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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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How America's oligarchs lull us with the be-your-own-boss fairy tale

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/16/narrative-capitalism/#sell-job

Capitalism is a vibes-based system. Sure, we all know about Keynes's "Animal Spirits" that see "bulls" and "bears" vying to set the market's future, but beyond that, there's just a hell of a lot of narrative.

Writing for The American Prospect, Adam M Lowenstein reviews two books that tell the histories of the stories that are used to sell American capitalism to the American people – the stories that turn workers into "temporarily embarrassed millionaires":

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2024-02-16-stories-corporations-tell-williams-waterhouse-review/

The first of these books is Taming the Octopus: The Long Battle for the Soul of the Corporation, by Kyle Edward Williams, a kind of pre-history of "woke capitalism":

https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393867237

Taming is a history of the low-water marks for Big Business's reputation in America, and how each was overcome through PR campaigns that declared a turning point in which business leaders would pursue the common good, even at the expense of their shareholders' interests.

The story starts in the 1950s, when DuPont and other massive firms had gained a well-deserved reputation as rapacious profit-generation machines that "alienated workers and pushed around small businessmen, investors, and consumers." This prompted DuPont's PR chief, Harold Brayman, to write a memo called "The Attack on Bigness," where he set out a plan to sell America on a new cuddly image for corporate giants.

For Brayman, the problem was that corporate execs were too shy about telling their social inferiors about all the good that businesses did for them: "The businessman is normally reluctant to talk out loud. He frequently shuns the spotlight and is content with plugging his wares, not himself."

This was the starting gun for a charm offensive by American big business that included IBM president Thomas Watson Jr ("I think there is a world market for about five computers") going on a speaking tour organized by McKinsey & Co, where he told audiences that his company's billion dollar annual profits had convinced it to assume "responsibilities for the broader public welfare."

This set the template for a nationwide mania of "business statesmanship" that Fortune celebrated with an editorial announcing "a great transformation, of which the world as a whole is as yet unaware" that put the "profit motive…on its last leg."

Fortune then spent the next seventy years recycling this announcement, every time the tide went out on business's popularity. In 2019, Fortune platformed IBM president Ginni Rometty for an announcement that the company was orienting its priorities to the public good: "It’s a question of whether society trusts you or not. We need society to accept what it is that we do."

The occasion for Rometty's quote was a special package on the Trump tax-cuts, a trillion-dollar gift to American big business, which lobbyists for the Business Roundtable celebrated with an announcement that American capitalism would now serve "stakeholders" (not just shareholders). Fortune celebrated this "change" as "fundamental and profound."

Fast forward five years and corporate leaders are still telling stories, this time about "stakeholder capitalism" and "ESG" – the dread "woke capitalism" that has right-wing swivel-eyed loons running around, hair afire, declaring the end of capitalism.

For Williams and Lowenstein (and me), all this ESG, DEI, and responsible capitalism is just window dressing, a distraction to keep the pitchforks and torches in people's closets, and to keep the guillotines in their packaging. The right-wing is doing a mirror-world version of liberals who freak out when OpenAI claims to have built a machine that will pauperize every worker – assuming that a PR pitch is the gospel truth, and then repeating it in criticism. Criti-hype, in other words:

https://sts-news.medium.com/youre-doing-it-wrong-notes-on-criticism-and-technology-hype-18b08b4307e5

Think of ESG: the right is freaking out that ESG is harming shareholders by leaving hydrocarbons in the ground to appease climate-addled greenies. The reality is that ESG is barely disguised greenwashing, and it's fully compatible with burning every critter that died in the Mesozoic, Cenozoic, and lo, even the Paleozoic:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/03/15/sanctions-financing/#profiteers

The reason this tactic is so successful is that Americans have also been sold another narrative: that American problems are solved by American individuals as entrepreneurs and businesspeople, not as polities or as members of a union (let alone the working class!).

This is the subject of the second book Lowenstein reviews, One Day I’ll Work for Myself: The Dream and Delusion That Conquered America, by Benjamin Waterhouse:

https://wwnorton.com/books/one-day-ill-work-for-myself/

A keystone of American narrative capitalism is the idea that the USA is a nation of small businesspeople, Jeffersonian yeoman farmsteaders of the US economy. But even a cursory examination shows that the country is ruled – economically and politically – by very large firms.

Uber sells itself as a way to be your own boss ("No shifts. No boss. No limits.") – even though it's a system where the app is your boss, and thanks to that layer of misdirection, Uber gets to be the worst conceivable boss, while its workers have no recourse in labor law:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/12/algorithmic-wage-discrimination/#fishers-of-men

In labor fights, Uber represents itself as the champion of innumerable "small businesspeople" who drive its unlicensed taxis. In consumer protection fights, Amazon claims to be fighting for "small businesspeople" who sell on its platform. In privacy fights, Facebook claims to represent "small businesspeople" who buy its surveillance advertising.

But large firms are actively hostile to small firms, seeing them as small-fry to be rooked or destroyed (recall that when Amazon targeted small publishers for bankruptcy-level discounts, they called the program "The Gazelle Project" and Bezos told his executives to tackle these firms "the way a cheetah pursues a sickly gazelle").

Decades of this tale have produced "a profound shift from a shared belief that individuals might come together to solve problems, into a collective faith in individual effort." America's long love-affair with rugged individualism was weaponized in the 1970s by corporations seeking to shed their regulatory obligation to workers, customers, and the environment.

As with Big Tech today, the big business lobby held up mom-and-pop businesses as the true beneficiaries of deregulation, even as they knifed these firms. A telling anecdote comes from someone who worked for the Chamber of Commerce's magazine Nation's Business: when this editor pointed out that many of the magazine's subscribers were small businesspeople and asked if they could start including articles relevant to mom-and-pops, the editor in chief said, "Over my dead body."

The neoliberal era has been an unbroken string of platitudes celebrating the small business and policies that annihilate their chances against large firms. Ronald Reagan's dewy-eyed hymns to American entrepreneurship sounded nice, but what matters is that he attempted to abolish the Small Business Administration and refused to address the 20,000 attendee "White House Conference on Small Business."

In the years since, American has sacrificed its small businesses while pulling out all the stops – bailouts and tax cuts and elite bankruptcy – to keep its largest firms growing. New regulations like Dodd-Frank were neutered in the name of saving mom-and-pop shops, even though the provisions that were cut already exempted small businesses.

Today, millions of Americans are treading water in a fetid stew of LLC-poisoning, rise-and-grind, multi-level-marketing, dropshipping and gig-work, convinced that the only way to get a better life is to pull themselves up by their bootstraps:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/10/declaration-of-interdependence/

Narrative does a lot of work here. The American economy runs on bubbles, another form of narrative capitalism. Take AI, a subject I sincerely wish I could stop hearing about, not least because I'm certain that 99% of that thinking is being wasted on whatever residue remains after the bubble pops:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

AI isn't going to do your job, but its narrative may convince your boss to fire you and replace you with a bot that can't do your job. Like what happened when Air Canada hired a chatbot to answer customer inquiries and it started making shit up about bereavement discounts that the company later claimed it didn't have to honor:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

This story's been all over the news for the past couple of days, but so far as I've seen, no one has pointed out the seemingly obvious inference that this chatbot probably ripped off lots of people. The victim here was extraordinarily persistent, chasing a refund for 10 weeks and then going to the regulator. This guy is a six-sigma self-advocate – which implies a whole bell-curve's worth of comparatively normal people who just ate the shit-sandwich Air Canada fed them.

The reason AI is a winning proposition for Air Canada isn't that it can do a customer service rep's job – it can't. But the AI is a layer of indirection – like the app that is the true boss of Uber drivers – that lets Air Canada demoralize the customers it steals from into walking away from their losses.

Nevertheless, the narrative that AI Will Change Everything Forever is powerful – more powerful than AI itself, that's for sure. Take this Bloomberg headline: "Nearly all wealth gained by world's rich this year comes from AI":

https://www.business-standard.com/world-news/nearly-all-wealth-gained-by-world-s-rich-this-year-comes-from-ai-124021600006_1.html

Dig in and you find even more narrative. The single largest beneficiary of AI stock gains last year was Mark Zuckerberg ($161B!). Zuck is American Narrative Capitalism's greatest practitioner: the guy who made billions peddling a series of lies, from "pivot to video" to "metaverse," leaping from one lie to the next just ahead of the mass stock-selloffs that wiped out lesser predators.

The Narrative Capitalism Cinematic Universe has a lot of side-plots like AI and entrepreneurship and woke capitalism, but its main narrative arc was articulated, ad nauseum, by Margaret Thatcher: "There is no alternative." This is the most important part of the story, the part that says it literally can't be otherwise. The only way to organize society is through markets, and the only way to organize markets is to leave them alone, no matter how much suffering they cause.

This is a baffling story, because it's so easily disproved. Zuck says the only way to have friends is to let him surveil you from asshole to appetite, even though he once ran Facebook as the privacy-forward alternative to MySpace, and promised never to spy on you:

https://lawcat.berkeley.edu/record/1128876

Likewise, the business leaders – and their chorus of dutiful Renfields – who insist that monopoly is the natural and inevitable outcome of any market economy just handwave away the decades during which anti-monopoly enforcement actually kept most businesses from getting too big to fail and too big to jail.

I'm no champion of market efficiency – especially not as the best and final arbiter of social and economic questions – but when I hear my comrades repeating the Thatcherite claims that all forms of capitalism necessarily degrade into monopolistic quagmires, that there is no alternative, it sounds like more criti-hype.

This is a frequent point of departure during discussions of enshittification: some people dismiss the whole idea of enshittification as "just capitalism." But we had decades of digital services that either didn't degrade, or, when they did, were replaced by superior competitors with a minimum of switching costs for users who migrated from the decaying incumbent to greener pastures.

The reality is that while there are problems with all forms of capitalism, there are different kinds of capitalist problems, and some forms of capitalism are less harmful to working people and more capable of enacting and enforcing sound policy than others.

Enshittification is what happens when the constraints on the worst impulses of companies and their investors and managers are removed. When a company doesn't have competitors, when it can capture its regulators to trample our rights with impunity, when it can enlist those regulators to shut down would-be competitors who might free us from its "walled garden," and when it can fire any worker who refuses to enact harm upon the users they serve, then that company will enshittify:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/30/go-nuts-meine-kerle/#ich-bin-ein-bratapfel

A company can be made to treat you well, even if it is run by a wicked person who sees you as a mark to be fleeced – that mustache twirler just has to be constrained – by competition, regulation, self-help and labor. He may still hate you and wish you harm, but he won't be able to act on it.

As MLK said:

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, religion and education will have to do that, but it can restrain him from lynching me. And I think that's pretty important also. And so that while legislation may not change the hearts of men, it does change the habits of men. And we see this every day.

#pluralistic #narrative capitalism #oligarchy #temporarily embarrassed millionaires #late-stage capitalism #enshittification #disenshittification #vocational awe #fobazi ettarh #ai #bubbles #bubblenomics #rise and grind #Benjamin C. Waterhouse #One Day I’ll Work for Myself #Kyle Edward Williams #Taming the Octopus #woke capitalism #llcs with mfas

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historyhermann · 9 months

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Job creep among fictional librarians

In her 2018 In the Library with the Lead Pipe article, "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves," Fobazi Ettarh writes about job creep. She defines it as subtle and slow expansion of job duties not recognized by the organization or their supervisors. Since librarians are often expected to place their duties and place the profession above their own interests, leading job creep to become common. This manifests itself in employees doing more but having less time to accomplish their tasks. As a result, employees who can't do more than what is in the job description are seen as not doing the minimum and their managed may believe they are not committed to the organization or its mission if the extra tasks aren't completed. This interconnects with the idea of librarianship as a religious calling, with some asked to do "dangerous emotional and physical labor" without getting the support or tools provided to other professions who do those duties.

Originally published on Pop Culture Library Review on August 3, 2023.

Job creep is more than employees being pressured to "deliver more than the normal requirements of their jobs" and tied to undercompensation, part of a twin phenomenon in librarianship. It is interconnected to vocational awe, meaning that assumptions, values, and ideas librarians have about the profession or themselves. This results in the beliefs that libraries, as institutions, are "inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique" as Ettarh puts it. Such job creep is inherent in librarianship due to self-sacrificing and service-oriented workplaces, as noted by Ettarh.

In terms of libraries this means librarians are "undertaking jobs they might not have trained for" like giving tax help or even administering Narcan to people who have overdosed. In terms of fictional librarians, I struggled a little to find those who do more than what is expected. One example, could be, perhaps, Myne/Main in Ascendance of a Bookworm. Although she is dedicated to becoming a pioneer of the printing press in this world, she becomes a priest in order to work in the library, so she can be a librarian who helps people. It was much more than she "signed up for", just as it is with librarians who deliver Narcan but never signed up for such a task. [1]

On the other side are characters like Kaisa in Hilda. As she is a librarian first, and witch second, perhaps she believes as some librarians do, that librarians are responsible for the safety of "patrons who come inside your library doors". In the case of Kaisa, she takes this responsibility far through her magic. She makes sure Hilda and Frida are ok, and safe. At the same time, Hilda and Frida help her get out of the void and make sure all of them aren't lost for eternity. The Trolberg library probably doesn't have active-shooter response training, like some libraries, but that doesn't matter because there are witches, who work below the library, or in the library itself, like Kaisa. She undoubtedly recognizes that there are other ways to protect patrons "besides having a gun and going blasting" as some librarians have stated.

There are other librarians who do more than expected. Take Clara Rhone in Welcome to the Wayne. She provides the protagonists with "critical information" and recognizes there are "different pathways to attaining information." She also realizes, to some degree, the role of librarians to help people "meet their informational needs." [3] Without her help, Ansi, Olly, and Sarah would have never found the mysteries, and secrets, of the Wayne apartment building. If the library she works, the Stanza, had never been there, it could have never been a sanctuary from those who were chasing them. It would have never been a place to give them the information they needed for their journeys. Without Clara, the protagonists would have not succeeded in their goals, not for a second. There is no doubt in my mind about that.

Clara is not alone. One librarian who appears to do much more than they bargained for is the unnamed and uncredited librarian in an episode of We Bare Bears. Possibly voiced by Ashly Burch, [4] this librarian undoubtedly encountered homeless and semi-homeless library patrons. This is because she is working in a library somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area, as I wrote about back in May. This librarian appears to let the protagonists sleep the night over at the library, which is unique, considering that some librarians, at least in anime, are shown sleeping at the information desk, which will be the subject of a post two weeks from now. This librarian likely believes that you have to, as some librarians argued, "do the job that’s actually there, not the one that exists in your head", realizing the importance of librarians in serving the community in whatever way possible.

On the other hand, this librarian likely is not being supported by any managers or mentors telling her that burnout, as is empathy fatigue, a big problem, and to not be so hard on herself. Even so, I hope that she believes that she can't "solve all the problems" and that it isn't her responsibility to leave "work at work." [5] Hopefully she is like those librarians who take vacations, if she has paid time off, which is hopefully provided by her library, when needed, and relax.

There were other stories of librarians having trauma from their experiences, even if they loved "providing a service to underserved people". Maybe they believed that society "needs an overhaul for how we treat people" like one librarian. [6] In the past, I've written about a papermaster (Anita) in R.O.D. the TV who was traumatized by the burning of books, which scarred her for life. Learning that one of the protagonists, Yomiko Readman, was behind the act (because her powers got out of control), ruined her. I've also noted that an action of a librarian, Wan Shi Tong (voiced by Héctor Elizondo), caused Korra, a protagonist of Legend of Korra to be even more traumatized that she already was previously in the series.

More than the aforementioned characters is Amity Blight (voiced by Mae Whitman). She is a lesbian who is in a relationship with another protagonist, and she directly experiences trauma, something which is at the core of The Owl House, as I noted in an article last year. As some reviewers have argued, Luz becomes a revelation that Luz needs, even if she has to confront trauma and "move away from those in her life who are only capable of hurt." This also involves going at trauma head-on and realizing it doesn't control her anymore. [7] At the same time, Amity gets fired from her job at the library, in the episode "Through the Looking Glass Ruins." Although she gets her job back, some have argued that getting fired can be an "extremely traumatic experience". It can also come with depression, anger, and resentment, although those feelings can fade over time. Some have even argued that getting fired is a form of "abandonment trauma" and can be tragic, especially for those who feel they are fired for no reason. It can also lead to self-defeating thoughts and distress of some kind. [8]

In the case of Amity, she undoubtedly feels distressed about the whole thing, considering she got the job and her own study room in the library. However she recognizes that her boss, Malphas (voiced by Fred Tatasicore) can be nice at times, but would also feed her, and Luz, to bookworms if they were caught in the forbidden section. Despite this, she endeavors to help Luz, even though this puts her job on the line!

This brings me to other librarians. Some have argued that although those in library school don't "ever teach everyone everything they might need to know" and it becomes impractical to believe that students can be taught "all the dimensions of their jobs." These same librarians argue that while certain things aren't included in library classes, "curriculum- and program-level changes are difficult." One person who would likely recognize this is Mo Testa in Dykes to Watch Out For. She is a graduate from library school dedicated to social justice, even rejecting a job because the previous librarian disagreed with the Patriot Act and left. She clearly sees the library as the "temple to the written word", connecting with what I have earlier about libraries as being like temples, in Japan and beyond.

She is also a lesbian and a feminist. At the same time, she is a reference librarian, is a White female who wears glasses, and is passionate about her beliefs. This undoubtedly translates into her work as a librarian and that stands against stereotypes in more ways than one.

There are librarians who describe job/mission creep as a big problem in librarianship, with "other duties as assigned" becoming a bigger part of your job. Then, you are seen as doing "less than" others when your colleagues do the extra work. These same librarians reject the idea librarians can solve community problems or be social workers when trauma counseling doesn't exist, and supplant the jobs of social workers or medical professionals. Such librarians would also argue against being "stretched thin" by trying to be librarians, social workers, mental health professionals, and more all at the same time, setting a bad precedent, instead of just being information specialists. [10]

I tend to sympathize with this view the most, as a person who once countered a now library consultant (then manager) who I called "Justin the librarian." I wrote, back in 2019, something I still agree with, that it is clearly ignorant to say that librarians do "everything" for every community member. Instead, librarians should do what they can, but never try to be "everything". That would, as I wrote at the time, undoubtedly stretch their personal capacities and the institutions themselves, weakening the profession, even as librarians work to serve patrons from all walks of life.

While characters like Doctor Oldham, who is an old "sage" and a medical doctor, on the Gargantia inter-locking fleet in Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, would fulfill what the previous librarian I summarized would completely oppose, others are different. I would believe that Lydia Lovely in Horrid Henry, Mira and Sahil in Mira, Royal Detective, would not do more than what is assigned. Even Ms. Herrera, who is possibly Latine, in Archie's Weird Mysteries would likely not go beyond what was assigned to her. She does help Archie, an often patron. On the other hand, she may be a bit stretched thin, but that would only be because the library seems to be understaffed and she has a lot on her plate as a result. Hopefully she is well-compensated.

Notes

[1] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Chera Kowalski, Assistant to the Chief of Staff Free Library of Philadelphia in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

[2] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Tom Rink, Instructor of Library Services at Northeastern State University in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

[3] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Homa Naficy, Chief Adult Learning Officer at Hartford (Conn.) Public Library in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

[4] After listening to various video clips of Ashly Burch, Demtri Martin, and Philece Sampler, all of whom were credited with "additional voices", I think the closest to this is Ashly Burch, but I could be completely wrong, and it could be Demtri Martin.

[5] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Graham Tedesco-Blair Adult Services Librarian at Newark (N.Y.) Public Library in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

[6] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Amanda Oliver, MFA Student at University of California–Riverside who formerly worked in libraries in the Washington, D.C. area and presumably D.C. Public Library in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019. Also see: Oliver, Amanda. "Working as a librarian gave me post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms," Los Angeles Times, Apr. 19, 2019.

[7] King, Jade. "The Owl House Is Showing Young Viewers The Necessity Of Queer Rebellion." TheGamer, Jun. 21, 2021.

[8] "Trauma From Being Fired: How to Get Over It and Move On." An Overviews Of Societal And Workplace Issues And their solution, Oct. 3, 2021; Anderson, Susan. "FIRED FROM A JOB: A Silent Form of Abandonment Trauma," AbandonmentRecovery.com, Sept. 12, 2014; Hamdi, Awatef. "How to Get Over from Trauma of Getting Fired for No Reason," fratres, 2021; Carmichael, Ava. "Can Being Fired from a Job Cause PTSD?" Ava Carmichael's website, accessed June 24, 2022; Carter, Sherri Bourg. "Seven Things to Avoid After Being Fired." Psychology Today, Aug. 18, 2011.

[9] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Nicole A. Cooke, Associate Professor and MS/LIS Program Director, School of Information Sciences, at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

[10] Quoting/summarizing from the section by Fobazi Ettarh, Undergraduate Success Librarian, Rutgers University–Newark (N.J.) in "Other Duties as Assigned: Front-line librarians on the constant pressure to do more," American Libraries, Jan. 2, 2019.

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libraryben · 1 year

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Fobazi Ettarh’s research is concerned with the relationships and tensions between the espoused values of librarianship and the realities present in the experiences of marginalized librarians and library users. In 2018, she coined the term and defined the concept of “vocational awe,” which describe, “the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in beliefs that libraries as institutions are inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique.” In her article “Vocational Awe: The Lies We Tell Ourselves,” she describes how vocational awe can lead to burnout and a sense that one’s own self-care is less important than the work being done.

Although written before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ettarh’s words have resonated with many library workers throughout the nation in the current moment, as we strive to serve our patrons and our profession as best we can amidst the competing demands of home, work, and health. Her remarks on equity and inclusion in libraries are just as timely and important. In a 2019 interview with Cathy Hannabach, she spoke of the resistance that marginalized library workers can face when advocating for better working conditions and talked about what a changing world might offer in the way of alliances and social progress. When describing what a better world would look like to her, Fobazi Ettarh said, in part, “a place where change is embraced, where people work as a collective rather than working in opposition to each other –and to one’s own interest — …a place where conflict isn’t seen as a four-letter word but as a fulcrum to a better time, a better organization, a healthier world and place.”

Fobazi Ettarh’s critical work on libraries, labor, and identity has been published in In the Library With the Lead Pipe and edited collections, including the Critical Library Pedagogy Handbook and Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library and Information Studies through Critical Race Theory. She has given invited talks at numerous professional and scholarly conferences and events, including the Library as Place Symposium, and keynotes at the Association of College and Research Libraries and Library Journal Directors’ Summit. Her research has been covered in numerous outlets and she consults in library and corporate contexts on labor, identity, and diversity. She is also the creator of the open-access video game Killing Me Softly: A Game About Microaggressions.

#Librarians #Libraries #Fobazi Ettarh

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girderednerve · 7 months

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i've seen that post about how homeless people don't cause problems in libraries going around a few times, & it's incredibly irritating to me

in my experience as a library worker, most of the people that were asked to leave or banned from the library were homeless. a few of these people did do genuinely disruptive things (shout at staff, make harassing comments, get into physical altercations), but most of them were banned from the library because the library's set of rules was fundamentally unfair and often enforced unfairly by staff, contracted security guards, and other patrons. people were banned for sleeping in the library, or eating in the library, or bringing too many bags into the library, or being quietly drunk in the library. none of these rules should result in banning someone from service & the only reason that they do is because our library rules were intended to make sure the library was 'safe for families' and 'not a day shelter.' if you feel that your public library doesn't do the same, i'd love to see the code of conduct.

there's a popular idea that libraries are havens for everyone, and they can be, but that's no guarantee that each one is; like every other public place, marginalized people are subject to the whims of the people who write and enforce building rules, and library workers aren't somehow exempt from bigotry. in addition, many front-line library staff are under pressure from administrators to aggressively enforce these deliberately unfair rules, because library administrators are personally bigoted or because they are themselves under pressure from library boards, local government, or vocal patrons.

i also think that post kind of valorizes the idea that homeless patrons behave well (whatever we may imagine that to mean) in the library because they are sensitive to how reactive rule enforcement can be & are trying not to get kicked out, which i find morally repugnant. why should we celebrate that someone is so used to being forcibly excluded that they work to placate us before we even express disapproval? i have had many interactions with library patrons who were clearly being polite to me in a way that, to me at least, felt like it was a performance directed at my white (presumed) womanhood. i found it jarring & unpleasant to be treated like a possible agent of harm, but that's my problem and not the patron's fault; i don't understand why anyone would take being treated that way as their due. i have had patrons apologize to me for being upset by clearly terrible circumstances or visibly shut down to avoid being emotional in public. i don't know how to navigate that from behind a service desk & frankly my perspective here is not the important one, but it feels worth pointing out that these are not a positive or neutral social interactions; they're evidence of a situation in which marginalized patrons are forced to treat library workers like a barrier & a threat. the fact that i personally would never eject someone from the library for being upset, much less for sleeping, doesn't come into it, because how could it? we met five minutes ago, if that.

library workers, in my experience, like to think of themselves as a part of a vital social infrastructure, performing a kind of secular (well, not always) missionary work. we tend to our communities. we nurture and guide. & i can't wholly exempt myself here: i was drawn to library work in part because i think it can be valuable, because i enjoy being helpful to other people. to some degree library workers, like social workers & nurses, all participate in the disciplinary arm of white womanhood, & i don't think it's professionally responsible or ethically defensible to decline to grapple with those implications, however uncomfortable. you don't have to lie about what a library is for libraries to be worthwhile, come on

#oh OP did it make you feel good that you got to help a poor unfortunate unhoused person & that you're not bigoted you just hate karens?#should we throw a party? should we invite jane addams #vocational awe diaries :')#sorry guys i am libraryposting despite being libraryunemployed rn. but that post is making me sooo annoyed lol #it's probably a better use of your time to just read the fobazi ettarh article which coins 'vocational awe' honestly #mean vagueposting :)

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archivlibrarianist · 2 years

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Anne Helen Petersen breaks down why librarians are not okay. She's talking to academic librarians here, but a lot of problems she describes in her third point-- continued cuts to necessary services-- apply to public libraries, as well.

"First: You work passion jobs, and passion jobs are prime for exploitation... The second thing I want to acknowledge: you’re working a passion job that is feminized and, by extension, devalued....

The third thing that makes your jobs hard? You’re working for higher ed...

The fourth thing that’s making your job really, really hard? You just worked through a pandemic, and an ongoing reckoning with systemic racism, and a contested election, and an insurrection, and several climate catastrophes. Plus, we are still in a pandemic. Some of you were asked to be present in situations that felt unsafe every day. Some of you had to deal with people who were butts about masks. Some of you got sick or are still sick, many of you have spent the last twenty-four months in various cycles of fear-based adrenaline pushes through the week followed by debilitating crashes..."

#libraries #librarians #tumblarians #academic libraries #but also public libraries #Anne Helen Petersen #librarianship #librarians are not okay #and neither are teachers or health care workers or grad students or social workers or honestly even most professors #vocational awe #someone give Fobazi Ettarh a medal and big piles of money for her work on the topic

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ebookporn · 2 years

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When they came for the librarians: My profession is under attack — what happens now?

People in my profession are used to mockery and low salaries. We didn't expect constant insults and real danger

by Gretchen Corsillo

America's libraries are under attack. It's no longer enough that far-right interest groups and politicians are coming for our collections; they've turned their ire towards our staff too. In recent months, there has been an alarming trend of community members and officials calling for the dismissal of librarians over books they've purchased for their patrons — usually titles focusing on race, gender and sexuality. Groups like Moms for Liberty are training their members on how to target us on our personal social media pages. Library workers are being vilified in the same way as teachers — a troubling phenomenon that's contributing to the nationwide educator shortage.

Morale among library workers has been suffering for a while now. Fobazi Ettarh's 2018 essay on vocational awe in the profession first called attention to the high rates of burnout among librarians based on the pressure of working in a noble-presenting field with little support. The new stress, fatigue and even danger that the pandemic brought to frontline workers has made it worse.

To fully grasp where we stand, it's important to understand how public libraries work. Although state laws vary in the specifics, your local library is funded through tax dollars. Some libraries are fortunate enough to have their budgets supplemented through charitable giving, usually channeled through a nonprofit like a Friends of the Library group or a foundation. Like most social services, we are constantly living with the real threat of budget cuts, and our funding is often inadequate. To put things in perspective, I own an average-priced home in a county with one of the highest property tax rates in the country. A bit more than $100 of my annual tax bill goes to my local library — a library that is funded above our state's legal minimum. That tax-based income funds every aspect of the library's budget, from maintaining collections and programming to personnel to caring for the building.

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small-names-big-ideas · 9 months

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Vocational Awe

the idea:

“Vocational awe” refers to the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in beliefs that libraries as institutions are inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique... I challenge the notion that many have taken as axiomatic that libraries are inherently good and democratic, and that librarians, by virtue of working in a library, are responsible for this “good” work. This sets up an expectation that any failure of libraries is largely the fault of individuals failing to live up to the ideals of the profession, rather than understanding that the library as an institution is fundamentally flawed.

"vocational awe and librarianship" by fobazi ettarh (see below).

vocational awe refers to the misplaced cultural idea of putting librarianship (and other public service-oriented professions) on an idealized pedestal. this has led to a variety of problems, including the increased load of social services libraries are expected to handle due to the erosion of other public goods, and the justification for underpaying librarians because of the perceived social importance of the career. as a result, librarians as individuals are especially susceptible to being pressured into overworking, which eventually leads to burnout. and libraries themselves are often viewed uncritically as safe spaces and/or sanctuaries regardless of whether they're actually successfully serving that purpose.

my original source:

anne helen petersen's essay "the librarians are not okay" (originally in her newsletter culture study).

further reading:

the original essay "vocational awe and librarianship: the lies we tell ourselves" by fobazi ettarh is available online in full.

#libraries #librarians #vocational awe

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riverpearl · 9 months

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Hi! I just found your blog and I had to follow because it says you’re a librarian. I’m actually in my last semester of school to get my bachelors degree and then I will go on to get my masters in library science. I was just curious about your life as a librarian honestly. What kind of library do you work at? What does your day consist of and do you enjoy it? Was it hard to find a job? Thank you in advance, and I hope you’re having a lovely day📚🙂

My apologies for not answering this sooner- my Tumblr use is very erratic lately

To answer your questions- I worked in public libraries in circulation roles for about 4 years. My most recent role was as a Circulation Lead Librarian, where I split my time between working the front desk (helping folks find things, providing IT help, connecting patrons with library resources) and more behind the scenes tasks (scheduling, training new hires, collection development). I've now been in a corporate librarian job for 8 months. Getting my first job was a little tricky, and I ended up working 'part time' (35 hours a week, but no benefits) for 1.5 years until I found a full-time position. Once you break into the industry though, finding the second or third job becomes much easier.

I wish I could really, really hype you up- because parts of my experience in public libraries were great! I liked helping people find just the right book or resource for them. I liked the work I got to do on making our collection more diverse. But the library I worked at was chronically underfunded and understaffed, and our director always wanted to do more for our community. And that's good, but since we didn't get more staff to match, it often meant a lot of overwork for the existing librarians. I ended up moving on from that position when I felt myself burning out.

I don't want to paint all public libraries with a bad brush- there is a lot of really interesting, good work to do there! I would caution you, if you haven't worked in them, to read Fobazi Ettarh's work on Vocational Awe, and be ready to deal with being asked to go above and beyond. Libraries get asked to do so much, and it can be too much if you're not prepared.

I'm cataloging in a corporate library now and it's not as service-oriented, but it is a much quieter and slower-paced environment. I also have a few friends who work in academic libraries who really like working in that setting. There are lots of ways to work in libraries, and I hope you find one that really works for you!

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bookgeekdom · 2 years

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rosemarysealavender · 2 years

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in love with this article!

would like to shake hands with the author (Fobazi Ettarh)!

#vocational awe #fobazi ettarh #open access scholarship #in the library with a lead pipe #librarianship #fuck yeah libraries #library #scholarship #career #institutional critique #vocation

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deehollowaywrites · 6 years

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On its face, it seems natural that libraries and librarians should celebrate these stories. Indeed, these librarians are working to save the democratic values of society as well as going above and beyond to serve the needs of their neighbors and communities. However, when the rhetoric surrounding librarianship borders on vocational and sacred language rather than acknowledging that librarianship is a profession or a discipline, and as an institution, historically and contemporarily flawed, we do ourselves a disservice.

#Fobazi Ettarh #librarianship

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stacksetfacts · 4 years

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youtube

If you think you want to become a librarian, watch this video first: there are a few hard pills you'll have to swallow, and it's up to you to decide whether it's worth it or not.

Fobazi Ettarh's article: http://www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/

#librarians #librarian tumblr #vocational awe #work precarity is dumb #Youtube

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historyhermann · 1 year

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Beauty, dress codes, and fashion: Examining twenty fictional White female librarians [Part 1]

In her 2018 In the Library with the Lead Pipe article, "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves," Fobazi Ettarh rightly points out that "librarianship is dominated by white women," noting the history of White women in the profession due to their characteristics, the fact that libraries have been “complicit in the production and maintenance of white privilege,” how these librarians participated in "selective immigrant assimilation and Americanization programs," and that librarianship "plays a role in creating and sustaining hegemonic values," while contributing to a culture of white supremacy like other institutions. She further asserts that depictions of libraries as "places of freedoms" like intellectual freedom, freedom of access, education, and more "do not elide libraries’ white supremacy culture with its built-in disparity and oppression," adding that values that librarianship builds itself upon is "inequitably distributed amongst society." She gives the example of segregation of public libraries in the U.S. South, desegregation efforts of those libraries,with access to materials "often implicated in larger societal systems of (in)equality." She also pointed to libraries gathering "large amounts of patron data in order to demonstrate worth" or can "operate as an arm of the state" by working with library vendors which work with government entities.

Reprinted from my Pop Culture Library Review WordPress, where this post was published on Nov. 29, 2022.

I could easily build off every single one of her points in a long and drawn out post. Instead, in this post, I will examine over 20 White female librarians across various animated series and how these fictional depictions are emblematic of the overwhelming Whiteness in librarianship. More directly I'll look at what this means when it comes to appearance, fashion, and standards imposed on librarians by Whiteness itself. Simply put, Whiteness is a socially constructed classification which conveys certain privileges, comforts, and advantages that those who not White do not enjoy automatically. It ends up setting the standard for reality and normality itself. Any deviations are seen as subversions, offenses, disruptions, or disturbances, policing its borders in a literal and figurative way. It can sometimes operate in hidden ways at different strata within library profession, while remaining multidimensional. [1]

I'll start with Kaisa, who is one of the most prominent librarians in animation to date, in the series Hilda. [2] As librarian and library instructor Gina Schlesselman-Tarango put it, library professionals often navigate White grooming and beauty standards, while people of color are policed within library spaces. Librarian Jessica Macias added that librarians often face dress and grooming codes. It is something which women of color doesn't always fit into, feeling alienated and different. Macias argued that these unwritten codes ban so-called "distracting" and "unnatural" hairstyles, unkempt clothing, hygiene, and hair. She, along with April Hathcock and Stephanie Sendaula adds that this is restrictive for people of color, facing implicit barriers, claims of unprofessionalism, and the idea that librarians of color are not librarians, as perceived by fellow patrons and librarians. [3]

Four screenshots spliced together in order to show Kaisa's librarian outfit during the course of the first two seasons of the series

Her unique appearance fits within White beauty standards, even though she is casually gothic and witchy. In the series, she wears a gray sweater, grey leggings, black skirt, black cloak, and white blouse. She often wears black-grey headphones attached to a media player. Librarians are often shown wearing skirts, cardigans, while others have been more stylish with dresses, cardigans, sweaters, tights, and coats. [4] While Kaisa has her own unique style it fits within those standards. It fits with her calm personality, although she can be strict at enforcing rules, or even stern. At other times, she can be secretive and soft-spoken, but has an ability to know what people are looking for. Undoubtedly, this leads to certain insecurities, and feeling like an outcast, despite the fact she can be nice, supporting Hilda, Frida or David in their tasks throughout the series.

Although Kaisa is perhaps the prominent librarian character in an animated series in recent years, there are other librarians which fit the White standards of appearance. These same standards, of course, exclude and restrict librarians of color, as Macias pointed out. [5] Other fictional librarians dress even more conservatively, even if their style is not as distinctive as the one that Kaisa has in Hilda. This includes the curmudgeon librarian in the DC Super Hero Girls episode "#SoulSisters Part 2." She wears horn-rimmed glasses, a hair bun, a whitish high collar, cuffed sleeves, and a bluish dress of some kind, I believe. She fully fits the spinster librarian stereotype as outlined by Jennifer Snoek-Brown on her blog, Reel Librarians.

The same can be said for the Violet Stanhope, the librarian ghost in an episode of Archie’s Weird Mysteries ("The Haunting of Riverdale"), Francis Clara Censorsdoll in multiple episodes of the mature animated series Moral Orel, Mrs. Higgins in a Sofia the First episode ("The Princess Test"), and Rita Book in a Timon & Pumbaa episode ("Library Brouhaha"). All of these librarians are dressed in a "proper" way and well-groomed, even if not all of them conduct themselves professionally. What I mean is that Francis burns books she doesn't like and Rita demands total quiet, while Violet and Mr. Higgins are more helpful. The latter two characters fulfill what the UMW Libraries called "quality service, positive attitude, good patron relations, and pleasing personal appearance." The clothing of the characters, is in line with existing library dress codes that ban shorts, halter tops / tank tops, flip flops, backless shoes, ill-fitting clothing, or t-shirts with writing / slogans, no bare shoulders, no or few face piercings, no denim pants, and no torn jeans. It often goes beyond what could be called "business casual" ins some contexts. [6]

Continued in part 2

Notes

[1] Todd Honma, "Forward" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. ix; Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, "Introduction" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 2; Ian Beilin,"The Academic Research Library's White Past and Present" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 83.

[2] I am putting aside the librarian in Futurama episode ("The Day the Earth Stood Stupid"), Librarian in Zevo-3 episode ("Zevo-3"), Librarian in Martin Mystery episode ("Return of the Dark Druid"), Librarian in Martin Mystery episode ("The Warlock Returns"), Librarian in Martin Mystery episode ("Return of the Dark Druid"), Librarian in Amphibia episode ("True Colors"), Librarian in Beavis and Butt-Head episode ("Cyber-Butt"), Librarian in Bob's Burgers episode ("Y Tu Ga-Ga Tina Tambien"), Arlene in Phineas & Ferb episode ("Phineas and Ferb's Quantum Boogaloo"), Librarian in Phineas & Ferb episode ("The Doonkelberry Imperative"), Librarian in The Flintstones episode ("The Hit Songwriter"), Librarian in The Owl House episode ("Lost in Language"), Unnamed librarian in Sofia the First episode ("Forever Royal"?), Librarian in Sarah and Duck episode ("Lost Librarian"), Librarian in Boyfriends, Lara in Action Comics, The Librarian in Detective Comics, Rupert Giles in Giles: Girl Blue, Skeezix in Guillotine Public Library, Barbara Gordon in Huntress: Year One, Ghost in Library Ghost, Crawley in Library of Ruins, Librarian in Meau!, Rabbi Rava in Monolith, Marten Reed in Questionable Content, Claire in Questionable Content, Rex Libris in Rex Libris, Suzie in Sex Criminals, Prysia in Smitty and Majesty, Lazurus Luca in Sword & Sphere, Daniel in The Library, Jane Case / Wonder Woman in Wonder Woman, as they either have minor roles or I haven't read the comics enough to cover them here.

[3] Jessica Macias, "Looking the Part" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 113-5; Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, "Introduction" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 5; April M. Hathcock and Stephanie Sendaula, "Mapping Whiteness at the Reference Desk" in Topographies of Whiteness: Mapping Whiteness in Library and Information Science (ed. Gina Schlesselman-Tarango, Library Juice Press: Sacramento, CA: 2017), p. 254-5.

[4] See Jennifer Snoek-Brown's "Librarian action figure," "Christmas with a reel librarian in ‘My Side of the Mountain’," and "Stylish female reel librarians" for instance.

[5] Macias, "Looking the Part," 118.

[6] "Dress Code," UMW Libraries Public Services, accessed Mar. 15 2022; "Dress Code Policy...," Adventures of a Misfit Librarian, Oct. 26, 2010; Comments on "Dress Codes" discussion on /r/librarians in May 2014; Comments on "Does your library have a dress code for librarians, aides, etc.?" discussion on /r/librarians in September 2014.

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bookclub4m · 4 years

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Episode 100 - Library and Information Studies

This episode we’re discussing non-fiction Library and Information Studies books! We talk about how useful we find webinars, reading things for our jobs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, comic books, digital preservation, difficulties accessing digital material through libraries, feminist pedagogy, debunking misinformation, how we track articles and things we want to read, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Play, Spotify, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Things We Recommend

“Smelly Knowledge”: An Information Audit of the Sunnydale High Library in Buffy the Vampire Slayer by Rebecka Sheffield

“Computer’s don’t smell”

Comics and Critical Librarianship: Reframing the Narrative in Academic Libraries edited by Olivia Piepmeier and Stephanie Grimm

The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation by Trevor Owens

Feminist Pedagogy for Library Instruction by Maria T. Accardi

The Debunking Handbook by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky

Download

Other Learning Objects We Mentioned

Jbrary

Storytime Underground

Revolting Librarians Redux: Radical Librarians Speak Out edited by K.R. Roberto

Radical Cataloging: Essays at the Front edited by K.R. Roberto

Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning: Instructional Literacy for Library Educators by Char Booth

In the Library with the Lead Pipe

Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves by Fobazi Ettarh

New Librarians and the Practice of Everyday Life by Alison Elizabeth Skyrme and Lisa Levesque

The Librarian's Guide to Homelessness: An Empathy-Driven Approach to Solving Problems, Preventing Conflict, and Serving Everyone by Ryan J. Dowd

Website

Reading Picture Books With Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking about What They See by Megan Dowd Lambert

Links, Articles, and Things

Library and information science (Wikipedia)

Matthew’s Google Scholar account

Matthew’s ORCID account (lists more publications than Google Scholar)

GNCRT / ALIA Crossover Event: Comics Librarians Talk Shop Across the World (Webinar Matthew was in)

Literary Fiction Readers' Advisory with Meghan Savage at RA in a Half Day 2014 (preview for next month’s episode)

BCLA Readers’ Advisory Interest Group

Library Juice Press

critlib.org (Critical Librarianship)

Various superhero characters (all Wikipedia)

Tyroc

Blade

Storm

Batgirl

Barbara Gordon

Gwenpool

Gwen Stacy

Spider-Gwen/Ghost Spider

Deadpool

FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records) (Wikipedia)

Feminist pedagogy (Wikipedia)

ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

GLAM (industry sector) (Wikipedia)

Episode 054 - How We Ended Up Working in Libraries

Suggest new genres or titles!

Fill out the form to suggest a genre or title!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, May 19th when we’ll be talking about Comfort Reads!

Then on Tuesday, June 2nd we’ll be discussing the genre of Literary Fiction!

#episodes #genres #nonfiction

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infantisimo · 4 years

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In the past few years I’ve attended a number of symposia, summits, workshops, and other species of gathering to discuss the “future of libraries.” These events — so common they’ve become an inside joke — tend to draw a mixed crowd: people who study and write about libraries, people who fund libraries, library designers, library directors, library advocates, and maybe a few on-the-ground librarians. Inevitably, someone will make the accurate observation that public libraries are among the last free, inclusive, “truly democratic” spaces in American cities and towns. In the fullest version of this reverie, libraries are imagined as civic spaces for ethical recalibration and political reconciliation, where we can talk out differences of opinion and steel our defenses against lies and manipulation. It’s not a completely unreasonable idea.

Then someone else — often a person of color — will share the equally accurate observation that libraries are not universally welcoming spaces. Consider this: At last count, 87 percent of American librarians were white. Stories of patrons and librarians facing discrimination or hostility for their race, class, sexual identity, or disability are common. And libraries reinforce conventions of cultural production rooted in colonialist, white supremacist, and heteronormative values — including classification systems and models of intellectual property birthed centuries ago. Melissa Adler, in her study of the politics of library classification, shows how “knowledge about, by, and for racialized subjects was organized through a white lens.” African American subjects were filed as property or laboring bodies (i.e., as slaves), while Indigenous people were classified as historical artifacts and their stories as fairytales.

The sociologist and historian W. E. B. Du Bois — himself a frequent advocate for libraries — wrote about the “double-consciousness” that results, the “sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.” To this day, Adler notes, some of Du Bois’s books are classified by the Library of Congress as a “special topic” or “special class” — an Other. And those deep biases are carried forward into search algorithms and the classifications that underlie machine vision. Scholars such as Joy Buolamwini, Timnit Gebru, and Safiya Noble have shown how historical library practices shape contemporary technologies.

Still, many people are reluctant to criticize libraries because they stand for so much that is good and wholesome. Fobazi Ettarh argues that “cultural representations of libraries as places of freedom (like freedom of access and intellectual freedom), education, and other democratic values” cultivate a mythos of the library as a sacred space, and of librarianship as a spiritual calling steeped in “vocational awe.” All those noble associations, however, “do not elide libraries’ white supremacy culture with its built-in disparity and oppression.”

Librarians generally are aware of these problems (they tend to be a self-critical lot), and the field’s main institutions have launched programs to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion. 8 Some people are even starting to question the core professional value of neutrality, which has too often been used to justify “disengagement from crises in urban communities.” 9 Libraries are embracing their role in creating sanctuary for the homeless, impoverished, and undocumented, and in providing safety from violence and oppression. And many librarians have aligned with activist movements. Makiba Foster, at the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, urges the use of the library to create “opportunities for historical literacy … connecting contemporary events to historically relevant content,” curating collections and public events that examine the parallels between, for example, the deaths of Emmett Till and Trayvon Martin and other instances of “Black bodies transgressing White spaces with deadly consequences.”

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cygnoir · 3 years

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I was challenged by these words from Patricia Elzie’s excellent newsletter, Enthusiastic Encouragement & Dubious Advice:

I think a lot of us, myself included, need to be better about bearing witness to the humanity of others, whether we know them or not. We need to think about if our actions around interrupting harm being done to others are because we see the humanity in others, or merely actions made in haste to relieve our own discomfort.

It is a privilege to be able to turn away.

The whole issue is worth a read, and then a re-read. It hit me hard today after a week filled with work on our city’s homelessness response. I volunteered to lead this effort, and yet I still query my reasons for doing so. Is it because I believe in the inherent dignity and humanity of all people, or is it because I don’t let myself think too deeply about how easily some human beings can be disregarded and discarded by our modern society, especially the part I play in the latter?

Thirteen years ago I was working at the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library in a job I know now was a delimiter of “before” and “after” in my life. The library’s social worker and I had just had a conversation about a regular patron who was experiencing homelessness as well as mental health issues. I was stymied by the patron’s refusal to be connected with services. The social worker explained to me – so patiently, I now see in hindsight – that the patron was afraid of what might happen to them in a shelter because not everyone has trust in institutions because of trauma they have experienced at the hands of these institutions, even institutions like homeless shelters. Even institutions like public libraries.

As I listened to the social worker, I felt dizzy. My set of assumptions about the inherent goodness of librarianship collapsed. I began to see the ways in which library workers (myself included) interacted with patrons experiencing homelessness: with pitying looks and patronizing voices, and sometimes refusing to make eye contact or even ignoring them completely. I began to see the ways that we wrote incident reports, grouping people into categories of “clean” or “smelly”, “relatively lucid” or “zoned out”, “docile” or “aggressive”. Acceptable or unacceptable.

I began to see all of the ways I was part of the problem, as a white woman with privilege who has lived on thinner margins than one might expect but who has never experienced housing insecurity firsthand. What was the public library to me, a person who could easily afford a computer and books and rent and food, and what was it to a person who could not?

Several years later, I would read Fobazi Ettarh’s brilliant analysis of vocational awe which, by naming some of the institution’s flaws, allowed me to rebuild some of the collateral damage that collapse had caused. But I can’t even visit the “before” part of my life again, knowing what I now know. It’s like playing a game that you know is rigged: Even if you win, what have you won?

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