Segregation Begins and Ends with All of Us!: Segregated Libraries and Schools after Brown v. Board of Education
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..We honor our libraries and librarians for opening our eyes to the world of knowledge, learning and reading." This beautiful and candid message came to us through a tweet published by Ivanka Trump on 04/13/2017. Meanwhile her dad and current president of this country proposed the complete elimination of the Institute for Libraries and Museum Services (ILMS), the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities as well as other public organizations working on protecting and expanding the same knowledge, learning and reading she refers to in her message... How do you make sense of this contradictory situation? Who are these libraries and librarians she is referring to in her tweet? When she says "our eyes", whose eyes are those? And even more importantly, what reality they are seeing and being exposed to?
My mother always used to say: "beware of those wishing you well". To her, it was all part of the infamous "mal de ojo" (evil eye!). And I thought it was her own 24 hours Sephardic-Puerto Rican paranoia talking. So I just roll my eyes at her. But Ivanka's message rings true to a group of well-intentioned, book loving and reading enthusiasts who helped set the basis of the librarian community in this country. Yes, my fellow librarians. Our profession has a strong tradition and history of privilege, whiteness and patronizing which helped normalize and to some extent cement the idea of segregation and inferiority on a daily basis to millions of African Americans. And even to this day, 63 years after Brown v. Board of Education, the reality for a lot of people, including children does not seem to match the legal victory in our courtrooms. Racist and condescending feelings continue to permeate our profession and libraries to this day. If we are to be an integral part of a movement advocating for tolerance, inclusion, diversity and solidarity, we need to make concrete changes in the communities we belong to, represent and identify with.
There is no need to wait for overt segregationist statutes, policies and statements to face this problem. When we talk about segregation and institutional racism in this country, people tend to refer to examples of such as this picture shown here to the left (Source: taken by Marcelo Rodriguez on March 2017 at The National Civil Rights Museum). "Books shall not be interchangeable between the white and colored schools" comes from a statute enacted in North Carolina in 1935. To my knowledge, there was only another state, Florida with similar explicit laws forcing segregation of textbooks. However we all know that racial segregation aimed to permeate and control every aspect in the lives of black people in this country. In the case of libraries, several buildings in the South were created for the sole purpose of serving "colored" communities. These libraries were always less funded, less staffed and never offered a quality collection to its users. This doctrine of separate but equal which was judicially defeated in 1957 with Brown continued to linger in our schools and libraries through other forms. And to this day, school segregation is still a significant problem in several parts of this country. This is a structural problem alive and kicking in our libraries, in our communities and in the way we communicate with each other.
Our own actions, voluntary choices and the environment we create speak loudly for ourselves. How do we do better? How do begin making real and long-lasting progress in our own communities? How do we all become an integral part of the solution and leave behind our own preconceptions and prejudices?
We need to demand that our professional organizations acknowledge not only the history of discrimination and racism in our profession's past, but also how these forces still play an active role in our libraries even today. When it comes to diversity, tolerance, respect and acceptance, we need to walk the walk. We need to begin ask ourselves some pertinent questions:
1. What does it say about our profession the fact that information professionals (i.e. librarians, archivists, data managers, etc.) are to this day overwhelmingly white?
2. What programs do we have in our libraries to help communities of color and other minorities to see our institutions in a positive way?
3. Are we catering our services to include everyone, especially those from communities which have been historically, and continue to be neglected by our government and society at large?
4. How does "resisting" and being part of #LibrariesResist translate to the work you do; to the work you want to be a part of?
We do not need to wait for segregation laws or an anti-learning administration such as the current one, to being thinking about these questions and brainstorm answers to it. Everyone means well. We can spend hours holding hands and crying on each other's shoulders for the sake of learning and knowledge. BUT what does it mean to make concrete steps to promote what we believe in?
Dismantling segregation and racism is a work in progress and one that calls up each and everyone of us to action and demands we listen to each other. School segregation did not end on May 17th, 1957 and racial issues did not end when we elected former President Barack Obama. These issues begin and will ultimately end with the decisions and choices we all make every day. Who are the people that live in the communities we serve? How do we accommodate minorities and historically discriminated groups in our services? How do we create open and safe environments for the vulnerable people among us? How do we avoid policies affecting those in most need? We need to start from somewhere and this current political landscape makes it all more pressing and urgent than before. Let's all take this energy and shed some light on what is going on in our own professional and personal circles. Let's all take a stand and spread the word.
The time to be neutral is over!
- Marcelo Rodriguez