Ok – for starters, just to be clear: bigotry and racism is always ugly, and is always repugnant and wrong. Violent acts because of those beliefs? Horrible, and illegal.
I’ll also say this – pretty much every library has ugly, repugnant, and wrong content in our library collections. For example, my library has Mein Kampf (it’s currently checked out).
Why bring this up? Because in light of recent events in Charlottesville and elsewhere, I’ve seen some of my library friends and colleagues talking about libraries NOT being neutral spaces.
Some of that’s been in conversations on Facebook. I get that those types of conversations are more personal, off-the-cuff, random thoughts rather than official organizational policy from a library. Gotta blow off steam somewhere, right?
But I’ve also seen more formal commentary that seems to also be advocating a “libraries are not neutral” viewpoint. Here’s one such example from R. David Lankes. Really smart dude, and I usually agree with him.
Here are two things he said in a recent blog post that I don’t completely agree with:
- “In Charlottesville, there is absolutely a need to acknowledge that racists are part of the community, but librarians should not be giving them an equal voice or justifying their beliefs.”
- “Shouldn’t libraries be place for all voices in the community? No. Libraries are not neutral microphones placed in a town square open to all comers.”
You should read the whole post, and the comments too. There’s a really good discussion there between David and Jamie LaRue (Director of the Office of Intellectual Freedom at the American Library Association).
I also just read Joseph Janes’ column in American Libraries magazine (Sept/Oct 2017, pg. 24). I found much more to agree with in his column. Joseph said this: “We fight in public for the rights of our patrons to read and think freely without fear of exposure, surveillance, or censure, as well as for open and equal access to a range of materials. We stand for the principle that government and public information shouldn’t depend on the whims of the moment.” The whole article’s good – find a copy and give it a read.
This isn’t easy to say because of current events, but I’m saying it anyway: As libraries and librarians, we are defenders of the First Amendment and of free speech. Even if we don’t always agree with that free speech.
This isn’t some weird idea of mine. It’s in our Library Bill of Rights. Some highlights:
- Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
- A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
- Libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.
I certainly agree with David about librarians not “justifying their beliefs.” That’s simply not our job. But I don’t necessarily agree when David says “librarians should not be giving them an equal voice” or the library not being a place for all voices in the community. That seems to be pretty much the opposite of our Library Bill of Rights.
I support the idea of libraries serving the whole community, and providing a neutral and trusted community space where ideas can be heard, discussed, and debated. Free speech is free speech, even if we don’t agree with that speech. That concept is pretty foundational to libraries.
I’m certainly not the only one working through these issues! Here’s what some other organizations have been saying:
- From the Electronic Frontier Foundation: “Protecting free speech is not something we do because we agree with all of the speech that gets protected. We do it because we believe that no one—not the government and not private commercial enterprises—should decide who gets to speak and who doesn’t.”
- From the ACLU: “We fundamentally believe that our democracy will be better and stronger for engaging and hearing divergent views. Racism and bigotry will not be eradicated if we merely force them underground. Equality and justice will only be achieved if society looks such bigotry squarely in the eyes and renounces it. Not all speech is morally equivalent, but the airing of hateful speech allows people of good will to confront the implications of such speech and reject bigotry, discrimination and hate. This contestation of values can only happen if the exchange of ideas is out in the open.”
- From the TorProject: “We are disgusted, angered, and appalled by everything these racists stand for and do. We feel this way any time the Tor network and software are used for vile purposes. But we can’t build free and open source tools that protect journalists, human rights activists, and ordinary people around the world if we also control who uses those tools. Tor is designed to defend human rights and privacy by preventing anyone from censoring things, even us.” They were talking about why they aren’t moving to block websites they don’t agree with (actually, why their software is designed to not let them do that).
Libraries need to support the whole community – not just the parts we like and agree with. We need to provide safe, neutral and open community spaces where ideas are shared, debated, etc. We need to actively support the First Amendment and the Library Bill of Rights, even when we don’t agree with certain ideas – in fact, even when we find some of those viewpoints appalling and ugly.
It’s one way we can help change our communities for good. I’m a strong believer in people, and in the idea that if really wrong ideas are voiced, the community will take notice, will speak up, and will help better the community. I’m seeing that in Topeka, and I think our library has been part of that change.
Thoughts? Please share… (and please keep it civil).
Image by John Nakamura Remy
Sure – I hadn’t really thought about the person being white. After I write an article, I usually just search Flickr for an image that somehow relates to the article. I thought this worked because the t-shirt says one thing, and the tape over the mouth says another.
I am going to let this be my final thought, as most would have already realized the futility here. Without being as snarky as many of you have been, I am going to suggest two things. 1) I know that you all are not connected to small town rural community because you have shown your complete lack of knowledge about the sense of role reversal as minorities they feel today. I talk to those people because someone must. I try to reason with those people almost daily. Many here have a lack of awareness about the pervasiveness of this problem that, frankly, astonishes me. Where have you been? There is a whole other level of hypocrisy here that belies what you all say about how much you care. How can you fight what you don’t understand at all? If you had been speaking the truth all along instead of issuing shallow ethical truths from the towers of academia, it is more likely ordinary people would not feel so disconnected from all education endeavors and your compass of truth. Second, this compassion for blackness cannot be as deep and sustaining as you say or the commitment would have been there. My black friends have been the best friends to me. And they are aware of the role shift and the minority skewing. So, again, it prompts me to ask, “How could you not know?”. Instead, you sound more like the recipients of the white entitlement of academic elitism you want to distance yourself from. You all accuse with action speaks measures for public libraries, problems which haven’t come, but where have you actually been? I am not being unnecessarily unkind. I am telling you the messy truth as I see it.
It doesnt. ALA made that very clear here : http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/EDI
Personal and professional are two completely different things.
Do I want Nazis to meet in the library? No, but if the policy says anyone can meet, then anyone can meet.
So – what does this mean (from the link you sent): “Libraries should welcome diverse content in their exhibit spaces and diverse ideas, individuals, and groups in their meeting rooms, even if some members of the community may object or be offended”? Does that only apply to some people? Again – I’m not talking about illegal speech. But that still leaves a lot of speech that would be offensive but legal. Unless I’m interpreting this incorrectly.
At risk of continuing this discussion, commenting as someone who has “connections to the small town rural community” here: there is a clear difference between “I talk to those people because someone must. I try to reason with those people almost daily” and allowing a platform for people to spew hate, which you seem to recommend below on another comment.
Then that’s a bad policy.
That policy wasn’t written with actual Nazis in mind, and to blindly follow an abstract policy regardless of the real harm it causes is silly.
You ARE a professional librarian, right? That’s what we’re talking about? Because I’m not interested in your personal beliefs.
I’m not sure what is unclear to you but let me take a stab at an exegesis and see if I can help you understand? The quote you pulled says to welcome diverse content/ideas even if it may offend. It doesn’t say welcome all groups to do whatever they want in the library without other considerations. Indeed, read in the context of what precedes the piece you quoted – specifically “libraries should act in solidarity with all groups of individuals resisting attempts to abridge the rights of free expression and free access to ideas” – it is relatively straightforward to see that, when white supremacist groups (for example) are advocating the elimination/subjugation of people of color, Jews, Muslims, etc., they are advocating to abridge the rights of free expression and free access to ideas of people of color, Jews, Muslims, etc. Libraries should not cooperate with this abridgement, which is what Chris said.
I would certainly draw a distinction between individuals and groups.
It’s pretty easy to develop a policy (even one based on “civic and scholarly merit”, in case civic merit is somehow different than decency and ethical behavior) that welcomes all individuals, but does not provide a platform or group meeting space to hate groups. Several people throughout the comments have suggested perfectly feasible wording for such a policy.
I see no need to “counter-balance” to soothe the hurt feelings of racists, nazis, or their sympathizers, in any kind of community–rural or urban, majority-white or majority-black. I think it’s actually incredibly sad that in 2017, we as a society (and libraries as a service profession) are at a point where people feel comfortable sheltering, supporting, and arguing on behalf of white supremacist groups and similar genocidal organizations.
Absolutely and I do not think that my position is incompatible with what I was taught to be as a public librarian.
It’s funny you say that. Your response to my comment clearly didn’t have anything to add, yet you responded quickly to me with “Thanks for sharing – I appreciate it.”
Sure is strange that you didn’t provide a similar acknowledgment of appreciation to Cecily’s “very valid” and “more than welcome” post. It’s also weird that you want to let other people have their say, yet you jumped into the conversation between Annie Miller and Cecily, but only in agreement with a comment by Annie. For that matter, it’s odd what voices you chose to welcome by citing in your blog post, and what parts of an ongoing conversation only came from commenters.
But you DID provide a disclaimer saying bigotry and racism are wrong, so I’m sure these are just totally bonkers coincidences that indicate nothing about conscious or unconscious biases.
I think free speech is valuable and should be protected. I will point you, however, to this article (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/what-europe-can-teach-america-about-free-speech/537186/) that makes a distinction between free speech and hate speech, and, as a black man who if often the target of some of this hate speech I know all too well how this rhetoric often incites violence – against me and people who look like me.
“Please keep it civil” on a post about allowing nazis into spaces in which minorities are already disproportionately under-represented where it matters, and all because of your faith in the invisible protective force of an enlightenment ideal. What strange cognitive dissonance, indistinguishable from superstition. Were I not to give you the benefit of the doubt, I would say that this ideological commitment conveniently helps sustain the supremacy of white folk in our profession. A director of emerging technologies, you say? You must be a fine one, attuned to our technoscapes and the role of libraries in addressing the mediatic catastrophes of recent years. You definitely merit your position. Lol. Signed – an actual expert, Latino, immigrant, not a director.
I keep noticing this dialog about feelings. Feelings are not nor have they ever been a part of public administration. Public administration is a group policy effort that is not an arbitrary compass controlled by feelings. I appreciate all your feelings and, while I completely agree that the status of the world is sad and wrong, we don’t make policies than benefit one group such as protestants shall meet at the library, however. Catholics stay out. You can argue right and wrong apart from feelings but I keep noticing that entitlement and it doesn’t exist. Any discrimination is based on a body of evidence, not feelings. That is why policy effectiveness is your best local protection. I am not condescending here but feelings are an arbitrary task mistress.
Did you delete my reply or is it pending approval?
Your larger comment? I’m seeing it now. I think Disqus (which I use for comments) was slow for some reason. So far, I haven’t deleted any comments. I don’t plan to do so, unless there are personal attacks on anyone.
Weirdly – it wasn’t showing for me (I tried on three different devices) and now it is showing as a reply to you “seeing it now” response rather than to you “what does this mean” response but … it’s here so … who knows what the tech is doing but what matters is it is here. Thanks for checking.
You need to stop using the black people in your life as props to help you win arguments. You’ve done it repeatedly in this discussion. If you respect those people, don’t use them like this. Make an argument that stands on its own without virtue signaling on the backs of black people.
“never about our feelings…”
This statement is a bit ridiculous. We’re supposed to create a space that’s welcoming and inclusive…that’s a feeling. Did a person feel welcome? Did they feel included? It’s all about their perception.
Second. Echoing Cecily, racism is violence (and anti-lgbtq). White supremacists are perfectly pleasant to other white people. That doesn’t make them good people. They still advocate their superiority over others. Objectively, that is not a position a “good person” should hold. Racism is systemic and oppressive. It’s not just a thing that dwells in the back of a white person’s private mind. It keeps POC in poverty. Denies them access to quality education. Keeps them from getting good jobs. Criminalizes them. Racism is an active force, even when unvoiced. But when it does find voice, when it’s given a platform, it has the potential to become more observably destructive. Again, this isn’t just about feelings. Literally millions have died because of these views. Literally millions. This is not just about someone being uncomfortable. This is literally about safety. It would be good if you’d stop trying to minimize people’s legitimate fears as just “feelings.”
I am not using this like a photo op as a prop. My point is that many of you don’t seem to know what other black or white people are really seeing and thinking yet you make a defense. Just because it jumps out doesn’t mean I am exploiting it. Most of my black friends recite The point is that this is the greatest irony. Everyone wants to silence a panacea that they were so divorced from the realities of in the first place, it snowballed into a major movement. And the ironic part is you all still think you can merely silence a threat. These are the people who are irrationally angry and many voted that way because they are not felt or heard in order to be educated by intelligent elitists snobby white people. They are irrational. I get that but they must be shown that and your refusal to at least hear their concerns and pains at any level only breeds the divisions. I am inconsolable angry about the irrationality of the divisions too but you can’t wish away or suppress it. That is the least effective method to treat it. Still, your answer is to do more of the same. Silence it; how effective has that been when many people in this country voted, not around immigration policy, but for the bullying of the other guy, the minority, the immigrant, the supremely ignorant notion of why blacks are uniquely out of work as opposed to the reasons white people are out of work. They hate all of these groups and your silencing them only makes them feel more entitled, marginalized and irrelevant. You all need to realize that if you don’t climb down from the highest purveyors of morale and participate by trying to be relevant in their lives, they have no reason to change and these are more of the same symptoms of divisiveness. I have been angry with almost all of my personal friends from the past for nearly two years. I don’t pretend to sympathize with their myriad of broad brushed prejudices but I do try to approach with my heart and head. The disconnects I have seen demonstrated here to me their short-sighted skewed realities and how they must feel about the pious educated has been well demonstrated. Not all opinions are educated and that makes them unequal but the only way to reform a racist is creating heart-felt consciousness and a factual reality based in educated truth.
That’s exactly the point, David. You “hadn’t really thought about the person being white.” I had. I was revolted and nauseated by the image, in part because I knew exactly where this conversation was headed. Thank you, Cecily and Matt and Bryce, for hanging in there.
I stopped reading yesterday because the comments became circular in nature. While I deeply admire all the youthful people who will not be silenced about how wrong racism is, I must still say the public library is not a place that can represent one idea over another. The reasons for that are as practical as they are philosophical. I am not going to lecture you all about racism against blacks. But I am going to suggest that we are all racists built on a racist culture and that if you think you are not a part of that, you are being naive and kidding yourself. This country was built on it and still is. And it is an incredibly wrong idea to put on the backs of public libraries that they should be the main proprietors of getting it out of culture. Our government is still deeply built on racist practices and it is critical that you truly understand that. Please, give this ten minutes of your time. Yes, it is all disgusting but it is not at all surprising that racism persists. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=6OpmScMUMc4
Talk about circular! No one in libraries should do anything about racism because racism has been here forever and everyone is racist. Well, it’s just the way it is, so why bother? Maybe it’s not about fixing racism, Georgaina; maybe it’s about saying we serve our community and we want everyone in the community to feel welcome in the library. And if a hate group discriminates against (or worse, preaches violence against) other members of the community, you don’t make many other members of the community feel welcome or even safe in the library by allowing the hate group to spread their hate within the library’s walls. Those same racists are welcome to come check out books and use library services, but they are not welcome to make other members of the community feel unwelcome within the library. It’s as simple as that. And no, that’s not going to fix racism (but what do I know since I wasn’t raised by a black maid like you were), but it makes inclusion a priority in our libraries. I wrote a longer response on my own blog: https://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2017/09/01/whose-rights-matter-more/.
I am not going to spend more time on this but here is the truth. Many of our librarian friends voted against something other than civic values in this last election because we did not all vote for protecting our most basic freedoms. It says a lot to me that you expect public librarians to then demonstrate and police how and what is a part of of racist fabric and not when you all speak the double-standard of all conservative librarians being heard. Our chief was an obvious racist from the outset and if you were speaking about tolerance of other belief systems, as we know you were, it is too late now to meld those ideas as being congruous.
You are so right! People voted for Trump so we should just give up on our responsibility to make everyone in our community feel welcome in libraries. How hard is it to have a policy that says that any group that discriminates against other members of the community can’t use library meeting spaces? It says a lot to me that you can’t see the difference between talking to people who voted for Trump who do not belong to hate groups and letting people use library spaces who preach hate against other members of the community.
Look up an organization called the World Church of the Creator and the controversies surrounding their use of public library meeting room space. https://acluva.org/1794/aclu-warns-chesterfield-not-to-block-world-church-of-the-creator-meeting-in-public-library/
Hey everyone – thanks for commenting. I appreciate it. What have I realized from all this? Mainly, that I was wrong. I realize that now. I thought I was focusing on one thing, but ended up somewhere else entirely. I apologize for that, and for the direction this has gone – especially in the comments. Not where I meant for this to go at all. Librarians have a lot of different opinions on this, and that shows here.
In light of that, I’m turning off commenting on this post. Again, I appreciate everything you have shared. Thanks!