ancestors’ wisdom for how to make it through to another day of struggle.

photograph of a single candle flame up close

“Still” by roujo via Flickr.com, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In his short book of two letters, Baldwin says some things that really sync with my current reflections on life in this white supremacist patriarchal world:

In a letter addressed to his nephew: There is no reason for you to try to become like white ppl & there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that THEY must accept YOU. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that YOU must accept THEM.

and

In a self-reflective letter: There appears to be a vast amount of confusion on this point, but I do not know many Negroes who are eager to be ‘accepted’ by white ppl, still less loved by them; they, the blacks, simply don’t wish to be beaten over the head by the whites every instant of our brief passage on this planet.

This makes me think about conversations I’ve had with family, friends, and allies lately. How I’ve grown past the point of wanting to bond with white people or even be a part of their world; how I’m now just struggling with them for the right to live my life, equitably, fairly, without their censure or policing or gaze. Free in my physical body. Free in my mind. Free in my spirit. To be my whole Black woman self.

It’s hard.

The thing is, it’s the so-called Nice White Folks™ who do the most damage, who stand most in the way of my freedom. Baldwin calls them “the innocents.” The ones who don’t believe they’re doing any harm, who hardily support “diversity” and “inclusion” and “multiculturalism.” As long as it doesn’t cost them anything. They’ll eat our food and learn a bit of our languages, steal our music and watch our tv shows, peer avidly into our lives as a form of “cross-cultural exchange” because doing so is free. They cede no power or privilege in treating us, the very real physical traumatized fact of us, as exotic anomalies for their amusement.

That makes me tired.

I’m tired of allies treating my presence, my very reality, as a problem that needs solving. As if I’m little more than part of a clogged pipeline that just needs a little adjustment over here, off to the side; again, not costing them anything. Sprinkle a little scholarship money here, a program there, some assimilation over here…it’ll all be fine; I just need to stop being “bitter” and “angry” and “divisive” and start being filled with gratitude for my generous white saviors. Who still have not been cost anything.

Yeah, well, I’m done with all that. I’m with Baldwin. Because ultimately it doesn’t matter if they like me or accept me or want me. It doesn’t matter if they understand me. I don’t have to continue squeezing the wholeness of my Black womanhood into tiny bite-sized, white-sized parcels that they can swallow. Because nothing will ever change that way. Nothing can ever change until they’re willing to accept the cost. There’s a price to be paid for the undoing of their privilege, for the dismantling of their so-called supremacy.

And how many of them are really ready to pay?

Building and Being Welcome

Posted on by April Hathcock

It’s that time again.

A new school year is beginning, and for those of us who work in academic libraries, it’s a time when our work ramps up. Students flood our campuses and library spaces; teaching faculty race to finalize syllabi and set up last-minute instruction sessions. New materials bound in awaiting processing for what will undoubtedly be heavy use throughout the year. It’s a fun time. And for those of us who work in this space, it’s a familiar time.

But it’s not familiar for everyone.

This morning—as I sauntered through the morass of humidity and the aroma of eau de garbage that is New York City in late August, sipping on my tall latte with almond milk and two pumps of vanilla syrup (sigh, yeah, I’m one of those)—a fellow Black woman stopped me in front of the library doors and hesitantly asked, “Excuse me, but where did you find a [insert name of big corporate coffee shop here]?” She seemed new to the campus and unsure. Even in the course of our brief interaction, I saw that she moved and spoke uncertainly, like she wasn’t sure if she was allowed to fully inhabit the space. I also noticed that she moved past several other people with similar cups but less melanin to approach me with her question. I gave her a giant smile and replied, “There’s one right on that corner. You’re almost there.” She grinned in relief and solidarity and made a beeline in the direction I pointed. She’d found a familiar face to guide her to what I’m sure was a familiar place.

Black and white photograph of Welcome sign

“welcome” by ☻☺ via Flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0

As we’ve been gearing up for orientation and the start of classes on my campus, I’ve been reminded of how alienating our institutions can be for some and how important it is for us to do what we can to those folks know they belong. Institutions of higher education can be very white, male, ableist, colonial, classist, hetero- and gender-normative spaces, and for those who don’t inhabit those identities, they can feel like harsh, uninhabitable planets. We all put in a ton of labor in our jobs already, I know, but to the extent we can, we should each make an effort to seek out those most marginalized and carve out a place of welcome in these spaces in which we work.

We should also make sure we’re all sharing in this additional labor and not just relying on our colleagues from marginalized identities to do this work. There is a role that members of privileged groups can play in crafting welcoming spaces. Treat folks with dignity. Interrogate your biases. Don’t make assumptions. Look beyond and step beyond unspoken norms. Engage in microaffirmations—those small acts of encouragement and solidarity that show a marginalized person that you acknowledge and respect their belonging in the space. These things can seem minor, but to a new student, faculty, or staff member who already feels marginalized and out of place, they can make a world of difference.

I hope that woman found what she needed at the coffee shop. But more important, I hope she found welcome and belonging while in the library and that she continues to find welcome and belonging there and everywhere else she goes on campus.

Just say it…WHITE SUPREMACY

Posted on by April Hathcock

Last week, I dropped in on this event being organized by a Twitter friend who is an amazing science researcher doing work in the scholarly communication space with a particular focus on social justice and anti-oppression. She’d gotten a bunch of other researchers, librarians, funders, students, and the like together to write a handbook on building better, more equitable systems and platforms of open scholarship.

The point of the group and the handbook was to move conversations and action forward in the scholarly communication space. So right off the bat, for the opening preamble of the handbook, a librarian friend of mine started a draft of two powerful paragraphs that were meant to lay out the values of this collective. Others added to the language.  The thinking was that their radical, critical values needed to be clear and uncompromising for real change to take place.

To paraphrase (the handbook hasn’t come out yet, so I won’t share the exact language), the paragraphs went something like this:

We recognize that current systems of scholarly communication are mired in historical and modern white supremacy, ableism, capitalism, and cisgender hetero-patriarchy . . . It is our goal to work to establish systems that are intentionally anti-racist, anti-sexist, anti-ableist, anti-capitalist, anti-heteronormative and anti-gender-normative—in short, anti-oppressive.

They were beautiful paragraphs. I loved them. Many of the participants did. Yet, some of the participants, notably folks who were white and more senior professionals with particular power and privilege, felt the statements were “too blunt.” Discussion ensued. And at some point, the real issue came out: “I don’t know,” one of them admitted, “I agree with the ideas here, but some of these terms—specifically, ‘white supremacy.’ It’s just too militant. Too in your face. It’ll turn people away, and we don’t want to do that.”

Ah. Yes. White people hate the term RACISM. But what they hate even more is any reference to WHITE SUPREMACY or WHITENESS. Anything that calls out WHITENESS as  an oppressive norm.

At this point, I got up, said a little something about how awesome I thought the statement was and how pointless the work would be without it, referenced what was going on in libraridom with folks trying to sell marginalized folks down the river while bending over backwards to protect Nazis, and peaced out. That was my cue to leave. Most of the room may have been on board with what my scientist and librarian friends were really, radically trying to do, but the people with the power and prestige and MONEY were scared. As the Bible says, “The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” I didn’t have time for weak (white) flesh.

Then, today, my sister sent me this New York Times op-ed, accompanied by an angry face emoji, and it was the same old, same old. Sure, this Nice White Lady™ was limiting her message to other white liberals. But the message was the same: Don’t call out racism or whiteness or white supremacy for what they are. You hurt feelings that way.

The thing is, this message is not new. I hear it all the time. From angry white trolls and well-meaning white “allies” alike. Lemme say that again: I get this tone policing message from both the angry white conservatives AND the well-meaning white liberals. Don’t talk about WHITE SUPREMACY. Tone down the talk about WHITENESS. It’s divisive and alienating. It hurts feelings. You lose potential “allies” that way.

Black and white photo of woman holding a magnifying glass up to her open mouth showing off enlarged image of her tongue, which is colored bright red

“Megaphone” by madamepsychosis via Flickr.com, CC BY-NC-ND

Well, let me make this clear once and for all: If the terms WHITE SUPREMACY, WHITENESS, RACISM, WHITE PRIVILEGE, or any variation thereof, makes you so uncomfortable that you wish to disengage from this work, then YOU ARE A WHITE SUPREMACIST.

Yes. I said it. I mean it. Yes, even you. No excuses. I don’t care if your best friends are people of color. I don’t care if you marched for Black Lives Matter. I don’t care if you voted for Obama. I don’t care if you are part of the resistance against the current administration. I don’t care if you participate in actions to free Black and Brown children from cages, to open immigration, to abolish ICE and prisons and the police. If the very thought of hearing or using the term WHITE SUPREMACY makes you want to walk away, tone it down, disengage in any way, then YOU ARE A WHITE SUPREMACIST.

Why? It’s simple. WHITE SUPREMACY is, by definition, the belief that white feelings, values, and experiences are more important and deserve more consideration than the feelings, values, and experiences of people of color. To shy away from anti-racist work because the term WHITE SUPREMACY is used and you find it “too blunt”? THAT IS WHITE SUPREMACY. That is the act of preferring to engage with more blunt, “white-friendly” terminology than to actually get on with the much-needed work of dismantling WHITE SUPREMACY. It’s preferring to support the feelings of white people about WHITE SUPREMACY rather than directly and actively addressing the feelings and experiences of people of color facing WHITE SUPREMACY. IT IS WHITE SUPREMACY.

I understand that there are folks who are new to this work and need space to learn and move beyond their discomfort. I get that, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But the space for that needs to be elsewhere. Because there are others who are busy doing the work and don’t have time or energy to coddle white feelings and coax white people along.

As for that scholarly communication group, like I said, I left early so I don’t know how the conversation ended up. I don’t know what the preamble to the handbook will look like. But what I do know is that while they were busy going back and forth on whether to say WHITE SUPREMACY, they weren’t busy engaging in action to dismantle WHITE SUPREMACY in scholarly communication. And ultimately, that was part of what their work was supposed to be about.

So, if you’re serious about doing anti-racist work, then you need to be able to work through the discomfort and just say it. WHITE SUPREMACY. Because that is at the crux of what we’re dealing with here.

 

 

Oh, and by the way, fellow people of color, while this post is directed mainly at white people, please know that we too can and many times do enact WHITE SUPREMACY. But that’s another blog post for another day.

My Bought Sense, or ALA Has Done It Again

Posted on by April Hathcock

Mama. Daddy. Aunt Doll. Granny. Muz. Big. Aunt Pearl. Sutta. All my ancestors, all the way back, have always told me, “Don’t you never sign NOTHING a white man gives you without reading it first.” As a Black woman, I hold this advice dear. As a lawyer, I hold this advice dear. Before the first of the six figures of my law school loans hit my Sallie Mae account, I knew this basic tenet of legal practice.

But I didn’t do it. I slipped one time. And now this.

I’m on ALA Council. It’s a pain and a lot of work, but I do it anyway because the American Library Association is a big opaque beast (though one that has shown it doesn’t care much about the marginalized) and those of us with anti-oppression principles and financial privilege need to do what we can. When the ALA Office of Intellectual Freedom, which is led by a privileged white man, sent a draft of this interpretation out around May, I read it carefully and commented. I was frustrated that they were doing it. I knew it grew from misguided interpretations of the tiresome “Nazis in the library” question. The endless debate about free speech that is really by and for and about straight, cis, Christian, white men. But I was heartened to see comments and edits incorporated that seemed a reasonable (if not altogether desirable) compromise that most of us could live with.

The statement I read and commented on, all the way up until ALA Annual in late June, had no specific mention of hate speech or hate groups. It just reiterated that generally people can’t be turned away from public library spaces for their beliefs. And there was at least one line about none of this having anything to do with regulating behavior to maintain safety. I figured it was the best we could do. And I trusted that the document with the final resolved comments and edits would be the document I’d vote on during the hectic frenzy that is ALA Annual. I thought I’d done justice to my office as an ALA Councillor and to my status as an ALA member who cares about anti-oppression and who knows libraries are not now and never have been neutral. I thought I could trust my colleagues in the ALA OIF, though led by a privileged white man, to be upfront and honest and not make any additional changes to the document that had been vetted and commented and edited by the membership for close to two months. I thought that, at the very least, last minute changes wouldn’t take place during a historically poorly attended and poorly advertised side session of Council. I thought any changes that did take place would be highlighted right before the vote and opened for discussion as is usually the process. In short, I thought I could vote on the document during the ALA Council Session, which always runs at a frenetic pace, without having to re-read it.

I was wrong.

Oh, ancestors, I should have heeded your time-honored advice.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t take the time—even spoken up to stop Council proceedings (which we totally can do)—to re-read this document and notice the change. I’m sorry that I voted for a document (essentially signed my name to a document) that I wholeheartedly do not support and cannot endorse. I’m sorry that library workers, whether they’re ALA members or not, who count on me to represent them were failed in this way. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to my ancestors.

And I’m angry. I’m angry this new document was, I’m convinced, deliberately slipped past me and others who would have vehemently opposed it beforehand. I’m angry that my fellow socially conscious, anti-oppression Councillors—folks who are conscientious and thoughtful and who really care about this work—have been bending over backward to take responsibility and apologize and make things right while the bad-faith actors have glibly dismissed the concerns of their colleagues. I’m angry that other socially conscious, anti-oppression library workers who have already put in plenty of labor in this profession have had to step up to mobilize a response. I’m angry that it is again and always the women of color and white women, queer folks, non-binary folks, disabled folks stepping up to save this profession from itself.

During this same ALA Annual, ALA Council voted to pass a resolution honoring the African-Americans who fought against the segregation of public libraries during Jim Crow. Like the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, Jim Crow was also THE LAW. But these brave librarians put their bodies, lives, and livelihoods on the the line to fight for what they knew was right, regardless of what an unjust law said.

Though that’s all moot, because it is my expert legal opinion that ALA OIF purposefully mis- and over-interprets the law surrounding free speech. I just point it out because it is so typical of the hypocritical whiteness of the library profession.

Anyway, for those of you who want to help do something, several of our amazing colleagues have put together letter templates. Please continue to write and call. The folks of privilege and power in our profession have been trying to dismiss our response as “a few posts on Facebook,” but we won’t let them ignore us.

And as for me, I’ll know better than to trust my so-called colleagues over my ancestral wisdom. As Big always said, “Well, bought sense is better than told.”

 

selfie photo of April in large conference hall

To ALA and Beyond

Posted on by April Hathcock

I just got back from the 2018 American Library Association Annual Conference in New Orleans, and I actually feel invigorated.

selfie photo of April in large conference hall

Me, waiting excitedly to see First Lady Michelle Obama at ALA Annual 2018

And that’s saying something given how the U.S. Supreme Court just upheld the President’s ban of Muslim folks while he still orders the holding of thousands of children of color in cages.

Being invigorated this year is also huge because this time last year, after the 2017 ALA Annual in Chicago, I came back demoralized and exhausted by whiteness and then eventually harassed by white supremacist trolls.

But at this ALA, I made some changes. I took more breaks and surrounded myself with colleagues of color and allies. When I could, I took myself out of spaces and situations that felt tiring, leaving me more bandwidth for coping with the spaces and situations from which I couldn’t leave. My parents came for a day, and I soaked up some much-needed familial love. In short, I made my self-care a priority, and it paid off.

I also had the opportunity to present in two wonderful programs that really left me feeling encouraged, hopeful, and ready to keep doing the work.

April's conference badge with ribbons for Speaker, Spectrum Scholar, pronouns she/her/hers, Wakanda Research Library Staff, and Council

Obligatory badge pic

The first was a panel with Nicole Cooke, Miriam Sweeney, Cynthia Orozco, Stacy Collins, and Elvia Arroyo-Ramirez (in absentia) titled “Bullying, Trolling, Doxxing, Oh My! Protecting Our Advocacy and Public Discourse Around Diversity and Social Justice.” During the session, we each shared our stories of suffering extensive harassment online, by phone, and in the mail, from right-wing white supremacists angry about our public social justice work. We also talked extensively about the lack of meaningful (or any) support we received from our institutions and professional organizations, including ALA, and suggested better, more productive ways for providing support to harassed professionals. I shared my experiences after last year’s ALA, when I received hateful tweets, emails, and voicemails from white supremacist trolls about my post on race fatigue. I even had people calling my library and university administration about me. It was a devastatingly traumatic time, but I made it through with the support of my family and wonderful allies and friends, like the women with whom I had the pleasure of presenting. The room for our panel was packed, and we heard from several attendees who were eager to take the conversation further in developing plans to provide support for victims in the future. I was also delighted to learn more about Stacy’s Anti-Oppression LibGuide, an amazing resource for supporting folks from marginalized communities and educating potential allies.

My second session was a workshop I led on “Breaking Below the Surface of Racism, Whiteness, and Implicit Bias,”  which was part of the Association of College and Research Libraries series of programming. I figured we’d be sequestered in a tiny room and there’d be a small group of folks who are already heavily involved in this work. So I brought 40 or so handouts, thinking I was being optimistic.

Y’all.

The room was HUGE and packed. There were 500 attendees for my workshop. FIVE HUNDRED.

And we had a great time. There was a wide diversity of attendees, white and people of color, from all types of libraries (not just academic), from all different levels and ranks of work or management. Everyone was very engaged and eager to participate in the group and plenary discussions that I had arranged. After all, antiracist work is active and collaborative, so we put that into direct practice during the workshop. It was a room full of people willing to learn, teach, share, make mistakes, be corrected. There was an amazing collaborative, supportive energy flowing through those 500. And it was made even better given the fact that my parents were also in the room. What a beautiful, beautiful time. Ryan Randall got these community notes started and others filled in if you want to check them out.

So, it was a good conference for me, on the whole. Add on top of that getting to hear First Lady Michelle Obama dialogue with Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden and to hear actress extraordinaire Viola Davis speak, and I can’t help but to feel invigorated and surrounded in my Black girl magic.

Don’t get me wrong, our very white, cis-het, middle-class profession still has a ways to go. It wasn’t all roses. At our last session of ALA Council, many of my fellow cisgender and gender-conforming colleagues refused to be bold and stand with our genderqueer and trans colleagues on a resolution that would aim to have 100% of conference bathrooms be gender-inclusive. We ended up with a weak compromise that only calls for a “sufficient mix” of gender-inclusive and gender-specific bathrooms, a resolution that really changes nothing of the status quo. And what was more disheartening was hearing the arguments being made for “safety” and the “comfort” of the oppressive majority. It felt grossly familiar to stuff many have lived and the rest of us have read but in our history books. We need to do better.

We can do better. And I’m determined that we will. My ALA Council term ends next year, and I’ve already submitted my candidacy for another term. So, we’ll see.

But in the meantime, I’m taking this renewed energy I’ve got and pushing forward with the fight. To ALA and beyond!

black postcard with multicolored hand outlines in background titled "Pushing the Margins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS," edited by Rose L. Chou and Annie Pho

I’m super excited about this new volume edited by Rose Chou and Annie Pho, Pushing the Margins: Women of Color and Intersectionality in LIS, coming this fall from Library Juice Press. Get one!

Columbus Day 2017: Tear It All Down

Posted on by April Hathcock

Today is Columbus Day, but I’m in the midst of a social media break so you won’t see this post until much later. Still, I’ve been thinking about this for awhile, and it’s really come to a point where I’ve got to get the thoughts down.

I just eavesdropped on a white woman talking about her family’s participation in the New York City Italian-American community’s Columbus Day celebrations. (Columbus Day became a holiday in the U.S. initially as a way for marginalized Italian immigrants to celebrate their heritage.) There will be protest by native folks and allies against the settler colonization and genocide that Christopher Columbus represents. In the words of this woman, “I get it, but I don’t get it.” Then, she proceeded to give all the usual trite arguments:

  1. It’s a celebration of Italians in America, not Columbus per se (though he was Italian in America and a genocidal one at that).
  2. You can’t judge historical figures by today’s standards of morality.
  3. I supported the taking down of the Confederate monuments, but where do we draw the line?
  4. Blah, blah, blah.

I don’t mean to rag on this woman. She’s only saying what many other well-meaning, white, liberal Americans say. But this thinking is the very epitome of why we will likely never decolonize and dismantle white supremacy in the country (or anywhere else really).

White people are just too married to their own supremacy and privilege. Even the well-meaning, so-called “liberal” and “progressive” ones.

Over the last few months with all the hullabaloo about taking down Confederate monuments, so many well-meaning liberal white folks took to their thinkpieces to explain why it’s the white (do I mean “right”? Is that really a typo?) thing to do to take down the Confederate monuments, and why it’s okay to leave monuments to other well-known slave-owners and native murderers because of “all the good they did in founding our great country.”

Huh. Cue thinking-face emoji.

What “good” did they do? For whom? What “great country”? For whom?

Because from where I sit, I see native peoples being chased by dogs and teargassed for trying to protect the sanctity of their (and all of our) water.

From where I sit, I see black athletes, whose very bodies are owned by wealthy white men (sound familiar?) being castigated and Black-balled (quite literally) for engaging in peaceful protest against state-sanctioned, racist violence.

From where I sit, I see Spanish-speaking, colonized Americans, Black, Brown, and every shade in between, being left to die of thirst and disease in the midst of one of the worst natural disasters in their living history.

But yes, let’s please preserve the racist legacy of the racist people who built this racist country. By all means.

I say tear it all down. I say this as a proud American who wants to be even prouder of her country. I say this as a Black woman, most of whose ancestors didn’t choose to be here, but here we are, so deal with me. I say this sincerely and unequivocally.

Until we’re willing to, figuratively and literally, tear down every vestige of our nation’s racist, white supremacist history—from Washington to Jackson to Tr*mp—we will never attain the equality and equity we like to talk so glibly about. We need to confront our history and our present, and then we need to tear it down.

Until then, enjoy your ridiculous parades and bank holidays. I’ve got better things to do.