Racist & Other Harmful Content: Descriptive Guidelines

As we digitize and catalog historic materials, we sometimes encounter images or documents that express harmful views towards Native Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, and other groups. It is our responsibility as archivists to preserve evidence of past wrongs without perpetuating or inflicting new trauma on these communities. These guidelines are a work-in-progress for how we can describe these materials.

Goals

1. Provide access to evidence of discriminatory and/or racist practices.

2. Do not erase the evidence that racist practices occurred, or attempt to hide institutional connections to the evidence. Provide appropriate titles, words, and modes of discovery so that the evidence can be found.

3. Describe materials accurately and respectfully, taking into account the sensitivities and trauma of targeted communities.

4. Language that is "neutral" regarding racist depictions may normalize or minimize the impact of racism. Be precise and name the person/groups committing racist practices when possible, using the active voice. Listen to communities of color who have engaged with describing historical material, such as the Association for Tribal Archives, Libraries and Museums, the Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia Group, and others. Images that are sacred, or cannot be shown in public without inflicting additional damage to the community, should not be posted publicly.

5. Maintain transparency about our role in collecting, describing, and providing access to these materials.

6. This should include acknowledging our authorship of records, gaps in our records, and ways for community members to contact us with corrections or suggestions. Transparency may be addressed on the individual record level, the discovery platform level, or both.

7. Follow professional best practices for description of general material, but privilege the points above.

8. Follow the descriptive rules within this documentation site, but keep in mind that respect for the well-being of people takes precedence. Do not, for example, use a misleading or disrespectful title for an object, even if that is the title prescribed by DACS or RDA.

Example

One photograph that contains racist imagery in the Pacific University Archives:

The old catalog record for this item focused on what the white attendees of the event were feeling ("celebration") rather than how this depiction was disrespectful to Natives or who was responsible for the event. The old and revised descriptions below show a more appropriate title, description and subject terms.

Old title: Celebration at Pacific University
Old description: A celebration at Pacific University, possibly Founder's Day. Several people are in Native American costumes.
Old subjects: Celebrations; Higher Education; Arts & Entertainment (General)

Revised title: Pacific University alumni dinner with attendees in redface
Revised description: A photograph of attendees wearing redface while in line for a buffet at a Pacific University alumni dinner, held between 1957-1959. There were at least two alumni dinners held during this time period, which were advertised under the title, "Pow-wow Dinner." The event did not actually include Native Americans. From photographs, it appears to have included: white performers dressed in wigs, makeup and costumes (similar to the two who appear in this image) performing a fake "pow-wow" dance; university officials wearing Native-style chieftain headdresses; attendees being given headbands with feathers to wear; and decorations mimicking a forest setting. This took place in Pacific University's Old Gymnasium.
Revised subjects: Redface; Cultural Appropriation; Racism--Oregon--Photographs; Oregon--Race relations--Photographs

Please note that the revision process is ongoing, and will be iterative. More work needs to be done on many of our legacy records.

Resources

Anti-Racist Description Resources
By Archives for Black Lives in Philadelphia (A4BLiP)
Recommendations for ethical anti-racist archival description practices. Includes notes on implementing a respectful and sensitive voice/style. Also includes a large bibliography.

Best Practices for Inclusive and Ethical Description of Historical Materials (In process as of 6/2020)
By the Metadata Working Group of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)
News release: https://dp.la/news/dpla-network-council-developing-ideas-statement-to-guide-future-work

Cultural Assessment of Digital Collections: Public Annotated Bibliography
By the Cultural Assessment Working Group of the Digital Library Federation (DLF)
A publicly edited bibliography. The section on Metadata covers works related to descriptive practices, many with relevance to gender/sexuality, race and cultural identities.

Protocols for Native American Archival Materials
By the First Archivists Circle
Contains recommendations for how to connect with Native communities; respectful treatment of Native American materials/content; providing appropriate access to collections; notes regarding disrespectful or harmful content; and more.

Subject Field Headings

For records which require the use of Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH), the following may be appropriate. Definitions below are from LCSH.

(Note: the following list was compiled mostly to cover historic photos with racist imagery; more headings should be added here. - EG)

• Assimilation (Sociology) : the absorption of a minority group into the culture, values, and social behaviors of the dominant culture. (Note, when used as a subdivision of a wider term this term is rendered "Cultural Assimilation", see below.)

• Blackface : the caricature of black people, generally by non-blacks, through the use of makeup, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.

• Brownface : the caricature of brown-skinned people through the use of makeup, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.

• Cultural appropriation : the often unacknowledged or inappropriate adoption of elements of a minority culture by members of a dominant culture.

• Minstrel shows : the 19th and early 20th century entertainments in which comedians portrayed racial stereotypes

• Redface : the caricature of indigenous peoples of the Americas, generally by non-indigenous people, through the use of makeup, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.

• Yellowface : the caricature of Asians by non-Asians through the use of makeup, mannerisms, speech patterns, etc.

Subdivisions of the terms and/or complex terms are often also appropriate. For example:

• Redface--Sources : collections of primary sources related to Redface

• Indigenous peoples--Cultural assimilation--Photographs: photographs depicted the absorption (or intended absorption) of indigenous peoples into the culture, values, and social behaviors of the dominant culture

• Racism--Oregon--Photographs: photographs illustrating racism in Oregon

• Oregon--Race relations--Photographs: photographs illustrating race relations in Oregon (Note: LC recommends using this AND the previous entry together.)