Sofia Leung: Okay, I just
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay, I guess it's being automatically recorded, but we'll cut out my intro here.
Nicole Pagowsky: Welcome everyone will start in a couple minutes.
Nicole Pagowsky: Hi everyone. We have a ton of people still coming in. So we're just going to wait one or two more minutes and then we'll get started. But as you can see, feel free to introduce yourself in the chat and let us know where you're viewing from
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay, why don't we get started. We have over 630 attendees in the session and it keeps increasing, which is so great.
Nicole Pagowsky: We're really glad to have all of you here with us. We usually keep the conference really small, since it's in person to 120 people. So this is, this is just great to see so many people interested and attending classes here.
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay, so feel free to keep introducing yourself if you'd like. And I'm going to get started. So welcome, this is the online version of the critical librarianship and pedagogy Symposium, and I just realized I did not start my video enable
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay, I think, Sofia, you have to stop your video for me to start it doesn't matter anyway.
Sofia Leung: So should I press stuff.
Nicole Pagowsky: Um, no, you know what, it's, it's okay. I'll just keep going.
Nicole Pagowsky: I guess we're not going to have to do right now. I don't know why technical glitches.
Okay.
Nicole Pagowsky: All right. Anyway, so I'm Nicole yassky I'm an Associate librarian at the University of Arizona libraries and I am part of the conference committee so
Nicole Pagowsky: We have an intro slash welcome here. And then I'm going to introduce Sofia, we have a decent amount of information to share. I'm going to try and keep it brief. So you can get to the keynote, but so that's what my slides are for. So first,
Nicole Pagowsky: You have a land acknowledgement. So, the University of Arizona, and although this is for tool. This year we're giving the land acknowledgement for where the conference originated
Nicole Pagowsky: So the University of Arizona sits on the original homelands of indigenous peoples who have stewarded this land since time immemorial.
Nicole Pagowsky: As an institution built upon the original territories of the Odom, we acknowledged the indigenous Sonoran Desert communities, past and present, we have stewarded this region throughout generations and
Nicole Pagowsky: We were thinking this year instead of, you know, just giving an acknowledgement there's more that we could do. So we gave a couple suggestions on how you could give back.
Nicole Pagowsky: So the first link is to the Toronto. Toronto autumn Community College. The second link is to the Native American advancement foundation. I'm sure a number of you have other suggestions. So feel free to add that in the chat. If you have other ideas, but here's just a couple options.
Nicole Pagowsky: Alright. So a little bit about the critical librarianship and pedagogy symposium and raising the hashtag claps 2020 so please use that on Twitter or elsewhere. So this is the third year that we've done the symposium. We started in 2016 and then we've done it every other year.
Nicole Pagowsky: The funding is from the University of Arizona libraries, it has made registration free every year. So we're really thankful for that.
Nicole Pagowsky: Not just registration. But we've also done snacks and the social and other things and the years that we've been in person and then the University of Arizona I school
Nicole Pagowsky: Provides two scholarships with preference to people from marginalized groups to offset the cost of registration and just general attendance when we've done this conference in person.
Nicole Pagowsky: And just to let you know the chat is going really fast and I'm not looking over there all the time. So I might miss what you say. And we have another co host in here who might be able to answer some questions if anything comes up.
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay so capacity, like I mentioned previously, we've kept it about 120 in previous years this year when we were going to have it in March, we were able to bring it up to 200
Nicole Pagowsky: But now that it's online, we have no cap and we got this question sometimes what is our acceptance rate for proposals and it's approximately 35%
Nicole Pagowsky: I'll just briefly wanted to mention that we were honored to receive the ACL is special Certificate of recognition recognition and appreciation in 2019 for developing and organizing this conference.
Nicole Pagowsky: On the 2020 committee is Amanda Meeks Yvonne Mary Laura Miller me Jeremiah pasty would Anthony Sanchez Mary Beth slotnick and Mia Wallace and we also want to thank Nicole Hennig for web support and we have a number of volunteers who will be moderating sessions and introducing speakers.
Nicole Pagowsky: And I do want to mention that at the University of Arizona most faculty and staff.
Nicole Pagowsky: For this year through the end of the fiscal year have to take a pay cut anywhere between five to 15% depending on your salary and we in the libraries are all receiving this pay cut and through a lot going on on our campus and getting these cuts we have worked so hard.
Nicole Pagowsky: To not only organized a conference, but also to shifted we planned everything to be online in March. I mean, in person in March and now it's all online. So I just want to acknowledge the work that the committee's put in
Nicole Pagowsky: Yeah. Okay, so we have a few types of sessions.
Nicole Pagowsky: We have general sessions we gave presenters flexibility so they could make their session, whatever they want.
Nicole Pagowsky: These will be recorded. If the presenters consent and it will be announced at the beginning of the session. So if you enter a room late you will get a notification that it's being recorded.
Nicole Pagowsky: We have lightning talks. These are grouped together 10 minute presentations with a lot of time for Q AMP a
Nicole Pagowsky: Those will not be recorded. We have three invited talks so to keynotes. And then we also have a facilitated session on peer review the keynotes will be recorded the facilitated session will not
Nicole Pagowsky: And then we also have a number of activities. So we have seen workshops
Nicole Pagowsky: That have been organized with a showcase and happy hour. And please only register for the showcase and happy hour. If you are involved in doing the scene workshops
Nicole Pagowsky: And then we have three happy hours for everyone else dispersed throughout the first two or more of social type of thing. And then the last one is a book discussion and you must register for all of these through the website, there's a link
Nicole Pagowsky: In the schedule, you'll see some sessions have a pre recorded recording to view before the synchronous session.
Nicole Pagowsky: So that means they're taking kind of a flipped classroom approach. So they want you to view something before and then the synchronous session is being used for discussion or workshop or other activities and that
Nicole Pagowsky: Is so the conference can be as interactive as possible, even though we're online and all spread out.
Nicole Pagowsky: And then we have our keynotes which we are so excited for I will be introducing Sophia in a little bit. And I also just want to remind everybody about Dr cabrera's closing keynote.
Nicole Pagowsky: That's THURSDAY THE 17th. It's one to two hours, our time. And I know that's been confusing for people. I'll just clarify that we do not change our clocks in Arizona. So when you all
Nicole Pagowsky: Move your clocks ahead we get bumped back to Pacific time and then when you move your clocks back we get bumped forward to mountain time. So right now, we're the same time as California. I hope that clarifies that
Nicole Pagowsky: So Dr. Cooper is an associate professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona and hopefully you'll all attend the closing keynote as well.
Nicole Pagowsky: And for extra incentive to join us. We will be having a book raffle for Dr. Cooper his book white guys on campus racism white immunity and the myth of post racial higher education.
Nicole Pagowsky: This information, I think, is being added to the site as we speak. So you can enter for free. And I'm not sure when it closes. But I think that will also be posted on the site and then the book discussion follows immediately after Dr covers closing keynote.
Nicole Pagowsky: Alright, so then we have a peer review facilitated session and this year.
Nicole Pagowsky: we revise our peer review and selection process and we thought, changing from open, which we had done in the past to blind. This year we create more equity and selection and also
Nicole Pagowsky: Offer more prestige for anybody who's putting together a packet and they would be selected for the conference.
Nicole Pagowsky: But what we realized was that you're choosing proposals, you know, once we matched up the names with the sessions we chose
Nicole Pagowsky: From people who had a lot of experience and previous opportunities to present
Nicole Pagowsky: And if these people submitted more than one proposal, we realized that we were choosing both so
Nicole Pagowsky: We wanted to make sure we were giving opportunities to new scholars and we also wanted to make sure that there was not implicit bias in our selections.
Nicole Pagowsky: So our guests was if we were falling into this pattern that that might have an effect on who we were selecting
Nicole Pagowsky: So it wasn't a scientific process on trying to investigate people's race race or ethnicity. It was a guess that this could be happening.
Nicole Pagowsky: And so we decided we just didn't want to go there and instead made the process open as we had in the past, and we just started over from scratch.
Nicole Pagowsky: So we feel confident that you know we ensure that we have good representation at this conference.
Nicole Pagowsky: And I'll say it was tricky and messy and anxiety inducing and create a double the work for us. But we really tried our best to make it better, to the best of our current knowledge and ability we tried to be as transparent as possible about that. So the purpose of having the session.
Nicole Pagowsky: Is to discuss issues related to peer reviews, such as the issue that we've had. It's not just about this.
Nicole Pagowsky: So it'll be led by Emily Ford, who has devoted much of her research to this topic. So please join us on September 3 for the discussion to participate. And again, that one won't be recorded. It's just a discussion.
Nicole Pagowsky: All right our code of conduct to make that a little bigger.
Nicole Pagowsky: So our code of conduct conduct is focused on anti harassment.
Nicole Pagowsky: So we have a stance of we believe we believe like an indigenous people of color and those from marginalized groups, we assume belief as a basic agreement and don't question or play devil's advocate with others experiences.
Nicole Pagowsky: For social and recording again our hashtag is claps 2020 but if you're in a session and presenters request that their session is not to be captured, whether it's shared notes or tweeting or recording please respect that.
Nicole Pagowsky: The Q AMP. A sessions, please be respectful and do not dominate the Q AMP. A with comments under the guise of questions. I'll talk a little bit more about this right before introducing Sophia
Nicole Pagowsky: And we believe timekeeping as feminist practice. So keeping time is a feminist issue and we need to have fairness and time to speak. So we asked presenters to keep track of time but also participants. If you're asking a question or talking
Nicole Pagowsky: And we encourage presenters who feel like the code of conduct has been violated and their session to shut it down and or the moderator will help enforce that.
Nicole Pagowsky: Typically, everybody has been great in previous years, but since we're online and a lot more people have registered, there's a greater chance so we urge an approach of calling in before resorting to calling out
Nicole Pagowsky: Then this housekeeping stuff. This is kind of just a recap of what I've already talked about. So just don't forget if you want to go to a session, you need to register for each one.
Nicole Pagowsky: Through our website and you'll get the zoom link and make sure you check if there is a pre recorded portion for that again was sharing. We have our hashtag. I mentioned the happy hours, you need to register for those as well.
Nicole Pagowsky: Talked about our presenters with accessibility captioning or transcripts will be made available for most sessions and then the recordings will be through our repository.
Nicole Pagowsky: Afterwards, and the ones that have pre recordings either have captioning or some sort of transcript or written component and then we
Nicole Pagowsky: Made the schedule really flexible this year since we're online.
Nicole Pagowsky: It's really hard to sit on your computer for hours straight, and also have the stress of choosing between which sessions. You want to go to. So
Nicole Pagowsky: We spread it out over three weeks and gave presenters. The choice of which day in time. They wanted within that three weeks. And if there are consecutive sessions we have 30 minute breaks between those sessions. So hopefully that works well for people
Nicole Pagowsky: All right, so, um, we're really glad to have you all here with us right now we're at 728 people in the session, which is really great.
Nicole Pagowsky: So you can contact us with questions or issues at our email address here collapse conference at GMAIL. COM. We have our website. Again, or hashtag.
Nicole Pagowsky: And before I introduce our opening keynote. I know everybody's really excited by just want to
Nicole Pagowsky: Do a little housekeeping here. So I'm just so you know, so that we could accommodate a large number of people we needed to change the zoom room to a webinar.
Nicole Pagowsky: So that means everyone is automatically muted and with no video. Aside from the speakers and then there's a Q AMP a function, along with the chat box. You might have seen it.
Nicole Pagowsky: So questions will be taken at the end of Sofia's talk and please if you have a question only put them in the Q AMP a box so that we can keep track
Nicole Pagowsky: If you put them in the chat, we're most likely going to miss them. So make sure that you do that and Sophia will have more information about how the Q AMP a session will go and then we appreciate
Nicole Pagowsky: Dr. Eve tux approach to a Q AMP a successful Q AMP. A where she recommends giving people time to talk with their neighbor after the session to reduce
Nicole Pagowsky: Problematic questions. So she puts did you peer review your question to the audience before opening it up.
Nicole Pagowsky: Now here we don't have the option of turning to a neighbor. So perhaps using the chat box as the keynote is going can serve this purpose. Well, so with that keep the following mind that she highlights. So one is this really a question.
Nicole Pagowsky: To are you implying that you should have given the talk. Instead, three does the question, need to be asked and answered in front of everyone.
Nicole Pagowsky: And four is the question asking the speaker to do a lot of work where they have already done a lot of work that the question asked her. She'd be doing themselves.
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay. So, immediately after the keynote, we have a happy hour and hope you'll join us. That's one of the social ones.
Nicole Pagowsky: Everyone will be broken up into groups and you get to choose an activity. We have some suggestions. So should just be casual and fun and then the slides I presented here will be available on our website for reference later. Okay, so I'm going to wait. We already are recording, aren't we
Nicole Pagowsky: Amanda. Do you mind checking and if we aren't recording will start now.
Nicole Pagowsky: Um, okay. So we're going to get to work. You know, and I am so pleased to introduce Sophia learn as our opening keynote this year.
Nicole Pagowsky: Sofia who uses the pronouns. She, her is a librarian facilitator and educator offering tailored workshops training and consultations that employ anti racist, anti oppressive frameworks in particular critical race theory.
Nicole Pagowsky: She is currently an editor for The we hear publication approved and a facilitator for the Association of College and Research Libraries information literacy immersion program.
Nicole Pagowsky: Or co edited book with Jorge Lopez McKnight knowledge justice disrupting Library and Information Studies through critical race theory will be published by the MIT Press in April 2021 so we are honored to welcome Sofia, and I'm going to turn it over to you to start talking
Sofia Leung: Great. Thank you, Nicole.
Sofia Leung: Let me just share my screen now.
Sofia Leung: Okay. Can everyone see that
Sofia Leung: I also not going to have chat open so
Sofia Leung: After I checked nature, you can actually see it too, so I don't lose track of where I am. When I'm talking because I'll be easily distracted by all the
Sofia Leung: Flashing words. Okay. Hi, everyone. I've seen a lot of friendly faces. Well, I mean names in the chat and I really wish I could see you in person. But here we are.
Sofia Leung: I hope you're all doing help you and yours are all doing as well and staying as healthy as can be in these chaotic times
Sofia Leung: And I wanted to thank you for joining me and taking time out of your day to listen to my talk. I hope you find it worthwhile. And just as an FYI. I turn my camera off for privacy and safety reasons.
Sofia Leung: I also wanted to thank the claps committee you bond Nicole Amanda Laura Jennifer Jeremiah Anthony Mary Beth and damn
Sofia Leung: For inviting me to speak in organizing this symposium, particularly because of the difficulties involved in planning at this year and also wanted to thank Laurie for helping me on the administrative side.
Sofia Leung: Oh, and before I get to the meditation, you're welcome to tweet out this talk. It's going to be recorded. Anyway, so feel free
Sofia Leung: So I just like to start with a short meditation to help ground us in this virtual space in time. So if you'll join me in doing this. Plant your feet firmly on the floor. Close your eyes. When you're ready, take a deep breath in and let it out slowly.
Sofia Leung: Let go of the moment before and settle into this moment.
Sofia Leung: Feel yourself pulling energy up from the earth beneath you.
Sofia Leung: If it's helpful. You can visualize it as a glowing light.
Sofia Leung: Feel the lighter energy spreading up your legs up the front of your torso.
Sofia Leung: Up your back.
Sofia Leung: Feeling your shoulders.
Sofia Leung: And down your arms.
Sofia Leung: Through your neck.
Sofia Leung: Up for your face.
Sofia Leung: Behind your eyes.
Sofia Leung: And up through the top of your head.
Sofia Leung: Take one more cleansing breath and let it out slowly.
Sofia Leung: When you're ready, open your eyes.
Sofia Leung: So as Nicole mentioned, we're not actually in all in Arizona. So I'd also like to do my own acknowledgement. I'd like to offer gratitude to the indigenous peoples who cared for the land. I am on today.
Sofia Leung: Give a little map I am on the unseeded ancestral territory of the Massachusetts and wiping out people's and which is still home to many Native American people, including the mash be mama tribe.
Sofia Leung: I also want to acknowledge the Free People forcibly kidnapped from Africa, in order to be enslaved on these lands.
Sofia Leung: And as a Chinese American said learn guest. It's important for me to acknowledge the history of violence disease and genocide that led to the colonization of this land and mine ventral inhabitants of it.
Sofia Leung: And one thing I've been thinking about with regard to this is how to behave as a seller and guest on these lands.
Sofia Leung: And I'd asked me to do the same for the lens that you are settlers and guests on and how you might behave
Sofia Leung: And this slide is by no means the first or last word on land acknowledgments or what it means to be a settler on these land, but just more than a starting point or continuing point wherever you are in your journey.
Sofia Leung: And I particularly want to call your attention to the fact that the United States government is continuing its legacy of forcible movement and hostile actions with a complete disregard for the sovereignty of the mash P amp and I'll try.
Sofia Leung: And this is the same tribe that welcome the Pilgrims in the 1600s, and it's at risk of losing what is left of their homelands due to a termination made by the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Sofia Leung: So please join me in showing up for the match people up in our tribe.
Sofia Leung: By signing their petition asking Congress to protect its reservation and lands and support the mastery walking on tribe reservation reaffirmation act, and that's the last link in the resources side of this slide, which I'm gonna go
Sofia Leung: And now I'd like to take a moment of silence for Lillian Polanco Domini Grammy Phil's Rhea Milton Priscilla Slater
Sofia Leung: Brianna Taylor umbrella stone lost their lives because of anti black violence and racism, we must demand justice for them, will also advocating
Sofia Leung: To abolish presence and defend the police, particularly as libraries often function in concert with the police to endanger the lives of black people in those spaces.
Thanks.
Sofia Leung: So you can find out more about how to do that by following the links on this slide and the talk I'm sharing with you today is still a work in progress.
Sofia Leung: And just a heads up that will definitely be dealing with some heavy violent topics today like racism white supremacy settler colonialism and colonization and how we're complicit in those systems.
Sofia Leung: So some difficult feelings and discomfort might arise, and I just want you to be aware of that. Before we get started.
Sofia Leung: And as I'm speaking I realized, because of this format attendees can add their questions in anytime. So I'd like to provide some guidelines on that before we get started.
Sofia Leung: And at the end of the talk, when you're when we actually start answering those questions I want to use a method that I learned about from Ozzie
Sofia Leung: LSTM called progressive stalking. And this means that I'll be prioritizing questions from black indigenous and people of color and I will be answering those before I answer questions from white folks.
Sofia Leung: So in the Q AMP. A please identify self identify as by Park. When you add your question and you can just like doing in parentheses or something before your question.
Sofia Leung: So for this talk I borrow the title from the forthcoming collection that I co edited with Jorge Lopez mic night that will be published in spring 2021 from MIT Press.
Sofia Leung: And watch this talk was influenced and inspired by the work of the 28 amazing contributors to that collection. And I want to thank thank them here now.
Sofia Leung: MIRANDA Blarney Lewis Jennifer brown Anastasia to Nicola climb Anthony Dunbar and come human
Sofia Leung: Isabel Espanola for buzzy ITAR Jennifer Freddie April Hancock, Todd. Hi, ma Harrison, you know, foo Sarah Costa lucky.
Sofia Leung: Coffee commodity, so hey Lugo Marissa Mendez Brady murder miraculous Lisa interrupt not to rush body, not to Rajan Antonia all of us push Patel Tori quinoa is Maria Rios Tanya Sutherland Chandra Walker Stacy Williams and Rachel Winston.
Sofia Leung: And my biggest thanks goes to my frequent collaborator and my brother from a different mother or hey Lopez mic night, who helped me figure out what this talk needed to be
Sofia Leung: Okay, so let's do this. How often do we acknowledge our identities position ality and privileges and how they color our perspective work or interaction.
Sofia Leung: I was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. I am the daughter of immigrants. I'm a Chinese American I'm a heterosexual assistant or able bodied woman who no longer works in an institution but still relies on institutions for my employment.
Sofia Leung: And it's important for me to acknowledge a front end immediately my identities and for you to know that that my perspective is specific to my identities and where I have privilege.
Sofia Leung: It's going to take a sip of water here.
Sofia Leung: So I'm going to talk about today. I'm using a set of questions to explore the responsibility that Library and Information Studies has to the so called public good estate and value of librarianship.
Sofia Leung: What power an agency do library and archive workers have over knowledge. How has is created and maintained systems of oppression, such as white supremacy colonialism and racism.
Sofia Leung: And how does it impact black indigenous and people of color communities. Why is the experiential knowledge of bypass critical to imagining and building laboratory futures
Sofia Leung: And finally, what is our obligation to ourselves in our communities to disrupt and destroy the systems of oppression within Las
Sofia Leung: So let me start with a counter story about why knowledge justice is necessary.
Sofia Leung: For those of you who may not know a counter story is a critical race theory tool for exposing analyzing and challenging the majority Marion stories, a racial privilege.
Sofia Leung: So at the last institution. I worked at I gave a workshop on applying social justice and critical race theory to artificial intelligence after the workshop, a graduate student, a white man came up to me with a question.
Sofia Leung: During the workshop, he had said that you worked on rockets, which in his mind had nothing to do with people.
Sofia Leung: And I was a little taken aback when you said that because of course rockets have to do with people.
Sofia Leung: People build those rockets to serve human interests rockets can be used for many people related activities fireworks.
Sofia Leung: And I also had to look this up cuz I was like what else a rocket. These were weapon. The weapon read to be used on other humans.
Sofia Leung: Rockets can be used to launch satellites into space to surveil people and that's not be totally ignorant of where the money to fund this research comes from this institution was and is heavily funded by the US Department of Defense and they, for sure. Care about building rockets.
Sofia Leung: Okay. But back to the student. He was determined to inform me that his particular field believed in and cared about meritocracy.
Sofia Leung: Now, real talk. It was almost 7pm on a school night. So how much time did I really want to spend on educating this boy dude on history. He should have learned that we should have learned in school.
Sofia Leung: And where to even begin. Did he know that NASA and 25.4 billion in 19 $73 on getting white men to the moon when African Americans were advocating for economic justice.
Sofia Leung: That the US nation state had decided that white vanity was considered more valuable than black humanity to paraphrase the RT scholar George ellipses, and that the United States has done this over and over throughout history.
Sofia Leung: And honestly, this whole incident really shocked me because I mean I know that our education system was and is highly flawed, but I really didn't recognize how badly.
Sofia Leung: On a really basic level by repressing certain stories from our history by never telling those stories never even mentioning that they exist. Things that should be obvious like what rockets have to do with people become obscured inconceivable or abnormal
Sofia Leung: And aerospace engineering isn't the only discipline, where its historical, social, economic and political context has been ignored and erased.
Sofia Leung: In 1975 Toni Morrison give a speech detailing the ways in which history, the social sciences and the humanities have established their profound ignorance around race. I want to give special thanks to Kesha Mackenzie for their transcript of the speech that I'll read from now.
Sofia Leung: Any one of those studies history, the social sciences and humanities.
Sofia Leung: If it was honest would acknowledge that the majority part of history in this that the major part of history in this country is the history of the minorities and the black people in it and how they influence those who were first and how they influence each other.
Sofia Leung: And yet we know that that is not what history, the social sciences and humanities have been about
Sofia Leung: And Martin goes on to say in the economic history of this country is, among other things, the study of generations and generations of free labor used to make the country grow.
Sofia Leung: And the legal history of this country is very heavily weighted with the courts, particularly the Supreme Court's relation to black people and the legislation designed specifically deliberately to keep them oppressed.
Sofia Leung: So there's a purpose and intention behind obscuring these histories. These knowledge is these disciplines are serving the purpose, the intention of a system of white supremacy, which is a foundational organizing principle of this country. I'm
Sofia Leung: Just going to grab some water.
Sofia Leung: And justly Ainslie defined white supremacy as a political, economic and cultural system in which whites overwhelmingly control power.
Sofia Leung: And material resources conscious and unconscious ideas of white superiority and entitlement. Our widespread and relations. Avoid dominance and non white subordination our daily reenacted across a broad array of institutions and social settings.
Sofia Leung: White Supremacy uses politics economy and culture as a tool to hold on to power and wealth.
Sofia Leung: Much of this control comes from these conscious and unconscious ideas that white people are superior and therefore entitled to certain privileges and chief among them legal rates.
Sofia Leung: White Supremacy wants to forget that the histories and knowledge is a black indigenous and people of color ever existed.
Sofia Leung: It requires the eraser of these knowledge is to operate it wants us to believe that white superiority and entitlement or right and true.
Sofia Leung: That what whiteness equals neutrality and objectivity and it wanted that grass didn't to think that meritocracy truly existed in his field.
Sofia Leung: That his work had nothing to do with people and therefore nothing to do with racism white supremacy masks how everything is connected in order to hide and protect his power. If you don't know how far as control extends, then you can't dismantle it
Sofia Leung: What's this have to do with library and information science.
Sofia Leung: Well, let's think about why that field of science in the first place.
Sofia Leung: From what I was taught in my las program. And from what I've experienced as a librarian. I'm still I still have yet to discover what our field has to do with science.
Sofia Leung: And when you think about what the word science conveys it often makes you think of something objective or systematic it deals in facts and reason subjectivity and value judgment have nothing to do with it.
Sofia Leung: The discipline chose to disguise the very subjective nature of this field with a label of science to signal the very opposite
Sofia Leung: Las was created to uphold white supremacy to keep power for wealthy whites as an institutional tool for white supremacy and this is just the first move white supremacy makes towards obscuring the real power las holds over this thing we call knowledge.
Sofia Leung: Las extend this obscuration by establishing that librarianship fundamentally values, the public good. And in doing so, has an institutional responsibility to the American public.
Sofia Leung: Under the public good, the American Library Association states that it reaffirms the following fundamental values of libraries.
Sofia Leung: In the context of discussing outsourcing and privatization of library services, these values include that libraries are an essential public good and our fundamental institution in democratic societies.
Sofia Leung: So for libraries to be a public good, that would mean they provide
Sofia Leung: Quoting from Oxford English Dictionary, a service without profit to all members of the society, either by the government or by a private individual or organization.
Sofia Leung: And yet we know this has not happened indiscriminately many others have written about historical and more recent events where black people have been forcibly kept from entering libraries are using library services.
Sofia Leung: So what's the service a library provides that so special.
Sofia Leung: That causes library workers to commit violence against black folks. Let's look at the elite at elite a statement about public good again libraries are fundamental institutions in democratic societies.
Sofia Leung: So libraries are presumably fundamental to democracy. And it turns out, democracy is also one of La La is core values of librarianship. So let's look at that definition.
Sofia Leung: A democracy presupposes an informed citizenry. The First Amendment mandates the right of all persons to free expression.
Sofia Leung: And the corollary right to receive the constitutionally protected expression of others. The publicly supported library provides free and equal access to information for all people of the community. The library serves
Sofia Leung: So the library is supposed to provide free and equal access to information for all people. It is an educational resource public libraries are supposed to help keep the citizen citizenry informed and that's part of what we, including by people pay taxes for
Sofia Leung: But if libraries are keeping out black folks logic here would say that people that libraries don't want black people to be informed. They don't want them to be a part of a democratic society.
Sofia Leung: And as a fundamental institution in American society libraries are operating as a tool of the American government to help the white supremacy project of disenfranchisement they're just not saying it explicitly
Sofia Leung: And libraries have always been good at hiding behind their supposed to neutrality by stating that they care about access for all intellectual freedom while at the same time serving the interests of racial domination.
Sofia Leung: Paraphrasing Gary pillars words here that institutions claim to be neutral and objective, which allows them to exert a power over people
Sofia Leung: In order to be seen as neutral and objective las has to hide what it is doing what it is erasing
Sofia Leung: White Supremacy requires these conditions to thrive to maintain it system of control again there is a purpose and intention behind them screen these histories. These knowledge is
Sofia Leung: It. Mine is program and I assume this must be the case across, across the majority of Las programs.
Sofia Leung: We were never told how libraries have contributed to the harm experienced by COMMUNITIES, COMMUNITIES OF COLOR.
Sofia Leung: We were never told about the to cologne nine we were never told the profession is 88% white. We were never told how many librarians of color, end up leaving the profession. So how many other things where we never told
Sofia Leung: What else is loves to do instead is tell stories of how libraries level the playing field. They provide access to all they're here for the public good for democracy for social responsibility.
Sofia Leung: They use core values of librarianship to disguise las is power and agency over knowledge. But what have we been told, knowledge is let's look at this definition from Miriam Webster
Sofia Leung: The sample of what is known, the body of truth information and principles acquired by humankind.
Sofia Leung: The body of truth information and principles, who's truth, whose information and who is principles.
Sofia Leung: What is knowledge but stories that we have told ourselves each other repeatedly throughout time that we call truth.
Sofia Leung: To uncover what stories LS has told over and over in the service of both white supremacy.
Sofia Leung: And what mere no morality and Stacey Williams called epistemic supremacy, which they define as a political ideology that facilitates enables and upholds the conditions that lead to the destruction destruction.
Sofia Leung: Of communities of color, particularly working class and poor black and indigenous communities. We as library workers need to be asking ourselves the following questions.
Sofia Leung: Whose stories get to be told. Who's identities histories and truth matter who gets to tell those stories and who ensures that those stories are considered knowledge.
Sofia Leung: who selects the stories for our collections who determines what these stories are about so that they can be found, who determines what access to these stories look like and who determines who gets that access
Sofia Leung: Our responsibilities as library and information workers means that we collect knowledge catalog it and organize it. We teach people how to access it control access to it.
Sofia Leung: Decide when it's time for us to weed it out because no one's using it.
Sofia Leung: To pay for the privilege of housing that knowledge we use questionable funding sources at the cost of black and brown lives through the prison industrial complex. The military the spoils of war and gentrification.
Sofia Leung: And most importantly, we help side was considered knowledge what the value of that knowledge is and whether it's important enough for us to have in our collections knowledge is created validated status truth by the oppressors. And we have filled our physical spaces with it.
Sofia Leung: By selecting what we consider to be worthy enough to be in our collections. We've also signaled what and who are not worthy to be in our collections and in our spaces.
Sofia Leung: Another quick sip of water here.
Sofia Leung: The CRT scholar Gary pillar has said knowledge and reason or functions of power.
Sofia Leung: Under white supremacy knowledge is the written word and the written word is the realm of the white men who have gone to go to the right schools with the right education to get the right credentials to write up that knowledge.
Sofia Leung: We are told that knowledge is represent representative of humankind objective neutral and factual and the way that we treat knowledge and libraries and archives upholds white supremacy beliefs and perspectives.
Sofia Leung: Items in our collection are treated as historically and history is seen as linear events are often seen as disconnected and it is a bit as individual moments in time. This is not a coincidence.
Sofia Leung: The way we think about knowledge is heavily influenced by and lame and ideals and Western white cultural ideas knowledge as we know it represents the dominant hegemonic culture.
Sofia Leung: Gross vocal argues that the caught the canon of thought in all the disciplines of the social sciences and humanities in the Western University is based on the knowledge produced by a few men from five countries in Western Europe, Italy, France, England, Germany and the USA.
Sofia Leung: But basically their theories are considered universal enough that all we need. Are there theories to explain the social and historical realities of the rest of the world.
Sofia Leung: When we take for granted, what has come to be known as knowledge without question, we are buying into one of white supremacy major objectives to view knowledge is that present any other perspectives as inferior
Sofia Leung: But, of course, that all goes out the window. Once a white folks quote unquote discover black indigenous people of color knowledge that they want to claim this their own
Sofia Leung: Indigenous scholar Linda twice Smith wrote, It appalls us that the West can desire extract and claim ownership of our ways of knowing
Sofia Leung: Art imagery, the things we create and produce and then simultaneously reject the people who created and develop those ideas and seek to deny them further opportunities to be creators of their own culture and own nations.
Sofia Leung: When by pop knowledge is included, it's often not written by by POC themselves. We don't get to tell our own stories or share our knowledge on our own terms.
Sofia Leung: Here, let me introduce witnesses property, a CRT concept that Cheryl Harris conceived of where she argues that whiteness was constructed in order to justify subjugating black and indigenous people and then using whiteness to retain and secure power for white people.
Sofia Leung: Harrison defines whiteness as the right to white identity as embraced by the law is property if by property one means all of a person's legal rights.
Sofia Leung: White folks, enjoy the right to own their identities to tell their own stories and by extension us enjoy and tell the stories of people who don't have the privilege of being white
Sofia Leung: By puck knowledge is only worthy if white people tell it, nevermind. The fact that it was never there is to tell in the first place.
Sofia Leung: MIRANDA velocity Lewis.
Sofia Leung: asuni uncut and Sarah Costa like the zoom, he will make this very clear in their chapter research by outsiders has resulted in the publication and dissemination of ancient sacred knowledge esoteric traditions and religious practices without free prior and informed consent of zombies.
Sofia Leung: The information and knowledge collected was not the authors information to share or the readers to know
Sofia Leung: Not only is it not the authors information to share, but it's really not the authors to own and yet we have a whole system of legal restrictions to protect that ownership.
Sofia Leung: Intellectual Property Law in the US, which comes from the British system of granting monopolies to authors and inventors protects commercially valuable products of human intellect, as defined by Black's Law Dictionary
Sofia Leung: IP has become a way for white people to take the knowledge and culture from byproduct claim it as their own, and prevent the black and brown creators from receiving credit for profits.
Sofia Leung: And there are plenty of historical and current examples of this that you can easily find
Sofia Leung: History scholar Kurt Newman provides the example of swing era bandleader Paul white men who is famous for many reasons, but in this case for proper timing the resources of African American musical innovators as new inputs, it
Sofia Leung: Okay, so what does the Al a code of conduct say about IP.
Sofia Leung: We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interest of information users and rights holders.
Sofia Leung: That really explain so much about this profession. That sounds like a la respects the people. The people who laid claim to the knowledge as property.
Sofia Leung: Not the people who that knowledge came from and who had actually belongs to A, nor does it seem to advocate for the balance between who gets to benefit from intellectual property rights and who doesn't.
Sofia Leung: And let's remember this is a document that is supposed to codify the ethical responsibilities of this profession.
Sofia Leung: To help maintain these white ideas of knowledge LS has erected barriers of entry to those who want to join this ranks. You need to get into a bachelor's and a master's program.
Sofia Leung: Which both you standards not meant to be met by black and brown folks you need wealth to pay for those programs and we already know how hard it is to get loans for black and brown folks.
Sofia Leung: You have to survive those programs which were not built for you and which operate on white supremacy culture kick characteristics meant to tear you down and then you got to get a job, which again is based on white standards of what is considered experience, knowledge and professionalism.
Sofia Leung: Once in that job you're expected to keep your head down not rock the boat continue doing things the way they've always been done just be fucking great. Well, they got a job at all.
Sofia Leung: So once we finish funneling through the system. What do we have to believe constitutes knowledge.
Sofia Leung: Black indigenous and people of color have had to learn to survive in a culture, a system that does not want us there.
Sofia Leung: We have never been seen as neutral or objective our knowledge and perspective is always considered subjective.
Sofia Leung: We have been told in lots of little and big ways that the very knowledge we have inherited from our families, our ancestors is not important.
Sofia Leung: It's lesser than the knowledge we learned in the US education system and from Las profession that our experiences by pop don't matter and that no one wants to hear our stories.
Sofia Leung: So why don't we sacrificed in order to survive in a white supremacy system what stories and knowledge is have we lost
Sofia Leung: Gross Fogle defines what does Sosa Santos calls at the stem inside as the extermination of knowledge and ways of knowing how much at the stem inside has LS contributed to
Sofia Leung: And that's a question will never have the answer to. Because answers have been systematically erased.
Sofia Leung: By only centering knowledge that reaffirms whiteness normal witnesses normative at Las has disrupted the knowledge passed down through by pop generations.
Sofia Leung: So, not only as material generational wealth almost non existent from by park but cultural generational wealth and knowledge have been diminished thanks to slavery condensation settler colonialism racism and for simulation.
Sofia Leung: And is this really the Legacy The Las wants to continue to contribute to
Sofia Leung: Las has been telling a very specific story. It's a story of white racial dominance, a story about whose knowledge matters about who is even considered worthy to collect that knowledge, the story about who gets to count is human.
Sofia Leung: This is how las advances white supremacy and epidemic supremacy. This is how we as a profession are connected to the very same violence, I asked you to take a moment of silence for at the beginning of this talk.
Sofia Leung: And sure, we didn't create those systems, but by not recognizing how we're continuing to support and maintain them. We are complicit in that
Sofia Leung: We cannot continue to pretend towards the ideals of the public good and social responsibility, while at the same time, causing harm to communities of color to the people of color within our profession.
Sofia Leung: We have to pay attention to what white white supremacy doesn't want us to pay attention to. We have to make explicit what white supremacy has been trying to conceal
Sofia Leung: For las to move towards the racial justice we demand and deserve. We need bypass knowledge stories histories and most important imagination.
Sofia Leung: We have only one version of things one perspective of the world, your imagination is limited.
Sofia Leung: The graduate student in my story could not envision how his work impacted people partially because he left the historical knowledge and experience of bypass.
Sofia Leung: Our experiences illuminate where the points of racial domination intersect, those of sexism, homophobia trans phobia able ism and other forms of aboard subordination intersection ality coined by CRT scholar can really Crenshaw was conceived up to describe this exact thing.
Sofia Leung: For bipartisan share our knowledge is and our experiences is to challenge the very foundations of white supremacy.
Sofia Leung: Will lead to a Marcia wrote for those of us from communities with historic collective trauma, we must understand that each of us is already science fiction walking around on two legs. Our ancestors dream this up and then bend reality to create us
Sofia Leung: Black indigenous and people of color have always had to imagine a life for ourselves society has tried to tell us repeatedly who were not allowed to be and bypass everywhere have imagined new realities for themselves.
Sofia Leung: Black indigenous and folks of color have experienced centuries of oppression centuries of being told no of the told me don't belong have been told, we don't have permission to be human.
Sofia Leung: And yet we're still here. We will continue to be here and continue to dream. Imagine and build towards the kind of laboratory futures. We want to be a part of.
Sofia Leung: And if you're a black indigenous or person of color or listening to this, we have always had our imagination and it can be taken from us. And I'll borrow or Hayes words here.
Sofia Leung: No system or structure of oppression was before imagination. It was already there already in flight already in freedom.
Sofia Leung: Take one more step.
Sofia Leung: So one example of the type of liberation work already being done by by club is around disrupting conventional citation practices are citing white men.
Sofia Leung: The site black women campaign was created by Krista Smith to motivate people and academics in particular to critically examine their citation practices and to consciously begin to cite black women in their work.
Sofia Leung: And I want to share their five guiding principles to encourage you to examine your own citation practices.
Sofia Leung: And to share it with your colleagues, your students, your faculty and I want you to encourage you to look beyond your citation practices and imagine how else this project could be embodied
Sofia Leung: To first read black women's work.
Sofia Leung: Integrate black women into the core of your syllabus in life and in the classroom acknowledge black women's intellectual production make space for black women to speak, and give black women, the space and time to breathe.
Sofia Leung: So by pop knowledge is needed and necessary, but it is up to us to offer it up after years of being told our experience isn't valid or important white folks can expect us to then give away our hard one knowledge for free.
Sofia Leung: Is crucial for the white spaces where we have been made to feel undervalued unsafe and unnecessary to fundamentally change in order for this to happen, it's not up to black indigenous and people of color to change to shave off pieces of ourselves to fit into these little white spaces.
Sofia Leung: How many more times. Will you allow a black indigenous person of color to be ignored or our concerns rejected or our experiences invalidated.
Sofia Leung: There are many laboratory projects always already in motion by by POC, and to the white folks who wants to be in solidarity with those projects. Let me borrow the words of education scholar David Stovall.
Sofia Leung: You have agreed to something that will challenge you in the support of it.
Sofia Leung: And at some point you have to get out of the way of the people committed to doing that work, you have to ask yourself is what I'm doing, helpful or is it actually harming the very folks, I'm trying to support
Sofia Leung: And I know this particular audience is filled with folks who adhere to critical librarianship and pedagogy. So I'll give you a few questions to consider.
Sofia Leung: What would it look like for you to not just theorize giving up power, but to actually do it. What would it look like for you to give your power to bypass.
Sofia Leung: What would it look like for us to give up power to black indigenous communities of color to allow them to lead us, what will be again when this happens.
Sofia Leung: I can only tell you what I know. We will gain so much clarity care and community we will gain the insight wisdom. Enjoy necessary for laboratory imaginings, and we will gain the knowledge future as we all deserve.
Sofia Leung: Thank you. And it's a reminder. I'm going to prioritize questions from bypassing the Q AMP a
Sofia Leung: So don't forget to indicate that and I think we're going to also recorded the Q AMP a
Sofia Leung: Way for Nicole to confirm that
Nicole Pagowsky: Yeah, it's going to keep recording. I think this
Nicole Pagowsky: Just started automatically recording when we came right
Nicole Pagowsky: So, yeah.
Sofia Leung: OK.
Nicole Pagowsky: Ok I'm keeping an eye on the Q AMP a two. So feel free to put those in and Sophia will answer. I'll suggest ones for her to ask
Nicole Pagowsky: Me to answer.
Nicole Pagowsky: We have a few questions. I know. Sophia You wanted to do stalking. Should I just ask you these until we get more
Nicole Pagowsky: They're both will one identifies this Caucasian. I'm not sure the other one.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, well, let's just give it a couple more minutes, and then I'll I can jump in when if I don't say anything else. Okay.
Nicole Pagowsky: Sure. Thanks.
Sofia Leung: Sorry, I forgot to unmute myself.
Sofia Leung: Okay so Isabel's question is Sophia, how would you answer that last set of questions. So I'm on that slide. Now, so what would it look like for you to theorize yes so giving up power I guess for me.
Sofia Leung: I would say that white people honestly just need to get out of the way. Right. There are also like a more concrete example of this is there also some jobs that are just not for white folks. So if you work in a
Sofia Leung: Institution that happens to serve.
Sofia Leung: People of color.
Sofia Leung: Then you might think to yourself, Do I really need to work here is this position really for me.
Sofia Leung: And when I think about other positions that say like, Oh, you know, like for example, there are a lot of archivist positions that are meant to
Sofia Leung: Look over and work with communities of color and like their knowledge and their archives, I would say, then
Sofia Leung: If you don't launch those communities, you probably shouldn't apply for that job. And if you're on the hiring committee, you should really only be looking for people from those communities to be in those positions.
Sofia Leung: Just one example, but I'm sure other people have other thoughts.
Sofia Leung: Oh I see, there are more questions. No. Okay.
Sofia Leung: So Eric said, for me, what is more effective at this moment reforming establishment organizations are forming parallel ones, led by by pocket, especially by public. Yeah, good question.
Sofia Leung: Well, Eric, I would say that I am very cynical. At this point, and I mean that's partially why I don't work at institution anymore.
Sofia Leung: And trying to move towards creating our own spaces where we're in the lead.
Sofia Leung: I thought that maybe there was a place and, you know, maybe I still I'm still going back and forth on this that there is a place of changing things from the inside, but um
Sofia Leung: I guess I've hit myself up against that wall so many times and then have nothing change and maybe potentially get worse to feel like, Okay, well, do I really want to be doing this anymore. Is it really worth my time and energy to like keep banging my head against the same wall.
Sofia Leung: Hopefully that answered that question.
Sofia Leung: Okay, Christina said how can buy pop MLS students disrupt whiteness within our academic experiences, especially as it functions covertly in digital learning and working environments.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, I think that can be difficult.
Sofia Leung: Particularly as a student, where you often don't have much power. But if you I guess the way that I would say is to organize with your other students right like there's power in numbers, and can you know working with your
Sofia Leung: Your white colleagues as well. I think, you know, getting I think I saw an example of this actually on a Facebook group I'm in, because I went to the University of Washington, but like getting folks to boycott classes if you know you don't agree with something or
Sofia Leung: I guess what I'm saying is, is to really organize within the student group itself. Right. That's where you have the most power.
Sofia Leung: And then I think it's up to you to determine what's best for you and the rest of the group.
Sofia Leung: Okay. Someone anonymous said, How do I suggest administrators and leadership support the mental illness of staff.
Sofia Leung: Great question. I don't know that I'm the one who can answer that. But, um,
Sofia Leung: I would say that I think it's
Sofia Leung: I think can be difficult, right. Like, does your leadership and administrator actually listened to your staff.
Sofia Leung: Do they think of your staff as people and human do they care because oftentimes, at least in my experience.
Sofia Leung: Like Burstein is replaceable. Right. Like there's someone there's like so many people looking for jobs.
Sofia Leung: And they could have someone else take our place easily is kind of the mindset that I feel like they have. And maybe I shouldn't just put that on everybody who's an administrator and the leader, but I would also point out like
Sofia Leung: That the things happening out in the world just because they're outside in the world doesn't mean they don't also come to work with us.
Sofia Leung: And we have to think about how that impacts our staffs well being in the workplace and what we're asking them to do, because oftentimes
Sofia Leung: It's forgotten because oh we urgently have some project that needs to get done. But like, also, we don't save lives. So let's like not you know get ahead of ourselves of what we actually do
Sofia Leung: Okay.
Sofia Leung: Mario says how can scholarly writing be used as resistance against white supremacy in Las approaching such work with I'm angry. Let me yell at injustice energy
Sofia Leung: Yeah, um,
Sofia Leung: I think that's what I'm trying to do in the writing that I've done in the past. And what we're trying to do with this book.
Sofia Leung: I think like the more work. We're that by Parker able to put out and sharing our thoughts and our knowledge and what we know to be true.
Sofia Leung: You know, I think after a while, it becomes hard to ignore.
Sofia Leung: That there that this work is necessary, and that
Sofia Leung: Actually, you know, in working on this talk, I found a lot of healing in it.
Sofia Leung: And I think that that is something that scholarly writing could also be used as it's like not just resistance, but also healing work.
Sofia Leung: Okay, someone said, Do you believe that white people should serve on
Sofia Leung: Committees, yes. I mean, I think they should be. They should maybe always be led by them. I think they should also be accountable to people of color in that organization.
Sofia Leung: If you're going to serve on that committee, like who are you there to serve if you're just going to serve the institutional policies like and and you know uphold white supremacy and then I don't know what's the point
Sofia Leung: Okay.
Sofia Leung: Sorry, I'm going through these kind of fast I realized
Sofia Leung: Okay, let's see. You said a few years ago in Las program was conducting a faculty search and all the final candidates were white
Sofia Leung: The bypass faculty member I had asked that they have not received any applications from bypass doctorates this seemed questionable to me. How would he have pushed back on this.
Sofia Leung: I think that's a difficult if you're not on the search committee yourself.
Sofia Leung: I think the other way you could do it as if you know
Sofia Leung: I mean, I like what can you say to that, you know, like you could point out that, oh, there's all these other bypass folks who have Dr. It to be perfect for this position, but unless you know whether they applied for sure. I think
Sofia Leung: I think the other thing you could look at is, like, what are the HR policies stated for that program I do they say like, cuz I know some programs actually say like, Oh, you have to have at least like one person of color in the
Sofia Leung: Pool or something like that. Like they have like some
Sofia Leung: I've never forgotten what that word is where you have to understand number of people in it, but I think you know what I'm saying.
Sofia Leung: The implication that their hands with that. Sorry, I just saw the rest of that.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, I think it's really difficult unless you are in a position of power to really do much about it.
Sofia Leung: I think
Sofia Leung: I think where you could try to shape things is at the beginning of the search like when the searches even going to be launched, like if you know that that's going to happen.
Sofia Leung: There are things that maybe you could be organizing with your fellow colleagues on how to change what the faculty search looks like.
Okay.
Sofia Leung: Someone said, I just started my MLS program. And notice how white the curriculum is white men white scholars white authors, how can you get your course syllabus and raise it to your professor and actually have impact.
Sofia Leung: I think that there are tools out there for auditing course level I
Sofia Leung: Mean, how you raise it to your professor. That's always a good question and actually have impact. Again, I think this goes back to organizing with your fellow students
Sofia Leung: And seeing if you can get any traction with all of them and getting them to as a group, raise it to your professor and say, like, hey, this is a problem and
Sofia Leung: You know, what can we do differently and like, actually. I mean, honestly, you're probably gonna have to tell them the answer. So you just have that ready
Sofia Leung: For us by pop folks who are given the opportunity to step up. How do you recommend the role of educator and the texting process of doing the work in libraries at pw eyes, especially as it relates to diversity work in libraries.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, actually john brown and I wrote a chapter on this and they're pushing the margins book edited by any flow and rose Cho, so you could look into that.
Sofia Leung: But I think it's really a choice, right, like if you want to put in that time and energy.
Sofia Leung: Than. Sure, go for it. Just know that it's going to be really draining. You're going to burn out much faster than if you didn't do that work. But I know the feeling of at the same time. Well, if I don't do it, then who's going to do it or they're just going to mess it up anyway.
Sofia Leung: So it's really a choice for you, but just know that
Sofia Leung: You will burn out much faster if you do it.
Sofia Leung: Jamie says the term white supremacy is so alienating too many white people who could benefit from listening and learning.
Sofia Leung: I tend to avoid this term and speaking with white audiences, which I also realized caters to wait for agility. Another alienating
Sofia Leung: Language is so powerful and create can and can create connection or disconnection how to reach those who don't see themselves as part of the problem.
Sofia Leung: And they will have a negative gut reaction to those terms and refuse to listen because of them, or is it the point of this terminology to be extremely challenging from the beginning.
Sofia Leung: Um, it's only challenging because
Sofia Leung: It challenges power right
Sofia Leung: And of course it's alienating too many white folks. Yes, I have experienced this, too, because it makes them feel like we're accusing them of something and I guess like what I should say also is like white supremacy is not just in
Sofia Leung: upheld by white folks right. We can also be the ones doing it as well because it's a ideology. It's something that bypass can also be
Sofia Leung: inundated with and after a while you have internalized
Sofia Leung: All the things white supremacy wanted you to so it's
Sofia Leung: I think that it is important to use the right words to describe what is happening.
Sofia Leung: I guess I mean for me. I just decided, you know what, there's no way around it, you're gonna have to deal with it. You're an adult.
Sofia Leung: And just warn them ahead of time that they're going to have feelings about it.
Okay.
Sofia Leung: I often see my white colleagues and also Nicole, if we're running out of time, just let me know.
Sofia Leung: I often see my white colleagues choosing to do EDM related work and choosing to only work with white collaborators.
Sofia Leung: How show or how could or should bypass librarians and or librarianship push back against this. Well, first of all, if that's happening. I guess it depends on, like, what the context is right, but
Sofia Leung: If I was going to a conference and I saw like oh, here is a title of a talk in abstract it
Sofia Leung: Sounds like oh, it'd be good because it's Ed, I related. And that's what I care about. And then if I look at who is speaking and it's only white people, then I just won't attend
Sofia Leung: And I mean, like, just not attending the ones that are only going to be like white people working on it. I think that's one way to do it again, going back to the organizing thing.
Sofia Leung: Organizing your other colleagues to say like, is this really what we want to be doing. And if you look at the example of the surge, which I'm like forgetting what it stands for. But it's basically like white people for racial justice.
Sofia Leung: Is they
Sofia Leung: It's mostly about white people doing the work, but then being accountable to people of color for the work they've done.
Sofia Leung: So, like, the question is only, like, who is this work serving. Is it just for me to look good, so that I can pat myself on the back and say that I'm a good right person. And if that's the case, then that's not really the work is it
Sofia Leung: Someone said one of my admin is PLC, and he does everything he can to silence PLC particularly black women. How can I get through to him that he's working against the cause.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, that's hard because that's one of the examples of, you know, white supremacy. Got to him and he
Sofia Leung: Is doing everything he can to be a good, a good little person of color and everything that you know white supremacy wants him to be. And then also policing other
Sofia Leung: Black people and people of color.
Sofia Leung: I don't know. You know, like, that one's hard because if he wanted to unlearn some of these things he probably would have already, I think it's like waiting to see if there's an opportunity
Sofia Leung: Where you can approach it in
Sofia Leung: I don't want to say like sideways way. But, you know, like, just like kind of be like, like you say, like, unless he's also someone who like proclaims to be a you know someone who's trying to uplift black women's voices that you'd be like, Well, you're really not doing that. Are you
Sofia Leung: But yeah, you know, trying to maybe see if there is a conversational opportunity, but that's really difficult. And I'm sorry.
Nicole Pagowsky: Sophia. So we're at 115 if you would like to
Nicole Pagowsky: Go all the way to 130. That's your choice. We added some extra
Nicole Pagowsky: Time and for Christian if you're getting
Nicole Pagowsky: Tired, or you want to end, it's totally up to you. So I just thought I put it out there that if you do want to go all the way, there's only 15 minutes left. Or you can wrap it up. Yeah.
Sofia Leung: I'll just see if there any more questions from bypass and I'll try to finish those up in the time we have.
Sofia Leung: Okay. Someone said I run into the problem of being a minority minority person I minority group is less represented, then the other minority groups, I support all my minority librarians, but sometimes they don't want to support me. It said, any suggestions.
Sofia Leung: Yeah. Well, first I would say stop using the word minority because they're not one
Sofia Leung: I don't like that term, just because I think in minimises again and dehumanizing people
Sofia Leung: And I would say that
Sofia Leung: This is more of a case of solidarity and
Sofia Leung: I guess you should say like, what are you not being represented in or like, what are they not supporting you in, because oftentimes
Sofia Leung: It's like what I found is that I've had to
Sofia Leung: You know, like we've all had our damage right like racism divides us white supremacy wants us to think like we're all in it as individuals or that you know each
Sofia Leung: racial group is only there for themselves. And so the whole point of that is to say, well, that is not what I'm going to do, I'm going to support those groups, whether or not they support me
Sofia Leung: And then like, you know, hopefully by modeling what the work should look like.
Sofia Leung: That would then
Sofia Leung: Allow more solidarity between you and these other folks, but I am sorry that they don't want to support you, because that really sucks.
Sofia Leung: Okay.
Sofia Leung: So someone asked me, Would you be willing to share more about your personal journey in this work. Appreciate your sharing how you are cynical. What gives you like to still engage in the field in your current way.
Sofia Leung: I think that having community like I still
Sofia Leung: It's not like that. I hate libraries and archives or that I hate Li s
Sofia Leung: Is that I know how powerful alliances and how powerful libraries and archives can be and what they could do instead
Sofia Leung: And so like I still care about what happens in the field and most of my community is in this field. So those are the folks that keep me going, and
Sofia Leung: Like this work is important to me.
Sofia Leung: So that's why I'm still here.
Sofia Leung: Despite how much it wants me to leave. Okay. For someone new to writing with a crit live framework, how can you provide guidance on any pitfalls to applying the framework incorrectly.
Sofia Leung: Sure. Well, I don't actually write with a Caitlyn framework, I write with a critical race theory framework.
Sofia Leung: I don't know about pitfalls, I think, like, you're going to make mistakes, right, like I've I'm sure I've made mistakes in this very talk, but it's just about like, oh, is again relying on community and saying like, hey, someone I trust, can you read this or
Sofia Leung: Looking back on your own work and see like okay
Sofia Leung: Is this serving white supremacy is this serving racism, like where, where can I not do that.
Sofia Leung: I think is the question that I usually try to ask myself, I don't know if that's helpful.
Sofia Leung: I hope that is okay.
Sofia Leung: I think that is the last type of question for now.
Sofia Leung: Okay, if you're willing to share what kind of advice do you have for bypass who are currently considering leaving toxic workplaces and the profession.
Sofia Leung: Yeah, I mean, that's a real question. Um, I think you have to do what's best for you. Right. That's your, your choice.
Sofia Leung: And that it's really how much more can you stand a bit, and I've heard other other people have really good situations right in that there are good situations out there in libraries.
Sofia Leung: I'm not sure that I've experienced them but i think it's it's really like what you can stand and how much you want to be in this profession and whether it's worth your mental health and your physical health.
Sofia Leung: And your emotional safety to continue to be in that position.
Sofia Leung: I think unfortunately there are a lot of toxic workplaces in this profession, and I'm not sure.
Sofia Leung: I think like, you know, reaching out to your community and finding out if there are places that you want to work that don't have
Sofia Leung: As much toxicity i don't know i a lot of the question is also, like, how much are you willing to tolerate or like what is, what are you willing to tolerate because I think different places will have, you know, the pros and cons of different things that you might have to tolerate
Sofia Leung: Okay, I think I
Sofia Leung: Answered all those questions.
Sofia Leung: Okay, I'm going to start from the top and now work my way down again for the ones I didn't answer initially
Sofia Leung: Okay, Kelly said if there is time. Can you talk about the founding of lie is more an hour just tied to white supremacy and why the science part was added. I haven't heard about this before. Thanks. Well,
Sofia Leung: Honestly, I'm really diving into how las was founded, I think.
Sofia Leung: Well, actually, we're not in Stacy's chapter in the book that's coming out next year. They're going to cover some of this in there when they talk about epistemic supremacy.
Sofia Leung: I think for buzzy Jenny and Anastasia's chapter also cover some of this. But it's, I mean, I don't know why they picked science. I was just, you know, asking my own questions about why is our field considered a science.
Sofia Leung: It doesn't strike me as being a science. I don't know if for you, Kelly, it does. So that's something you might do on. There's also a lot of research that I've cited in my resources, you could take a look at that.
Okay.
Sofia Leung: Page there. Do you have thoughts about how we can include and get more bypass involved in Las programs and librarianship. In general, and how do we go down that route breaking these exclusive structures.
Sofia Leung: That's a big question page.
Sofia Leung: I guess the question is do we want to be involved in Las programs and librarianship. I mean, considering the way we've been treated and how hard we have to work to get into the profession and then once we're in the profession. We're then asked
Sofia Leung: Oh, are you were diversity higher did you get here because you're not white.
Sofia Leung: You know those kinds of questions would be helpful to not being asked. I think a lot of it is cultural like, you know, if you look up if you just Google white supremacy cultural characteristics, you'll see there's a lot of characteristics in there and a lot of those are
Sofia Leung: Inherent in librarianship. And in Las so there's a lot of work to be done. I mean, also, there are issues of like, well, for asking people for a master's degree. How are we going to pay for those degrees.
Sofia Leung: And how can we support by POC
Sofia Leung: And doing those programs. Oh, and actually also April Isabel and Maria have a chapter on this as well in the book. So basically, the book is going to answer all these questions. Okay. And
Sofia Leung: How can we reconcile the notion of giving our power when often the folks with the most power are not the ones engaging in these conversations. Yeah, great question. How do the folks at the bottom as the folks at the top, often white men to consider giving up power and get out of the way.
Sofia Leung: Sorry, I'm going to take a quick SIP
Sofia Leung: Yeah, great question. Allison.
Sofia Leung: Sometimes I don't know, I think, like, I think it goes back again to what I've said in response to a few other questions about organizing and
Sofia Leung: The fact that there are a lot of us who feel this way and if we can band together and say, like, this is wrong and we want things to change. That's one way of doing it.
Sofia Leung: I think it's hard. I think sometimes you gotta wait for retirements
Sofia Leung: Okay. Hi, Violet. Violet ask. Do you have suggestions for media that would help people stretch their imagination about what is possible in society.
Sofia Leung: Yes, um, some of them are in my resources slide deck.
Sofia Leung: The last three slides on here that I'll share and then
Sofia Leung: Podcasts as a pod save the people I'm going to draw some legs because I'm getting tired, but I'm
Sofia Leung: Strictly processing. I'm still naming podcasts, because that's all I really listened to.
Sofia Leung: Really any podcasts that are hosted by black indigenous and people of color. There's a bunch of indigenous podcasts.
Sofia Leung: And there's also the podcast called. I think it's like the
Sofia Leung: The end of the world. We Bloods and Adrian Murray brown any work by Adrian Marie Brown is very inspirational.
Sofia Leung: And sorry, I'm gonna have to end that answering that question because my brain and stuff. Working um
Sofia Leung: Lisa said, do you see a role for reparations in librarianship. I mean, short like going back to what I said, either in the talker an answer to a question.
Sofia Leung: That I think white folks need to give up power. In which case, that means either giving up positions of power in
Sofia Leung: You know, our organizations like a la or
Sofia Leung: Whether that's also like actual jobs.
Sofia Leung: And then if you, you know, are on hiring committees.
Sofia Leung: What could reparations look like there.
Sofia Leung: I think there are a lot of places that
Sofia Leung: librarianship could benefit from reparations, but
Sofia Leung: Again, my brain is now on the end of its
Sofia Leung: its last legs. Okay.
Sofia Leung: Okay, someone said, well, the addition of more own voices works in collections assist. Yeah. I mean, that's definitely one of the ways that that would
Sofia Leung: That would change things.
Sofia Leung: But also looking at how we promote and talk about those collections and how, you know, even when we're doing collections work.
Sofia Leung: The statistics that we look at, like, Are those really the ones we want to look at when we're selecting what to keep and what to throw away.
Sofia Leung: I mean, I think there's a lot that could be dying collections.
Sofia Leung: Okay, Megan said how can teaching incorporate indigenous experience into conversation surrounding evaluating information and who is considered an expert when it comes to scholarly sources. Okay. So first I'll say I'm not indigenous so I cannot answer this question.
Sofia Leung: This is a question that, again, it's about building relationships with the indigenous folks in wherever the lands are that you live.
Sofia Leung: And asking them like not just asking them, but also like showing up for them because you can't just expect them to give this answer to you for free. Maybe they're really generous and they will. But, you know, how are you going to show it for them before you ask them for things
Sofia Leung: Okay. Someone wrote an anonymous person said, Oh, we have two minutes. So this is probably last question.
Sofia Leung: I've gotten a lot of excuses like bypass. You're not normally apply for a job postings. And when they do, they do not accept the position and we cannot use state funds to fund diversity in terms
Sofia Leung: Of hand every sentence. What is the best way, in your opinion, to get administrators on board to really commit to hire and retain by Park and and primarily white and weightless institution.
Sofia Leung: I don't know that there's a best way
Sofia Leung: Oh actually mostly listening to the other day someone was, Oh, I think I was listening to
Sofia Leung: couples therapy, which is a fun podcast with comedians, but one of the comedians happens to be a black woman, and they were talking with another black woman comedian about
Sofia Leung: How you know if you hire a person of color onto a writing team for like a TV show or something that you should be hiring at least two so
Sofia Leung: When the one black person is like this you know something's wrong about this and we should really
Sofia Leung: Think again about, you know, having character say that, for example, then you could turn to the other person of color in the room and be like,
Sofia Leung: Don't you agree, but I think it's like bigger than that, right, because if I was interviewing in a position. And I think this is also again.
Sofia Leung: An individual decision of, like, whether you're going to take a job or not, but
Sofia Leung: Are there other faces of color in the audience when I gave my presentation. Like if it's an academic place or like if I look at the staff photos. Is it just like all the same. And I, you know, I'm just going to be an only
Sofia Leung: That's not really going to do much. And then what are the policies in place. Are they only representing
Sofia Leung: What white folks care about. I mean, like, there are a lot of different ways to change this. Okay, we're at 430 so I don't want to go over my time.
Nicole Pagowsky: Thank you so much. Sophia. This was excellent. And I really, I'm so glad that there's been so much interaction in the chat.
Nicole Pagowsky: So everyone knows, since there is so much there. The chat is saved when a webinar is recorded, so all of us will be there, including the intro slides had some people asking for those as well. So
Nicole Pagowsky: You have all that and yeah contact Sophia at where she has a on here if you want to get in touch with her. I posted a link to our happy hour after here. It's going to go for the next 30 minutes
Nicole Pagowsky: It's really chill just fun way to meet other people coming to the conference and hang out. So if you'd like to go. It's on our website. I'll post the link. One more time in the chat and thanks everyone so much for coming and we look forward to seeing you throughout the conference.
Nicole Pagowsky: Okay. Sophie, I think we're safe to log out and then the recording will stop.
Sofia Leung: Okay. Sounds good thing or evil. Yeah.
Nicole Pagowsky: Thanks again so much. That was excellent.
Sofia Leung: Thank you. Bye bye.
