Abstract
While contemporary revisionist narratives frame the public library as a benevolent and neutral community resource, it has existed for over two centuries and has a deeply shaded past. Particularly, public libraries played key roles in projects tied to the industrialist mission of states and the education of select social groups during key historical times. In no uncertain terms, these were inherently racist and colonial projects in which libraries helped proffer socially constructed and politically motivated ideas of race and class. This work draws on relevant and important work in anti-oppression studies, Black studies, critical diversity studies, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to trouble contemporary revisionist perspectives in public librarianship to show how they further entrench monocultural normativity and structural racism. It also draws on scholarship in anti-racism studies to reimagine possibilities for public librarianship that genuinely reflect its core values of equity and justice.
For many both in and outside Library and Information Science (LIS), the imagined ideal of the public library is one of a utopic common in which access is equitable, information is neutral, and diverse perspectives are found. Meanwhile, racialized and critical LIS scholars have repeatedly demonstrated how these fabled ideas rest firmly on an often unacknowledged structure of white cultural and social supremacy (Caidi et al., 2017; Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020; Honma, 2005; Hudson, 2017a; Hudson, 2017b; Pawley, 2006; Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017; Schmidt, 2019; Sierpe, 2019). For those whose culture and identity are reflected in the library staff, collections, and physical space, it is easy to misunderstand how the public library can feel like a “white space” (Anderson, 2015, p. 10). A term famously coined by Yale sociologist Elijah Anderson, white spaces are described as a “potent and provocative new form of racism” in which “perceptual” messages of cultural, social, and political superiority are silently and invisibly reinforced by the absence of Blackness and other racialized groups (Anderson, 2015, p. 20). Often experienced as structural racism, this is a deeply embedded form of oppression that has been normalized and legitimated through historical and contemporary institutions that reinforce perceptions of white superiority and replicate oppressions across a variety of social structures (Anderson, 2015). The idea of public libraries as oppressive and racist spaces stands in stark contrast to their own contemporary narratives of “institutional heroism” in which they take great pride in their responsive and supportive relationship with communities (Hudson, 2017a, p. 21). This is especially true in moments of racial crisis and tension when public libraries often position themselves and their work as an essential source of information and services (Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020). In these moments, library institutional narratives often passionately describe their commitment to social responsibility and their role supporting racialized groups and inclusive communities. Hence, in recent months as racial injustice has once again come into societal focus and attention, public libraries offered a range of social media responses and official commentary that strongly positioned their institutions and workforce as anti-racist allies in the social movement for a more racially equitable and just society.
These responses recognize, at least tacitly, that race and other forms of privilege have created unequal access to power in society that results in pronounced forms of structural racism. Still, there is a complex and confusing relationship between institutional responses to structural racism in society and similar forms of inequity found in public libraries. While some institutions have acknowledged that the practices of government and other social service institutions like education and law enforcement can be fraught with racial discrimination and inequity, these perspectives on structural oppression have yet to be extended into the field and its practices. Rather, the vast evidence of the “whiteness” of librarianship and its potential impacts has been steadfastly ignored institutionally in favour of its own more popular narratives of neutrality, diversity, and inclusivity. The result has been scarce consideration of how whiteness as a structural privilege affects racialized individuals and communities. There are relatively few inquiries into how the material conditions of race impact the decisions made in libraries, how social and cultural biases function in our spaces, and how white normativity influences LIS scholarship (Pawley, 2006). Unsurprisingly, there are also limited scholarly and professional resources on identifying and meeting the culturally relevant information needs of racialized communities (Cooke, 2016). There is even less known about meaningful social and cultural inclusion in library practice. However, as a field whose principal role involves service to communities that are becoming both ever more racially diverse and socioeconomically stratified, the disparities in representation and access are profoundly concerning – especially after more than two decades of rhetoric on equity, diversity, and inclusivity (Bourg, 2014). Despite strong commitments to be equitable and diverse (American Library Association, 2021), it is not coincidental or insignificant that white normativity flourishes unabated in a field that lacks substantial resemblance to many of the communities that it serves (Bourg, 2014). Rather, these are strikingly clear signs that librarianship still embodies and reflects the white and middle-class structures of privilege that have been dominant in library institutions since their inception.
While contemporary revisionist narratives frame the public library as a benevolent and neutral community resource, it has existed for over two centuries and has a deeply shaded past (Honma, 2005). Throughout history, public libraries have played key roles in projects tied to the industrialist mission of states and the education of select social groups during key historical times. In no uncertain terms, these were inherently racist and colonial projects in which libraries helped proffer socially constructed and politically motivated ideas of race and class (Caidi et al., 2017; Honma, 2005; Pawley, 2006; Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017; Walker, 2017). Though imagined differently, public libraries are still intricately bound to this historical reflection of the social and cultural ideas of the white middle-class (Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017). Retracing the ahistorical and acultural ideas of the public library brings to light these structures of power and privilege and helps to theorize new trajectories that are outside of dominant LIS narratives of neutrality, diversity, and inclusivity. This work draws on relevant and important work in anti-oppression studies, Black studies, critical diversity studies, and Critical Race Theory (CRT) to trouble contemporary revisionist perspectives in public librarianship to show how they further entrench monocultural normativity and structural racism. Finally, it draws on scholarship in anti-racism studies to reconcile this troubled past in “pathologizing discourses” based on racist and classist ideas to reimagine possibilities for public librarianship that genuinely reflect its core values of equity and justice (Dei, 2014, p. 25).
Theoretical and methodological framework
Race as a structural phenomenon
Race is a problematic and difficult concept to theorize and discuss (Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017). While race has no biological significance, it is the source of an enormously important social and ideological construct that has vast material consequences. Ideologies of racial difference also often intersect and work alongside other privileges that are not expressly linked to race (Crenshaw, 1989). Thus, it is helpful to begin with Howard Winant’s suggestion that to “tackle the matter of racism, we must first develop a working understanding of what we mean by race” (1998, p. 775). Michael Omi and Winant show that race has typically been understood as either an “ideology” or a “biological fact” (2014, p. 109). The former is often taken up to show why race ought to have no weight in contemporary society whereas the latter is associated with explicitly racist thinkers in pseudo-disciplines like biological determinism that sought to cloak racial differences in science (Omi & Winant, 2014, pp. 109–110). Regardless, Omi and Winant show that neither of these ideas about race are particularly helpful to understanding racism. For example, race is an important factor in health, opportunities, and life outcomes (Heritage Canada, 2019). Yet, its benefits are also conferred unevenly even across white individuals and groups. Hence, race cannot be brushed aside as just an ideology when it has real consequences nor can it be a natural order when not everyone in the dominant group has its privileges and others can also access them to varying degrees (Omi & Winant, 2014, p. 111).
Rather, a more nuanced and sophisticated definition is needed to account for both the “political and ideological work” of race (Omi & Winant, 2014, p. 11). Interestingly, though, Omi and Winant point out that what race is itself is actually not all that important. “What we mean by race” is really a matter of what gives racial differences meaning and how this meaning is reproduced across social structures (Winant, 1998, p. 775). CRT has shown that structural racism is endemic to contemporary society and functions through normalized ideas about the white identity as superior in ideological and social structures such as knowledge or political economy (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). Anti-racism scholars further note that while racism is often discussed in interpersonal terms, it is actually the discursive construction of racial meanings that reproduce inequity by imbuing false value onto skin to explain the unequal distribution of power and resources in society (Lipsitz, 2019). Thus, it is the social construction and political implications of race and their impacts that are important to analyses (Omi & Winant, 2014). From this perspective, race can be understood as a social structural phenomenon that is operationalized to produce and replicate a core set of ideas and practices that collectively exalt whiteness as superior. However, Omi and Winant note that racial meaning is unstable and “something we make and remake over time” (2014, p. 16). This further complicates locating racism as a social structure because its meanings change and are used in ever evolving contexts (Omi & Winant, 2014). However, while racism today appears better than more overt and violent forms in the past, the crux is that it is the same structure at work.
For those that do not experience the direct effects of racial inequity, this notion of a social order based in white supremacy can be difficult to acknowledge or accept. It can feel deeply personal to suggest that an entire system of inequity rests on one’s own culture, identity, economic standing, or professional practice. The term “white supremacy” is also most commonly associated with hate groups in media and popular culture. However, white supremacy as a structural phenomenon is never a personal issue (Cole, 2018, p. 7). Rather, the core premise of CRT is that structural racism is not interpersonal nor is it aberrational. The essence of contemporary society is inequitable and unjust social relations that reproduce existing power relationships and structures (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). However, CRT is not a theoretical and analytical framework that is exclusively focused on race relations. Rather, it asserts that race forms the basis of the current socio-historical structure in which a variety of privileges and opportunities are inequitably bestowed on the dominant white identity (Delgado & Stefancic, 2013). CRT theorists such as Kimberlé Crenshaw have also made profound contributions that show how intersectionality is a useful tool to situate and analyze how different forms of privilege (i.e. gender, ability, class, sexuality, language, and others) also work structurally to organize access to power and privileges in contemporary society (1989).
Anti-oppression methodological framework
In fields such as LIS that have been contemporarily divested from their troubled histories, anti-oppression frameworks are highly useful to examine how problematic knowledge, practices, and power relations remain “socially and politically located” within institutions (Potts & Brown, 2005, p. 19). Institutions can be defined as the “well-established laws, practices, customs, beliefs, assumptions, patterns of behaviors, roles, and relationships” that form the social structure of society (David & Derthick, 2018, pp. 81–82). Anti-oppression analyses begin with a purposeful refocusing of the lens of study back to institutions to identify the power relationships underlying knowledge and systems of organization (Potts & Brown, 2005, p. 35). Described by Karen Potts and Leslie Brown as “reversing the gaze”, this shift in the focus of analysis principally seeks to problematize practices that continue to reinforce oppression (2005, p. 19). Secondly, anti-oppression research examines the context that social and political knowledge emerges to observe how it functions rather than proving or disproving it (Potts & Brown, 2005). Adopting Potts and Brown perspective that “most research is organized with a gaze facing the wrong way, toward those who suffer from inequities rather than those who benefit from them or are indifferent” (2005, p. 24), the “gaze” of this research is the functioning of institutional narratives and practices that work together to erase the socio-historical foundations of white supremacy in public librarianship. This is also crucially informed by the work of racialized and critical LIS scholars that have identified that the denial of white supremacy is a longstanding barrier to equity and amongst the key reasons why the field continues to struggle to reflect and include racialized communities (Cooke et al., 2017; Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Hathcock, 2015; Honma, 2005; Hudson, 2017a; Hudson, 2017b; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020; Pawley, 2006; Schmidt, 2019; Sierpe, 2019).
The potential impact of racial bias and complacency in librarianship is profound with 87% of the workforce identifying as white (Schmidt, 2019). Thus, there is a strong need for all members of the library community to actively engage in racial justice work at the structural level. However, anti-oppression research is also based on an explicit understanding that the relationship between the researcher and the object of study is not neutral (Potts & Brown, 2005). Each researcher brings their own subjectivity to the research that must be accounted for through a continuous reflexive analysis of their subject position and how this informs their perspective and understanding of the world. In the case of this work in which the researcher is white, it is essential to ground the analysis in anti-racism scholar George S. Dei’s sage advice on the limit to “what we know and cannot know about the experience of racism and the intertwining processes of racialization and colonization” (2014, p. 17), which is to say that this work lacks the lived experience of racial inequity and examines racism through many lenses of structural privilege (i.e. white, middle class, Canadian-born, English-speaking). Accordingly, this research also follows Dei’s guidance that the focus for racial justice allies should not be to explain the experience of racism (2014). Rather, the aim is to locate the “taken-for-grantedness” of systemic privileges that replicate oppression and resist practices that deny “agential power” by ignoring the presence and impact of race (Dei, 2014, p. 16).
The roots of racism in public libraries
Revisiting benevolent and altruistic narratives of the public library
Over the last two decades, critical library scholars have repeatedly underscored that the widely held belief that public libraries are neutral, diverse, and equitable is rooted in ahistorical and acultural revisions of library history that have severed institutions from their deep roots in early practices of social structural control and development (Honma, 2005; Caidi et al., 2017; Sierpe, 2019). To counter this, it is important to resituate and reexamine public library development within its historical context. This draws attention to the impactful forms of socio-historical erasure that obscure the ideological constructions of race and class in the structural foundation of public libraries. Contemporary public libraries emerged through two interrelated and mutually reinforcing social and political processes that were crucial to state formation and social control in the late nineteenth century (Honma, 2005). The first was the transformation of librarianship from a largely male profession to a nearly exclusive female workforce in rapidly industrializing states like the United States, Canada, and Great Britain (Passet, 1993). This occurred in the last quarter of the century alongside the rapid expansion of industrial capitalism as more important needs for male labour grew in other areas. However, the governing and upper-middle class also had growing concerns that the white working class lacked appropriate education, norms, and worldviews. This presumption of ignorance led many to fear both a disruption in work and a breakdown in the progression of capitalistic development. As a result, wealthy industrial capitalists began to make substantial philanthropic investments in public libraries across North America (Walker, 2017). Today, these investments are memorialized as idealist and aspirational acts to foster a democratic ethos and altruistic gifts to learning and education (Honma 2005; Walker 2017). However, these revisionist narratives neglect how these philanthropic investments and the reorganization of labour were a key means by which preferred social behaviours and values were passed through social and economic classes.
Benevolent ideas about the idealist and democratizing mission of libraries were highly circulated and became deeply seeded in public opinion. Yet, in his 1949 book Foundations for the Public Library; The Origins of the Public Library Movement in New England, 1629–1855, Jesse Hauk Shera writes that “judged by every standard and measured by every criterion, the public library is revealed as a social agency dependent upon the objectives of society. It followed – it did not create – social change” (p. 248). Shera’s account reveals that public libraries were not the source of aspirational discourses of democracy and education nor were they as charitable or benevolent as revisionist narratives suggest. Rather, the original role of public libraries was one of being civilizing agents and they were intricately tied to larger state projects like industrialization, colonialism, and nationalism (Honma, 2005). Feminist analyses of this problematic role of early public libraries have drawn important linkages between discourses of gender, capitalism, and state formation (Hannigan, 1994; Passet, 1993). However, the public library as an institution that was intricately tied to the formation of the white middle class has been less examined in LIS. In fact, critical library theorist Todd Honma notes that in “idealized visions of a mythic benevolence”, race as a tool of social development and control is ignored entirely (Honma, 2005, p. 3). Rather, it is as if public libraries emerge and are external to the socio-historical context of colonial and capitalistic racial ordering (Honma, 2005).
Public libraries as a historically-situated racist project
While white supremacy is rarely mentioned in more nascent LIS narratives, Honma (2005) reminds the field that the dominance of white culture and knowledge is the foundation of contemporary society and all institutions that emerge from it. He draws on Omi and Winant’s notion of “historically-situated racist projects” to demonstrate how the very particular form of middle-class whiteness found in librarianship today emerged and became embedded as neutral and normative (2005, pp. 2–4). Within this social structural dynamic, Omi and Winant (2014) note that racial identity is ascribed only to non-dominant groups as a signifier of inherent differences, whereas the dominant culture is assumed to be natural and superior in the racial hierarchy. Race, thus, becomes an irreducible measure of difference found only in the non-dominant group and this racial structure serves as the foundation of the social, economic, and political organization of society (Omi & Winant, 2014). Through this process, Omi and Winant (2014) show how whiteness first becomes established as the marker of social, cultural, and political normativity and then becomes reproduced as an equitable order in ideologies like democracy and capitalism. For Honma (2005), this relationship is pivotal to the seemingly futile struggle to reform structures and practices in librarianship. This complex process obscures oppression through “simultaneously” acting discourses that create a racial hierarchy, justify it, and then suppress it through adjacent ideologies that claim neutrality or objectivity (Honma, 2005, p. 3). Within the simultaneous workings of these complimentary discourses and ideologies, race is rarely named and never concrete (Omi & Winant, 2014). Rather, the obfuscation of race gives meaning to and creates the opportunity for seemingly equitable pursuits like the public library and later conflicting narratives like diversity and inclusivity.
However, Omi and Winant’s seminal work shows that these are always false promises because “of the conflictual character of race at both the “micro-” and “macro-social” levels” (1986, p. 4). These work together to obscure social structural privileges through contradictory positions and relations that exist simultaneously. On the one hand, there are micro or individual level interactions that inform “the ways in which we understand ourselves and interact with others” interpersonally (Omi & Winant, 1986, p. 66). However, these interactions take place within a “macro-level” ordering of the larger ideological and political organization of the social structure (Omi & Winant, 1986, p. 67). It is through the “continuity and reciprocity” between orders of social relations that public library discourses reconcile contradictory processes of white supremacy with diversity and inclusivity (Omi & Winant, 1986, p. 67). On a “micro-level”, libraries and especially library professionals can have meaningful interactions and relationships with racialized colleagues and communities. Yet, they are still operating within a deeply problematic social structure at the “macro-level” that reproduce ideologies of white supremacy. Omi and Winant (1986) note that macro-level social structures vary greatly in scope, size, and tangibility. Some are readily identifiable such as the public library whereas others are intangible such as ideologies and beliefs about race and class. The crux is that race and the social order are not stable nor concrete. Rather, racial ordering is an everchanging social construct that can always be given new meaning and force as seen in the evolution of the dominant culture of the governing and upper-middle classes now becoming synonymous with contemporary society in general. Honma concludes by noting that this enduring racial order “continues to haunt the field” as its historical roots lie in an oppressive structure (2005, p. 12).
White supremacy and librarianship today
Structural privilege and contemporary narratives
In 2001, Isabel Espinal wrote that “unless we address whiteness, unless we identify and name it, many of the problems that plague us collectively and as individual librarians of color will continue” (p. 132). Espinal’s warning draws clear attention to the “cultural inequities” in library spaces and practices that arise as a result of ignoring white supremacy as a structural phenomenon (2001, p. 132). Yet, almost two decades after concerted efforts to center diversity and inclusivity in library work, she and her colleagues write again that “many seem unaware that the conversation [about whiteness] is happening” (Espinal et al., 2018, p. 149). This profound tendency to ignore calls to address the structural foundation of oppression has been repeatedly problematized by LIS scholars (Caidi et al., 2017; Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020; Hathcock, 2015; Honma, 2005; Hudson, 2017a; Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017; Schmidt, 2019). Still, the deeply problematic dominance of whiteness remains with new narratives around neutrality, diversity, and inclusivity working alongside it to posit public libraries as equitable and just (Honma, 2005; Hudson, 2017a; Pawley, 2006). However, critical LIS scholars have also shown that ignoring the socio-historical context of racial oppression has not made LIS more equitable. Instead, Hudson argues that this failure to examine “monocultural homogeneity” has actually rendered LIS incapable of meaningful practices of racial equity or justice at all (Hudson, 2017a, p. 6).
Recontextualizing the question that Eduardo Bonilla-Silva sets out to answer in his seminal book Racism without Racists (2014): how is it that a field so suffused with white supremacy also comes to staunchly believe that it is racially equitable and just? For Bonilla-Silva, the answer lies in the novel “subtle, institutional, and apparently non-racial” forms of structural racism that simply dress old practices in new language (Bonilla-Silva, 2014, p. 14). In contemporary institutional narratives, the overwhelming focus is on how library spaces and practices are neutral, equitable, diverse, and inclusive. Societal and institutional beliefs that the library embodies these values have become popularized in the same way that early narratives popularized industrial capitalism and the reformulation of gender roles as benevolent and altruistic. However, one only needs to look at the substantial evidence that many non-dominant groups experience similar forms of exclusion (e.g. racialized youth, Indigenous groups, people experiencing homelessness, addictions and mental health concerns, and others whose disabilities are not accommodated, amongst others) to see that the enduring order of structural privilege has steadfastly remained. In fact, this is the main ruse of structural privilege in that it comes to mark dominant subject positions as the “standard bearers” of norms, experiences, and perspectives to shield the exposure of privileges (Sullivan, 2019, p. 4). While librarianship has changed from its overtly race and class-based origins as Omi and Winant suggest that institutions do, these similar perspectives of being under/ill-served show how the dominance of structural privilege has remained constant and unnamed through seemingly nascent iterations of public library service (i.e. library as place, community-led librarianship, libraries for all, etc.).
The subtly of implicit bias
In today’s iterations of public librarianship, this work is performed through institutional and policy driven approaches such as library core values and mission statements that purport that inclusion and the celebration of differences render public libraries equitable ostensibly because they do not overtly exclude non-dominant groups (Honma, 2005; Hudson, 2017a; Hudson, 2017b; Pawley, 2006). However, the result is the further sedimentation of white supremacy and its attendant forms of structural privilege because nothing has been done to alter the dominance of politically situated knowledges and social relations of power (Espinal et al., 2018; Hudson, 2017a; Schlesselman-Tarango, 2017; Schmidt, 2019). While Espinal, Sutherland, and Roh (2018) note that LIS commonly looks to internal and policy-driven approaches with marginal success, structural privilege can never be addressed through the codification of inclusion because the most insidious effects are unregulated and below the level of recognition (Bonilla-Silva, 2014). For example, most practices of exclusion and marginalization occur in routine interactions fraught with implicit biases. These are the “subtle” assumptions about individuals and groups, ideas about what communities need, negative and bias fraught interactions with and amongst library staff, perceptions about how groups should be represented, and assumptions about the kinds of materials and services that are offered for and about groups (Bonilla-Silva, 2014, p. 4). These implicit biases that inform the relationship and experiences of non-dominant groups are rendered invisible to most by the “homogenously white and privileged” perception of society and librarianship (Anderson, 2015, p. 11). Yet, Jane Schmidt notes that LIS continually returns to the “inclusion-nirvana-by-committee” approach with a focus on codified and institutional inclusion that leaves structural positionality in place (2019, p. 1). Meanwhile, racialized LIS scholars and practitioners continually repeat their unheeded calls for white members of the LIS community to take a direct and actionable approach to ameliorating racial injustice and inequity in librarianship (Cooke et al., 2017; Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020).
Institutionalization of inequity
Institutional policies that posit diversity and inclusivity are seemingly requisite in public librarianship today. However, their effect is often negligible to those affected by racial inequity because the structural relations that underpin library organizations and relationships are not examined to redistribute power and privilege (Espinal et al., 2018; Hudson, 2017a; Hudson, 2017b; Pawley, 2006; Schmidt, 2019). In fact, they are often nothing more than a floating signifier of an institutional desire to appear equitable because the only work actually being done is to have drafted a policy. Almost condescendingly, critical diversity theorist Sara Ahmed points out that there must be a further step – “for a commitment to do something, you must do something “with it” – for it to have meaning (2012, p. 120). Regardless of content, her point is that commitments or policies cannot alter structures. Structures change when people become willing to acknowledge and redistribute the relations of power and privilege found within them. Although they are drafted in a manner that imply a host of desired values like equity and inclusivity, David James Hudson (2017b) astutely demonstrates that they are effectively non-performative because they work to draw attention away from the actual problem of white supremacy and over-emphasize ineffectual solutions such as merely hiring “diverse” staff. In fact, Dei cautions that these are precisely the responses that need to be examined when he writes that “we must pay attention to those moments when acts of resistance simply insert the oppressed body into the colonial, hegemonic, and imperial spaces and relations” (2014, p. 21). Dei’s point is that policies are “dehumanized, disembodied, and objective” responses that invalidate experiences, extricate the humanness from social relations, and institutionalize suffering in existing hegemonic structures (Dei, 2014, p. 21). Thus, they are constitutionally incapable of creating equitable and just outcomes. Moreover, institutional policies have little connection to everyday life and their existence has no tangible meaning to those who experience inequity (Dei 2014, p. 17). Rather, meaningful inclusion is a practice to center people that are most impacted by racial inequity to identify the ways in which those social and political relationships underpin a lack of access to power and privilege (Dei, 2014).
Neutrality, colorblindess, and non-racial racism
In contemporary institutions, structural racism often continues to flourish largely because no one is permitted to acknowledge that is there. Bonilla-Silva describes how this shift in the way that society and institutions talk about racially located oppressions particularly occurs through new forms of “apparently non-racial” discourses like neutrality and colorblindness (2014, p. 14). While they posit that racial inequities are best addressed by policies and practices that remove the potential for racial bias and discrimination, Black Studies scholar George Lipsitz points out that what they actually prevent is the “exposure, analysis, and remediation” of the workings of racial power and privileges that underlie social relationships and organizational structures (2018, p. 24). Arguably desirable in a truly equitably just society, the inability to discuss race and its organizing power through white norms and privileges effectually ensures that white supremacy continues to persist. Drawing on Crenshaw’s famous analogy, Lipsitz points out that trying to solve racial problems without being able to name or discuss race is “akin to asking for directions without being allowed to name the destination” (2018, p. 24). More importantly, this inability to examine race also serves to profoundly misrepresent the problem and prevents discussion about meaningful solutions. Lipsitz notes that the issue becomes about “racial recognition rather than racist rule” such that eradicating race becomes the focus instead of the redistribution of power and decision-making to foster and support a plurality of “color-conscious” perspectives, experiences, and voices to be heard (2018, p. 24). Lipsitz concludes by noting that colorblindness and neutrality are “useful tropes” and “rhetorical devices” for white supremacy because they offer the impression of structural change insofar that institutions have moved past overt forms of racial injustice and domination (2018, p. 33). However, the result is merely becoming “more effectively racist” because institutions no longer have to discuss or be accountable to the impacts of race, racial privileges or racial advantages (Lipsitz, 2018, p. 42).
Part IV: Moving past structures of racism
Revisiting library practices
Unacknowledged white supremacy has serious implications for the trajectory of scholarship and practice in librarianship. Historically, LIS has not had robust critical theory engagement or development that results in a tendency to continually return to unproblematized narratives and ineffective solutions that leave the structural dimensions of power and privilege firmly rooted in organizational and professional discourses and practices (Hudson, 2017a). This has not gone unnoticed by racialized LIS scholars and practitioners who vocally critique the denial of racial difference and their seemingly futile efforts to have their experiences recognized by their colleagues and administrators (Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2020; Hathcock, 2015). However, these stark facts about racial inequity and oppression will not go away by ignoring their presence or impacts. Rather, the challenge is how to reckon with the ways that race and white normativity inform the field’s ideas about the library, how it operates, and the communities that it serves. As opposed to current responses that obfuscate the reality of racial privilege in librarianship and society (Schmidt, 2019), critical race analyses seek to identify structural racism by examining the distribution of power and privileges. However, the point of critical race analyses is not to substitute any one oppression for another in a similar hierarchical ordering of privileges (Dei, 2006). All forms of inequity and oppression are troubling and important. Critical race analyses aim to cast light on how power has been structurally organized through race, but they are transformative and emancipatory frameworks that aim to ameliorate all forms of oppression by examining how power relations are socially and politically operationalized to benefit some over others (Dei, 2006; Lipsitz, 2018).
Race does matter to librarianship. If not because it is an important aspect of the lives of racialized colleagues and communities, then because the “LIS field is a site in and through which racialized difference is produced” as Caidi, Ghaddar and Allard argue (2017, p. 394). Still, Gibson et al. pointedly write that “LIS … [has] long used the concept of neutrality as a cover for ignoring and reproducing white supremacist policies and organization structures” (Gibson et al., 2020, p. 3). Institutional responses reveal that there is likely some awareness of the reproduction of hegemonic structures that cause harm to individuals and communities through systemic practices of discrimination and bias (Gibson et al. 2017; Gibson et al., 2017). Still, it is important to be mindful that racial justice work is not an attack on people or the profession. It is a rejection of the systemic oppression within it and aims to “rehumanize research and policy” with practices that actually do reflect widely held professional and personal values of equitable, diverse, and inclusive communities (Dei, 2014, p. 17). By its very nature of being structural means that racism touches every attitude, behavior, policy, and practice found in public libraries. Thus, racial justice is not another policy nor should it be directed at only certain relationships (i.e. staff to library patron, staff to staff, management to staff). It necessitates a fundamental reorganization of the structure in which libraries operate and situate themselves in the world.
Transformative praxis through an anti-racism mindset
LIS is not alone in its reproduction of dominant hierarchies of structural privilege nor is it the only discipline operating within ahistorical and acultural theories of power. For librarianship, Dei’s work in anti-oppression and anti-racism is especially useful because its focus is on how white racial privilege is reproduced in education and learning settings (1996; 1999; 2006; 2014; 2017). His work has specifically focused on demonstrating how white Eurocentric practices have been regarded as neutral or objective knowledge and the effects of these political and social structures on racialized individuals and communities (Dei, 1996; Dei, 1999; Dei, 2006; Dei, 2014; Dei, 2017). Rather than trying to discredit educators, his work aims to help social service practitioners be mindful about the practices and social relationships that they uncritically accept as neutral. Through identifying and challenging imbalances in power and privileges, the goal is to identify the systems, organizational practices, norms, behaviors, and professional values that perpetuate structures of racism (Dei, 1996; Dei, 1999; Dei, 2006; Dei, 2014; Dei, 2017). However, this can never be achieved through vague commitments to racial equity nor can public libraries decide what social and cultural inclusion should look like. These frameworks aim to foster equitable representation in ways that acknowledge that structural forces profoundly affect individuals and communities differently and underscore that meaningful inclusion can only be achieved through reflexive, intentional, and collaborative work to address racial inequity at the structural level with and for those most affected (Dei, 2014). Hence, there must be a firm and resolute commitment to listen to and center the experiences of those impacted by racial inequity, discrimination, and injustice (Dei, 2014). Thus, anti-racism is a positive and conscious practice of fulfilling the aspirational aims of social service professions by transforming individuals, their work, and spaces to be reflective, responsive, and just for everyone.
As Espinal noted two decades ago, the problem is “whiteness” and the ways it influences relationships to power and privilege in personal interactions, through the field, and in society (2001, p. 132). Anti-racism is a conscious practice of attuning oneself to these practices of structural racism and acknowledging that it occurs across all levels of human interaction (Dei, 1999; Dei, 2006; Dei, 2014). Thus, as a field, we need to examine how people working in libraries are both unknowingly and knowingly participating in racist practices and identify how structures of white supremacy have shaped those interactions. Fundamentally, we also need learn and then unlearn the ways that structural privilege and power continue to re-manifest in new practices, so that it can be stopped from repeating again and again (Bonilla-Silva, 2014; Lipsitz, 2018). This is not to suggest that racial justice and anti-racism is not daunting, overwhelming, and extraordinarily complicated work. The question is what is the alternative? Practically speaking, the only alternative to racial justice is continuing unjust and inequitable practices that cause immeasurable harm. The other uncomfortable reality is that an unjust structure will never produce a just system or outcome. The structure needs to be rebuilt to be equitable and just by redistributing power and opportunities. Structural change takes time and occurs across generations, but it will never begin if we do not acknowledge that we need to radically change and undertake direct work to redress the real effects that the denial of race and racism has on racialized people that use and work in libraries (Bourg, 2014; Cooke et al., 2017; Espinal, 2001; Espinal et al., 2018; Gibson et al., 2017; Gibson et al., 2018; Hathcock, 2015; Hudson, 2017a; Hudson, 2017b).
It can often be difficult to imagine what structural change might look like, but one only needs to look at the sustained growth and popularity of largely Black, feminist “fugitive libraries” to see what libraries and anti-racism can produce for communities (Mattern, 2019). Fugitive libraries are best described as pop-up and travelling libraries at the street-level that are commonly run by Black women and feature collections “by Black women, for and about everybody” (Mattern, 2019). Many arose from the success of “freedom libraries” in the Civil Rights Movement and the grassroots and community-led response to the lack of service and materials in previously segregated public libraries (Selby, 2019). Like freedom libraries, the purpose of fugitive libraries is to transgress the centrality of whiteness in traditional libraries and create radical spaces where “those who were once marginalized are claiming a place at the center” (Mattern, 2019). They are also spatial and material conceptions of the contemporary library as a true repository of community knowledge and culture as well as a kind of public commons. Contrary to some other critical frameworks that assert that oppressed bodies are subaltern and lack agency and voice, fugitive libraries exemplify how power can be subverted in radical and empowering ways. As the tenets of anti-racism suggest, it is not that everyone has equal access to power or the same opportunities to enact change. Rather, the point is that power is harnessed and realized through our ability to resist racist power structures, policies, and institutions. In other words, we can imagine other possibilities. Fugitive libraries are, thus, the epitome of an anti-racist approach because they resist the idea of the library as neutral, acknowledge the force of race, and reimagine and rebuild them in a just and inclusive way.
Public libraries exist in a racially unjust world and their work is historically and contemporarily tied to the cultural dominance of whiteness. They also play a profound and largely invisible role shaping what knowledge exists, how it is organized, and to whom it is made available. Through anti-racist and anti-oppression methodologies, we can identify points that indicate that the historical response to race and the treatment of racism in LIS are rooted in racist ideas and policies. Though there is a strong tendency in racial justice work to fall into debilitating and personal narratives, it is simplistic to suggest that cultures, involved parties or institutions must be either good or bad. Public libraries benefit people and communities in tangible and important ways. They are also “white spaces” that perpetuate racism and other forms of oppression (Anderson, 2015). A commitment to anti-racism asks that institutions acknowledge those experiences and recognize that race affects people’s lives differently and that people experience spaces and institutions differently – in what ways exactly becomes clearer by looking at the historical inequities in the profession, stopping current misaligned approaches, and meaningfully providing support to those most affected (Dei, 2016). As an organizational practice and mandate, an anti-racist approach would also seek to ensure that all perspectives are represented in the programs, services, and collections. More importantly, the goal is to recognize that people do not arrive on equitable footing and that the needs of some groups are different and more immediate than others. The idea that public libraries should favour neutrality and lesser service for some over acknowledging that historical imbalances beget structural changes contradicts a host of core values. It further demonstrates that assumptions of neutrality and colorblindness are untenable in a field that also claims a commitment to social justice and equity. Policies and institutions need to reflect and account for historical inequities by calling attention to and addressing the opportunities afforded to some in society and the entrenched patterns of marginalization for others. In this respect, anti-racist practices are a bridge between our principles of social justice and the way in which we fall short. The question is when will we cease to merely respond to the causal effects of racial oppression and focus on institutional systemic practices that allow injustices to perpetuate?