Big Grumble Energy on a Couple of Things.
Feb. 10th, 2021 11:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
silveradeptMany irritations make a post, I suppose, as much as many good things do.
So this month, School Library Journal's February 2021 issue cover depicts a white girl holding up a book with part of a black face on the cover, such that the book's black face at least partially covers the white girl's face, and the placement of the book causes an aligned juxtaposition so that the two faces could be seen as one . The composition of the picture, in combination with the featured article on the cover, "Why White Children Need Diverse Books", makes it easy to believe the white girl is trying on the black face to see how it might look.
Cue entirely warranted criticism of the cover as promoting blackface, the practice of white performers donning makeup to look black, which would often accompany performances ("minstrel shows") designed to mock and ridicule black people and make them into a caricature full of crude stereotypes. (There is a a long history of both of these things, the research of which is left to the reader.)
As one might expect from an organization that doesn't understand where they've gone wrong (charitable interpretation) or that is making a deliberate choice to center white narratives and make narratives of color function only in relation to how they help white people (less charitable interpretation), SLJ did not apologize for the cover, but insisted their intentions and ideas were pure and their impact should not be given greater weight, including invoking "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors", an essay by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop whose title is usually a shorthand for the idea that representation matters in stories. Working in the domain I do, I'm especially interested in stories for children and teens, and specific focus to the need for non-dominant youth and youth of color to see themselves in stories. The statistics showcase how little work there is either about or by the people who most need to see themselves represented in works, and these statistics are simply a raw count of works. The do not assess the quality of the work at all. The well-constructed infographic of the 2018 numbers also contextualizes the reality that in addition to the tiny amounts of books being published, not all the representation in the stories is good representation, and so the mirrors become cracked, because they fail to represent their populations correctly. (Excepting the white child, of course, who has more than enough representation, and the animals and objects stories, who have not yet risen to the level of sentience where we need to account for their accurate representation.)
So here we are yet again, where a reasoned and valid critique is dismissed because it came from the people who were harmed by the decision instead of the people who made the decision. Perhaps just as importantly, though, and also excellently asked and covered, why are we centering while narratives during Black History Month, and why do it in this way, asking a question that explicitly places value on diverse narratives as it relates to educating white children? The accompanying featured article is about some of the challenges that a student in a cultural bubble will experience and the need for trained professionals to acquire and recommend good narratives to help them break out of that bubble, but that seems more like a truism, rather than something that needs a cover article. Of course white children need diverse books and to be encouraged to read them, but that's because society is set up in such a way that if white children and adults want to, they can choose only to interact with people of color in very specific roles, or to forego interaction entirely, and they will not suffer for it.
White children need to be encouraged to read diverse books. Non-white children need to have diverse books. And that difference is more than one of semantics, when you see stories of publishing houses and acquisitions departments not wanting to bid on another hot book because they already had their Black book for the quarter, or parents objecting to the content of a book as inappropriate for a child for all sorts of proxy reasons that add up to "that character is different in a way that makes me uncomfortable." I doubt this is a thing that can be solved by having a lot less whiteness suffusing publishing and librarianship, especially at leadership roles all throughout, but that's certainly a good place to make inroads. After all, even the American Library Association can be convinced to pass a resolution condemning the profession's part in upholding white supremacy and directing the relevant parts of the organization to find alternatives to the neutrality rhetoric previously espoused. [PDF]
Elsewhere, and significantly more locally to myself, on my most recent tour of caretaking our email reference service (with other locations and staff assisting), I came across a "feedback" in our employment assistance and small business help section that read "Your site is a bunch of [ableism] links. You used to have a man who was really good at this stuff. How can I get in contact with him?"
My first reaction to this is "When you decide to learn some manners, we can help you." But I also know that as much as I would like to treat someone like that with the contempt they have already earned, one of the fundamental philosophies of library service to the public (and many other customer service type jobs) is that the front line of any organization has to absorb some amount of abuse from the public being served, because you're being paid to help someone, and if that means we have to overlook some things, that you're going to overlook them.
I looked up the domain that this e-mail came from, and there was no content anywhere on the site, so I was suspicious that this was ableist spam. And since I was sitting on my hands to make sure I didn't snap off a reply, and had a legitimate question, from a different e-mail delivered entirely in ALLCAPS (and not nearly as entertaining as![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
capslock_dreamwidth), about whether we were accepting links that people were sending to us, I did the intelligent thing and asked on the chat if [Person A], who I thought was handling this aspect of things, was the right person to forward these kinds of requests on to, and mentioned a belligerent in the e-mail box.
Person A got back to me by e-mail with some suggestions about what to do to handle the solicitation (normally, no, we're not accepting, but we are soliciting at this point) and the belligerent (see if there's any actual concerns or content that we can answer and answer those, with the implication that the bad behavior itself should be ignored or otherwise go unnoticed). Which are perfectly informative answers to the question, even if I continue to despair that my organization will more than happily wait until problems become unmanageable before trying to manage them, rather than trying to stop them beforehand. (Have I mentioned at least one of the locations in my system is planning on opening for limited technology access before the month is over? And unless we have other things working in our favor, library workers are not high on the vaccination priority list. And in those spaces, we're just as likely to encounter belligerents and conspiracists as we are people who will have forgotten their protection and will be happy to accept ours.)
Anyway, because the reply took sufficiently long to wend back to me, the caretaking of the reference services had passed to another location. I was looking in on it, because everyone still sort of looks in on it when they have time, and I happened to look in and see a reply to the ableist spam in draft form, where another co-worker had written "Dear [Ableist Trash], Thank you for writing to us with your concerns. I will forward it on immediately to our senior management." And also, that he was decent enough with business resources that he could possibly help.
And, y'know, maybe that was intended in a "yes, of course, I'll move this right where you want it to go, and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Chicago to sell you" kind of way, but this is also a coworker who has strongly indicated his firm belief that libraries should be as neutral as they possibly can, and that it is not the part of any library or library staff member to impose their ideology on anyone, to the point where I was very pointed in my response to such nonsense. So I wouldn't be at all surprised that this coworker would send such a thing to our senior management as an accusation that they are failing to provide necessary services or something like that. So now I'm doubly annoyed that things did not get taken care of in the way I would like, and someone else decided that they were going to give the rude ableist the feeling like their rudeness had some useful benefit. This, too, shall pass, but it's also one of those things where I have to be able and willing to pick which battles I want to expend energy and effort toward, and this thing is not going to be one of them.
The belligerent who I wanted permanently gone returned while another person was out front today, and that interaction started and ended in a similar pattern, by trying to solicit sympathy and then ending in curse words when it was clear he wasn't going to get to talk to either the manager nor to get his sentence commuted. I gave my thanks to the person who had to deal with it, and they properly documented the behavior, so that's good. There still isn't likely to be any meaningful consequences for his persistence, but at least we'll have the documentation to the nines when someone higher-up does decide there's something more warranted.
Grumble. Ah, well. And these grumbles are not helped by more stories about how terrible a person Joss Whedon is and how he shouldn't be allowed near anyone again ever.
So this month, School Library Journal's February 2021 issue cover depicts a white girl holding up a book with part of a black face on the cover, such that the book's black face at least partially covers the white girl's face, and the placement of the book causes an aligned juxtaposition so that the two faces could be seen as one . The composition of the picture, in combination with the featured article on the cover, "Why White Children Need Diverse Books", makes it easy to believe the white girl is trying on the black face to see how it might look.
Cue entirely warranted criticism of the cover as promoting blackface, the practice of white performers donning makeup to look black, which would often accompany performances ("minstrel shows") designed to mock and ridicule black people and make them into a caricature full of crude stereotypes. (There is a a long history of both of these things, the research of which is left to the reader.)
As one might expect from an organization that doesn't understand where they've gone wrong (charitable interpretation) or that is making a deliberate choice to center white narratives and make narratives of color function only in relation to how they help white people (less charitable interpretation), SLJ did not apologize for the cover, but insisted their intentions and ideas were pure and their impact should not be given greater weight, including invoking "Mirrors, Windows, and Sliding Glass Doors", an essay by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop whose title is usually a shorthand for the idea that representation matters in stories. Working in the domain I do, I'm especially interested in stories for children and teens, and specific focus to the need for non-dominant youth and youth of color to see themselves in stories. The statistics showcase how little work there is either about or by the people who most need to see themselves represented in works, and these statistics are simply a raw count of works. The do not assess the quality of the work at all. The well-constructed infographic of the 2018 numbers also contextualizes the reality that in addition to the tiny amounts of books being published, not all the representation in the stories is good representation, and so the mirrors become cracked, because they fail to represent their populations correctly. (Excepting the white child, of course, who has more than enough representation, and the animals and objects stories, who have not yet risen to the level of sentience where we need to account for their accurate representation.)
So here we are yet again, where a reasoned and valid critique is dismissed because it came from the people who were harmed by the decision instead of the people who made the decision. Perhaps just as importantly, though, and also excellently asked and covered, why are we centering while narratives during Black History Month, and why do it in this way, asking a question that explicitly places value on diverse narratives as it relates to educating white children? The accompanying featured article is about some of the challenges that a student in a cultural bubble will experience and the need for trained professionals to acquire and recommend good narratives to help them break out of that bubble, but that seems more like a truism, rather than something that needs a cover article. Of course white children need diverse books and to be encouraged to read them, but that's because society is set up in such a way that if white children and adults want to, they can choose only to interact with people of color in very specific roles, or to forego interaction entirely, and they will not suffer for it.
White children need to be encouraged to read diverse books. Non-white children need to have diverse books. And that difference is more than one of semantics, when you see stories of publishing houses and acquisitions departments not wanting to bid on another hot book because they already had their Black book for the quarter, or parents objecting to the content of a book as inappropriate for a child for all sorts of proxy reasons that add up to "that character is different in a way that makes me uncomfortable." I doubt this is a thing that can be solved by having a lot less whiteness suffusing publishing and librarianship, especially at leadership roles all throughout, but that's certainly a good place to make inroads. After all, even the American Library Association can be convinced to pass a resolution condemning the profession's part in upholding white supremacy and directing the relevant parts of the organization to find alternatives to the neutrality rhetoric previously espoused. [PDF]
Elsewhere, and significantly more locally to myself, on my most recent tour of caretaking our email reference service (with other locations and staff assisting), I came across a "feedback" in our employment assistance and small business help section that read "Your site is a bunch of [ableism] links. You used to have a man who was really good at this stuff. How can I get in contact with him?"
My first reaction to this is "When you decide to learn some manners, we can help you." But I also know that as much as I would like to treat someone like that with the contempt they have already earned, one of the fundamental philosophies of library service to the public (and many other customer service type jobs) is that the front line of any organization has to absorb some amount of abuse from the public being served, because you're being paid to help someone, and if that means we have to overlook some things, that you're going to overlook them.
I looked up the domain that this e-mail came from, and there was no content anywhere on the site, so I was suspicious that this was ableist spam. And since I was sitting on my hands to make sure I didn't snap off a reply, and had a legitimate question, from a different e-mail delivered entirely in ALLCAPS (and not nearly as entertaining as
capslock_dreamwidth), about whether we were accepting links that people were sending to us, I did the intelligent thing and asked on the chat if [Person A], who I thought was handling this aspect of things, was the right person to forward these kinds of requests on to, and mentioned a belligerent in the e-mail box.Person A got back to me by e-mail with some suggestions about what to do to handle the solicitation (normally, no, we're not accepting, but we are soliciting at this point) and the belligerent (see if there's any actual concerns or content that we can answer and answer those, with the implication that the bad behavior itself should be ignored or otherwise go unnoticed). Which are perfectly informative answers to the question, even if I continue to despair that my organization will more than happily wait until problems become unmanageable before trying to manage them, rather than trying to stop them beforehand. (Have I mentioned at least one of the locations in my system is planning on opening for limited technology access before the month is over? And unless we have other things working in our favor, library workers are not high on the vaccination priority list. And in those spaces, we're just as likely to encounter belligerents and conspiracists as we are people who will have forgotten their protection and will be happy to accept ours.)
Anyway, because the reply took sufficiently long to wend back to me, the caretaking of the reference services had passed to another location. I was looking in on it, because everyone still sort of looks in on it when they have time, and I happened to look in and see a reply to the ableist spam in draft form, where another co-worker had written "Dear [Ableist Trash], Thank you for writing to us with your concerns. I will forward it on immediately to our senior management." And also, that he was decent enough with business resources that he could possibly help.
And, y'know, maybe that was intended in a "yes, of course, I'll move this right where you want it to go, and if you believe that, I have a bridge in Chicago to sell you" kind of way, but this is also a coworker who has strongly indicated his firm belief that libraries should be as neutral as they possibly can, and that it is not the part of any library or library staff member to impose their ideology on anyone, to the point where I was very pointed in my response to such nonsense. So I wouldn't be at all surprised that this coworker would send such a thing to our senior management as an accusation that they are failing to provide necessary services or something like that. So now I'm doubly annoyed that things did not get taken care of in the way I would like, and someone else decided that they were going to give the rude ableist the feeling like their rudeness had some useful benefit. This, too, shall pass, but it's also one of those things where I have to be able and willing to pick which battles I want to expend energy and effort toward, and this thing is not going to be one of them.
The belligerent who I wanted permanently gone returned while another person was out front today, and that interaction started and ended in a similar pattern, by trying to solicit sympathy and then ending in curse words when it was clear he wasn't going to get to talk to either the manager nor to get his sentence commuted. I gave my thanks to the person who had to deal with it, and they properly documented the behavior, so that's good. There still isn't likely to be any meaningful consequences for his persistence, but at least we'll have the documentation to the nines when someone higher-up does decide there's something more warranted.
Grumble. Ah, well. And these grumbles are not helped by more stories about how terrible a person Joss Whedon is and how he shouldn't be allowed near anyone again ever.
no subject
Date: 2021-02-14 08:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-02-15 06:33 am (UTC)