Here’s the letter I wrote to ALA’s Executive Board and Administration, sent Monday, November 21, 2016:
Source: ALA’s releases on collaboration with the incoming Trump administration
Here’s the letter I wrote to ALA’s Executive Board and Administration, sent Monday, November 21, 2016:
Source: ALA’s releases on collaboration with the incoming Trump administration
This post will be of interest to only some of our readers. But we hope it will be very useful for them.
It is not easy to be both an academic and an activist. The values, the audiences and the constraints are different. Sitting down to write, you can feel yourself pulled in two different ways. The result is often muddled thinking and murky prose. There is too much ranting for an academic audience, and too much gobbledygook for the movement. In many cases, there is no prose at all, only silence, and pages crumpled in the wastebasket or erased on the screen.
The first half of this post offers some advice that can make writing easier, faster and more useful. The second half explains why universities make activists feel stupid, how they do it, and how you can cope.
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Yesterday, I guest-hosted a session of #radlibchat on my article about whiteness in the library profession. It was a fabulous discussion.
One of the more common threads that came out of the chat were the fears many white people have about screwing up when getting involved in race work. Several people expressed apprehension about doing the work and making a mess of things. So, I thought I’d take a moment to address some of those fears.
Fair warning: I’m going to say some encouraging things here. But I’m also going to share some hard truths. And it is vitally important that you absorb both if you’re serious about doing this work.
Another note: I’m going to focus on race work and the ways white allies get involved. But the fact is that all of this applies intersectionally, as well. I—as an ally to LGBTQ folks, to poor folks, to disabled…
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Intersectionality means that you can be a person with privilege and a person who is oppressed all at the same time. It means sometimes it’s your issue and sometimes it’s not. This can be difficult to grasp.
I see conversations like this all the time:
Person from Marginalized Group A: Thank you for joining this conversation about the struggle of Group A in society. It’s tough. I appreciate that we can talk in this space. Here are some things to know about Group A’s experiences . . . Here are some personal stories . . .Here is some more information about Group A . . . This is all vitally importan—
Person from Marginalized Group B: Yeah, but what about Group B? We’re oppressed, too.
A Person: Oh, yes, absolutely, it’s just that right now in this space—
B Person: Everything you said also applies to Group B. It’s so important…
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Recently, someone asked me what sort of scholarship I wanted to do. I didn’t know how to say it, but now I do.
In March, I participated on a panel on open scholarship at Virginia Commonwealth University. I was invited because of my use of blogging to make academic knowledge more accessible, and being fairly visible as a scholar on social media in general. In my presentation, I introduced the concept of intellectual activism and spoke about the risks associated with such work, particularly for marginalized scholars. You can see the text from my talk below.
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Progress has been made toward making academic research, knowledge, and resources accessible to the broader public. This is a great cause. It is certainly a matter of justice and equality. Ironically, a number of scholars – particularly those from marginalized communities themselves (women, people of color, LGBT people) – cannot or are hesitant to participate in the move toward open access. However, many scholars, particularly marginalized scholars, participate in a…
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By Debra Roberts, PhD (Howard University) and Sherry Molock, PhD (George Washington University)
Several years ago, I was at a national psychological conference presenting several papers. I was walking through the lobby wearing an Afrocentric mud cloth jacket when a woman came up to me, handed me her tote and asked me to take her luggage to her room. I remember thinking, “She can’t possibly think I am a staff person at the hotel because of my jacket” but I decided that I would take her luggage to her room. When she tried to tip me, I pointed to my conference badge with the presenter ribbon on it and replied: “Oh, that’s not necessary; you and I are both attending the same conference.” The woman turned red, profusely apologized and tried to buy me dinner for the remainder of the conference. – Sherry Molock, PhD
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Dr. Manya Whitaker, an education professor, regularly offers personal reflections, advice, and critiques on her blog, the other class. Below, Dr. Whitaker provides advice for seeking allies in academia, particularly for women of color. Be sure to check out the other great guest blog posts by Dr. Whitaker.
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I tried my best to not comment on the pseudo Harlem Shake crap that is all the rage right now, but since students at my college filmed a video of themselves engaging in that nonsense, and said video went viral, this issue has become personal. It has become all the more personal because while I can excuse the students for participating in cultural mockery and theft (hey — they are 20, they do not know), I cannot excuse my colleagues. Since so many others have taken the time to…
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