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I am an American by birth because I happened to be born on territory controlled by the US government. But this notion of "American-ness" is just make-believe. It is a childish conception learned by pre-schoolers who pledge their allegiance without understanding what it even means. And it is preached by selfish adults who benefit from it.
America is an empire, and consists of various people who despise each other. Many of whom would gladly kill each other if there were no police to stop them.
America is the Roman Empire. It spans the continent it conquered, and dominates an often unwilling people. Not only would a sizable minority of Americans be unwilling to lift a finger to save her from destruction, but would gladly assist in such destruction if they believed it would be successful.
Even among White people, Country Boys and City Boys hate eachother.
White people are under-reproducing and, over-medicating themselves into extinction but, complain about why other cultural populations are increasing.
Blacks and Whites hate eachother.
Blacks and Latins hate Whites.
Blacks and Latins also hate Chinese and Indians.
Whites hate Chinese and Indians because they're now better at the stuff Whites used to be good at (i.e. things requiring skills and education).
Ghetto Blacks hate everyone.
Everyone, rightly, hates Ghetto Blacks in turn, because, by percentage, they commit the most crime, and consume the most taxpayer resources, even though Non-American Blacks (i.e. African, like Nigerians, Ethiopians, and Tanzanians) are largely succesful.
Everybody hates a specific type of Latin called Mexican cuz' there are a lot of 'em that work cheap (and pretty good at that).
Everybody hates Jews because ...Jews?!
Nobody likes Muslims because they blow up too many people, but they're too scared to say it because they don't wanna get blown up.
On top of all that, governmental policies stir the pot of hatred, with policies that pit us against eachother and, if that isn't divisive enough, throw in some gay marriage.
...and if even that doesn't work let's give legitimacy and credibility to confused, mentally-ill, neurochemically deranged, nut jobs who think gender is a fluid, non-binary concept.
All of it only held together by the police state we call "American Government".
...man our country is messed up, still, a lot of places are MUCH worse...
The blog post goes beyond seeking diversity. There is active hostility to the presence of white authors, "white knowledge".
Her blog quote: "Libraries filled with mostly white collections indicates that we don’t care about what POC think, we don’t care to hear from POC themselves, we don’t consider POC to be scholars, we don’t think POC are as valuable, knowledgeable, or as important as white people.
No it doesn't mean all that. At least for most.
This radical librarian is not being measured or neutral and is not alone. She may have been smart to leave some things vague but there is suggestion and forethought here, imo. I am engaged in a mild protest of another librarian as it relates to a certain issue also involving exclusion.
When you encounter a radical that goes too far in your opinion, according to your values, somebody has to speak up. Groupthink can go too far on a lot of things.
When I was in college a radical lesbian professor from another university gave a paid talk. She announced that she was not going to take any questions from men at the end (after agreeing to a paid, public, mixed event). I immediately engaged in a silent protest when the question period started and would not put my hand down till it was over, despite her trying to make me. She eventually (many years later) lost her home university job for similar tactics with males who enrolled in her class.
No, being radical does not mean you can do anything for justice or retribution, or try to silence or belittle others.
Radicals and racists are a dime a dozen. That some librarian somewhere has very odd, distasteful views on books collections and displays is hardly worth noting. What makes this important is the evidence that this librarian is not a lone crazy, but is actually within the mainstream of her profession, not to mention the fact that she is employed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Library Journal, founded in 1876 by the inventor of the Dewey Decimal System, is the leading journal for professional librarians in the English speaking world. Six hours ago, it tweeted out this from Sofia Leung, a librarian at MIT:
The ability to make a logical inference perhaps? Arguing that something is bad and takes up space is the same as arguing to get rid of it.
There is a fine line of 'logical inference' and making up stories to support your bias.
I have been heavily involved in media centers for schools specifically -- libraries.
I have never had a 'liberal' parent want to ban a book from the library.
We have had to fight many parents wanting books banned -- and all of them have used conservative/religious principles to support their arguments.
Based on my experience & exposure to folks wanting to ban books, I could 'logically' infer that most folks wanting to ban books in libraries are conservatives....but I don't...........
Until there is a movement at any library that specifically targets one book because it is written by a straight white male -- your theory is based on pure speculation , no substance and really doesn't warrant a debate.
When I was in college a radical lesbian professor from another university gave a paid talk. She announced that she was not going to take any questions from men at the end (after agreeing to a paid, public, mixed event). I immediately engaged in a silent protest when the question period started and would not put my hand down till it was over, despite her trying to make me.
Good for you. In hindsight though, doesn't the whole thing seem absurd? Would you even bother showing up to protest something like that now?
I didn't go to protest then. I went to learn or at least consider. I didn't expect what happened from her or me. And no, I haven't gone to anything I recall in recent years to protest. I am more about protest emails and occasionally social media. I think the last thing I protested in the streets may have been a set of KKK shootings. I have never protested "speech". Then I guess I protested suppression of speech.
If the librarian did say something about purging the library of books written by White men, she is not any better than a White person suggesting that a library purge books written by Black men!
Clickbait thread title. She didn't say anything about purging libraries. You should be ashamed, OP.
Exactly, I have the feeling many of the people commenting on this thread never even bothered to read her blog post.
As quoted from the article.
Quote:
When most of our collections filled with this so-called “knowledge,” it continues to validate only white voices and perspectives and erases the voices of people of color. Collections are representations of what librarians (or faculty) deem to be authoritative knowledge and as we know, this field and educational institutions, historically, and currently, have been sites of whiteness.
I found this quote to be very relatable to my own field of expertise Architecture. Sitting in my own private library I have a large book chronicling the complete history of Architecture. About 60% of the book is specifically about Europe and America. The remaining 40% is the rest of the world. For example the number of chapters chronicling European architecture from the Dark Ages to the Renaissance numbers 6. But the entirety of Islamic architecture of the same period of time is confined to one chapter. Even though the complexity and variation within Islamic architecture was as great as what was happening in Europe. An individual with limited knowledge of the history of architecture would conclude from reading this book that the history of architecture is really the history of European architecture and what was happening elsewhere in the world was just background noise. In this regard I understand where the librarian is coming from.
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