Toward Dismantling Whiteness in Academic Libraries

Internal presentation for Brown University Library's Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan Committee

Transcript

1. Toward Dismantling Whiteness in Academic Libraries Brown University Library Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan Committee Angela Galvan | Electronic Resources Manager July 26, 2018
2. What do we mean by ‘whiteness’? • A “location of structural advantage.” (Frankenberg, 1997) • “Beliefs, values, behaviors, habits and attitudes, which result in the unequal distribution of power and privilege.” (http://www.ucalgary.ca/cared/whiteness) • An ever-shifting category of being. • Less about your skin color and more about the benefits you receive conforming to those behaviors, values, and gestures.
3. What do we mean by ‘whiteness’? • Middle class ‘scripting’ • More experience managing bureaucracy • Applying for jobs (procedural) • Interviewing for jobs (behavioral) • Assumptions about working time • Structural assumptions about your future and associated preparation
4. How does this work in library systems? • “Whiteness is relational. ‘White’ only exists in relation/opposition to other categories/locations in the racial hierarchy produced by whiteness. In defining ‘others,' whiteness defines itself.” (http://www.ucalgary.ca/cared/whiteness) • Long history of problematic issues in how information is organized. • Problems with bias in discovery systems. • Systems are built by people, so our systems are infused with bias.
5. Relevance, ranking, machine learning
7. How does this work for library leaders? • Diversity is a one time policy or problem to be solved. • Offloads work to library staff from historically underrepresented groups. • Devalues labor—service and mentoring colleagues doesn’t count for tenure/professional dossier. • Lack of diversity is ‘driven by problems outside our control’.
8. At least one of these reasons is folklore.
11. Arriving as delivered • “If you’re the child of moneyed and educated parents, your native language lab was a dining table attended by parents with graduate degrees, and you went to schools full of comparably situated kids that left the schools of the other 90 if not 95 percent in the dust, and your sophisticated and financially enabled parents moved heaven and earth the moment you seemed to falter on the path to elite education, are you really so special for having arrived as delivered?” • Brian Mikulak, University of San Francisco Law School, • http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2018/05/a-retiring-lrw-professors- parting-letter-to-his-scholarly-colleagues.html
12. A note about white fragility • White Fragility is a state in which even a minimum amount of racial stress becomes intolerable, triggering a range of defensive moves.” (DiAngelo, 2011) • Racism adapts over time. This is why white people can’t see it.
14. How does this impact our searches? • Searches cost candidates: • Travel $ • Credit card interest • Performative gestures in wardrobe/appearance • Implied time and energy to perform for multi-day interview • Job talks should measure more than a candidate’s ability to do job talks well. • How much of a candidate’s evaluation rests on replicating whiteness?
16. Candidate Interviews • If diversity is a genuine core value: • we can infuse this into questions. • we will make accommodations in the interview process.
17. Candidate Interviews • “…One cannot be considered to have subject-matter expertise if one cannot position their field within a sociopolitical context.” (Sensoy and DiAngelo, 2017)
18. Examples can be specific or general • “RDA is moving toward a proprietary distribution method. What are your thoughts on this?” • “Brown Library values diversity, equity, and inclusion. How do you model those ideals as a [Job Title]?” • “What does accessibility mean to you?”
19. Answers show a candidate’s range: • “I am responsible for buying books on psychology AND necromancy because the creators of [library] classification systems thought those were basically the same and lumped them together in one section.” @marccold, via Twitter. https://twitter.com/marccold/status/1019261324164063233
20. Hiring decisions • “…If we cannot demonstrate that we have this commitment through our actions and their outcomes in good conscience we should stop making the claim that we are campus communities that promote diversity, respect, and inclusion.” (Sensoy and DiAngelo, 2017) • If historically underrepresented people are consistently in your applicant pool but never get offers, why not?
21. Do better • We can cultivate people. • Staff aren’t ordered from a menu. • Hire for potential, not 1:1 experience. • Interrogate the roles historically underrepresented patrons and staff play in our narratives.
22. Feelings are hard • It’s not the job of historically underrepresented colleagues to make you feel better about unpacking your –isms. Growth requires discomfort. It’s painful but not nearly as difficult as dealing with structures of whiteness all day, or being asked if you’re “the diversity hire." • Talk to other white people.
23. You will make mistakes. Again. Don’t explain your intent. Apologize, and move on. Genuine allyship is continuous learning.
24. Thank you! • Feelings? My inbox is open: galvan.as@gmail.com. • Additional resources at: asgalvan.com
25. Image sources • “Unprofessional” hairstyles: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/google-unprofessional- hairstyles-problematic-results-201600789.html • Deep Dinosaur: https://chrisrodley.com/2017/06/19/dinosaur- flowers/ • ARL director’s survey results: https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.304524 • GVSU’s instance of Summon’s topic explorer: https://matthew.reidsrow.com/articles/173 • Library discovery failures at: http://damnyouautosuggest.tumblr.com/