ANDREA LEMOINS

TCJ: I just wanted to say thank you. I don’t know how it’s been since I left Philly … but thank you for being part of this project and being willing to chat with me.

AL: Thank you for swinging back up into this.

TCJ: So, what's your official position right now with the library?

AL: I'm a community organizer with The Free Library Foundation. 

TCJ: How long have you been with The Free Library? 

AL: It'll be two years in August. I've been a community organizer the whole time. 

TCJ: What does your job as a community organizer entail?

AL: When I first started, we were kind of nebulous. It was hard to get an answer out of people. My job ended up being, really, building strong relationships between library staff and community, like supporting those relationships and repairing relationships between community and the library.

TCJ: What are some examples of where a relationship might have been broken and you had to step in?

AL: When I first started the job, I want to say this happened in September of 2018. I work in Southwest Philly. Kingsessing Library is one of my libraries. When I started I was told that the previous librarian, she was a white woman, and she thought this Black woman and this infant, like a toddler child ...  were being very rude and nasty in the library, I heard the kid was just running around, and she called the police on them. So, a white librarian called the police on a young Black mother and her toddler child. And instead of really dealing with the issue, she was moved and transferred. 

Black and Brown Workers Coalition ... they were talking about coming and having a protest at the library. The staff was really scared about it and I remember being like, they should protest at the library. ... If they protest, I'm just gonna show up and be like, yeah, like you guys have the right. And we'll talk when you're done. I'd be happy to talk to them because this neighborhood is so full of gentrification. This white librarian had the nerve to call the police on a young black mother and her child instead of having any kind of conversation or trying to figure out what was going on. 

And... the neighborhood was just split, 'cause some of the neighborhood people very much love the library. Very much love the librarians. They didn't understand that the librarian had the gall to call the police for such a minor incident, only because she was acting out of complete racism and hatred. How nasty that could have turned out, if the police had actually come to arrest the mother, you know, like they just didn't get it. And so that was literally my first experience. My first month of work at the library was working with staff and working with the community to figure out what happened, how we can move forward and just [dealing with] a lot of fear. So that's, I think, is like my best example of that work. And why it's so important at the library. 

TCJ: That's an interesting transition, because that's an external experience with  discrimination and bias happening within the library system. But I'm wondering if you've experienced, harassment, bias or discrimination yourself?

AL: I would say a lot of microaggressions. At the library, it's very common for the, especially the executive teams right under [Free Library President] Siobhan, to be very condescending to Black workers, to put a lot of work on Black workers.

TCJ: Do you ever raise these issues, or have you heard about people trying to raise these issues with administration? How’s it handled?

AL: I have heard of people [trying]. I have heard from staff out at the neighborhood libraries, that they'll raise issues as questions like, “now I'm experiencing this, what's going on?” and it is constantly put back on the fault of the Black person in the situation. Black people on staff are constantly being told that the language that was [used], or things that were said to us, “we're taking it too seriously,” or “we don't think it was meant that way.” That's one of the favorite sayings of administration. I have heard other administrators [not Siobhan] be like, well, we don't think they meant it that way. And that is, by far, like the get out of being a racist card at The Free Library by the white administration. So yeah, it's always “oh, well, you misunderstood, you don't understand.” And that's constantly. It's just constant gaslighting as you misunderstood and you don't understand.

TCJ: How would you describe your few years, so far, spent at the library?

AL: I would say my experience is different. It depends on where you're at. I work in the neighborhood libraries in the southwest, which gets a lot of Black staff. So, I actually feel very much cared for and supportive. And that's about 75% of my job. We have a good crew out there. I feel good about that work. The other 25% of my job, because I am with the [Free Library] Foundation and I'm paid for through grants, is dealing with the administration downtown, like having to report out to people, having to go to all these meetings, and that's where I just… [sighs]. I just cannot stand Parkway Central. Parkway Central is the white supremacist hub of the [Free] Library. I'll never forget, it was back in the fall, I want to say November, maybe October. We had a meeting for one of the grants that I'm on … And me and my co workers were talking about the great things we've learned about people in the southwest. People love to garden. People love to cook. They're always bringing food to their neighbors and one of my co-workers said, people down there love to travel. They're always talking about traveling there. They have Black travel groups and [an executive team member] just straight up said, 'Travel where? around Philadelphia?' That was his response to us talking about like, amazing Black people in southwest Philadelphia. He was like, where are they traveling? And, I love her, this co-worker, she said 'Around the world,’ like she said it real loud in the meeting. We were both like, What are you talking about? Yeah, it comments like that. Constantly putting down Black community members, Black staff. 

TCJ: So, moving forward, how would you describe these last couple of months working at FLP, in the time of COVID specifically?

AL: I have been working at home since the Library closed. I still have not gone back because the library that I'm going to work out of, Paschalville Library down in the Southwest, it was one of the libraries that got the expired cleaning supplies. So the staff does not feel safe until we get everything together down there, which of course, like, you don't go into work until your boss sets up a cleaning protocol and gives you all the supplies you need. So I'm still working at home for ... the last four months. Which is crazy, right? Like four months.

TCJ: Yeah. I can't even believe it's July.

AL: I know, like what is time? Like what is happening? I would say, it's just been nothing. There's been no communication. There's been no straightforward answer. They're [Free Library admin] literally just repeating whatever the city says, but the city doesn't really understand, like going above Siobhan, they don't understand how day-to-day work in the libraries happens. And also neither does Siobhan. I don't think people know this, but Siobhan has never worked as a librarian in her life at any library. Like she has a degree, but she has no idea what library work actually looks like. She couldn't shelve a book to save a life. But these are the people who are making decisions for the rest of the staff. There's just been no direction. Nothing they say makes sense because the rest of us are working in the neighborhood libraries and the language they're speaking doesn't make any sense. It's just been chaos. Also, many, many staff have used the email system to send emails to all staff about concerns. They shut that down back in March, I believe. The only people who can send out all-staff email is the executive team, which has cut off communication for staff and has made things very confusing. ... That was a very strong tactic to shut down the staff push back. I just feel like we're all just kind of lost and you see it. ... We're frustrated, we're tired. The last three weeks the Concerned Black Workers have been asking for plans and directions. They've had four months to make a basic plan. Like we're asking for a plan for Black lives, but not even a basic plan? They have nothing in four months. 

TCJ: That's a great pivot point, because I wondered if you could tell me how the Concerned Black Workers were officially formed? I know you all have had these concerns for a long time, so why now? Why this moment? 

AL: Maybe about a month ago, the director for strategic initiatives called the groups together; community organizers, and the staff from strategic initiatives, to talk about ways that the library can actually show that Black lives matter. She was supposed to bring ideas to the executive team, with a way the library can actually enact this. She kept bringing up, let's get banners, let's do these things. And our group was like, No, this group has no time for banners. There's action that needs to take place. There's no more of this performative stuff. I brought up the idea of forming a Black caucus, having a representation of Black workers from all over the city that are paid on city time to actually talk about the issues they're facing. And actually be heard. There's some system in place where they are actually a decision making body and they can make decisions to actually fight against anti blackness in the library. So one of my co-workers brought the question, “If we start this group under strategic initiatives with a budget, doing all the things, what is people's response going to be if the group says we need to let some people go? like some people are just toxic, they're racist, this isn't gonna work? What's your response?” And [the supervisor] said, “Well, that means I'd lose my job.” Like that was her response. Like "that means I'd probably lose my job." So I just got extremely angry and extremely upset. I remember I said, Black people are dying. We are being killed every day. And you're scared of losing your job? And so... yeah, sorry, I'm gonna cry now because that was like... [sniffles] I'm still like ugh, like, that's the shit we hear every day at work.  That's the shit you hear at work. 

TCJ: And even talking about it can be triggering and re-traumatizing, so I'm trying to tread lightly but it is really emotional so I understand if you need time.

AL: It is really emotional. But I want to tell people this story. People should know… So, I started making calls and like, that's how we built up the [Concerned] Black Workers. 

TCJ: So given those experiences, did the administration's reaction to the initial letter that the Concerned Black Workers sent surprise you?

AL: No. It didn't surprise me at all. I knew that's what was gonna happen. The administration is so, it's so entrenched in white supremacy. It will never admit that it's racist, and it will never admit that it doesn't know what's best for Black people. Like that's literally the culture of the library, is that these very wealthy white people who are leading this know what's best for what they consider to be poor, uneducated, Black people in Philadelphia, that is their mindset. So I mean, even right now their lack of response doesn't shock me because they cannot understand racism and they cannot understand their own involvement in white supremacy.

TCJ: Ideally, to you, what would FLP leadership look like? And how would they respond to instances of bias and discrimination?

AL: Leadership would look like the city of Philadelphia and also be run by people from Philadelphia. We have so many amazing Black librarians and Black staff that are constantly pushed out to the far reaches of the system, that are kept from moving up, internally in the system, that are ignored. The system does not invest in professional development for Black staff, so those systems in place really keep people on lower levels of pay in the system. However, there are people in this. There's no reason we need to hire a D&I director. No reason. We have amazing people in the group in CBW who've been working there for decades, who could easily be that director. [New leadership] would be staff heavy, even retired staff would be great to have on the board of trustees, people who worked in the system for like 30 and 40 years and understand how this works. They understand the culture. They understand working with the city. I also think community members should be on the board of trustees in order to hold the library accountable for how it treats the community and how it answers to the community. Also, Siobhan is a gatekeeper. So Siobhan ... and the board have agreed that Siobhan is the gatekeeper and they will only get information from her and they only trust what she says. I think what leadership needs to look like at the library is that there is free and open communication between the staff and the board, and that the executive director is not a gatekeeper. And the executive director needs to be a person who's worked in libraries and moved up in staff, who understands Philadelphia, who looks like Philadelphia, and is actually a librarian and actually values the profession. 

TCJ: I know there have been calls for Siobhan to resign, and the authors have been canceling left and right, and even people who just have events at the library have started to cancel in solidarity with y'all. Did you ever foresee a moment like this? 

AL: I really didn't. I did not see a reckoning happen. I did not see this coming. And this is a part, what I believe to be a part of a larger social movement right now, where we're tired. And white people love talking. That's like their jam, right? The main way they perpetuate racism is like, let's have a dialogue, so I don't have to change anything. And then when we have a dialogue, I'll just say you're being ... you're being incompetent. You're being aggressive. You don't understand how anything works. Like, we all know that's a conversation. That's how all this all rolls out. And now, we're in a moment where it's acceptable to be like, no, I'm not gonna talk to you. I'm not gonna let you gaslight me. I'm not letting you continue your racist behavior. You will change. You will change or you will get out of the way. And Siobhan has proven to us that ... she refuses to change. So now it is time for her to get out of the way.