Don’t Oppress My People With Your Public Libraries
Further to recent rumblings in the comments, Captain Nemo steers us to the Twitter feed of Library Journal, a “global community of more than 200,000 librarians and educators,” and which proudly directs its readers to the mental exertions of Ms Sofia Leung:
Our library collections, because they are written mostly by straight white men, are a physical manifestation of white men ideas taking up all the space in our library stacks. Pause here and think about this.
Ms Leung, an academic librarian, is unhappy that public libraries in the US, a white-majority culture with a white-majority history, tend to have, among other things, lots of books by authors with pale skin. This, we’re told, is an “interesting mini-eureka moment” that our Queen of Intersectional Rumination feels compelled to share. When Ms Leung discovers that public libraries in China and South Korea have quite a few books by Chinese and Korean authors, I’m sure she’ll be equally aghast. Every bit as offended.
Ms Leung airs her distaste for “white men ideas” – as if they had been uniform across continents and throughout history – while reminiscing about attending a “white AF conference” two years earlier. I was unsure what the “AF” might refer to and searched for some literary or scholarly explanation. It then occurred to me that a “white AF conference” is, to borrow the woke vernacular, a white as fuck conference. Which is how not-at-all-racist academic librarians convey their thoughts, apparently.
If you look at any United States library’s collection, especially those in higher education institutions, most of the collections (books, journals, archival papers, other media, etc.) are written by white dudes writing about white ideas, white things, or ideas, people, and things they stole from POC and then claimed as white property… 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 colour.
At which point, things get a little breathless and intermittently grammatical. However, readers may wish to ponder how synthesising insights from around the world, and from cultures long gone, and preserving those insights, in libraries, is somehow a bad thing. Readers may also wish to ponder the implications of a librarian and self-styled educator, schooled at the University of Washington and Barnard College, New York, and who is offended, something close to enraged, by the existence of “white ideas” and the “so-called ‘knowledge’” of “white dudes.”
As if sensing that her thoughts aren’t sufficiently lurid and unhinged, Ms Leung then shifts into higher gear:
Library collections continue to promote and proliferate whiteness with their very existence and the fact that they are physically taking up space in our libraries. They are paid for using money that was usually ill-gotten and at the cost of black and brown lives via the prison industrial complex, the spoils of war, etc.
Amid this avalanche of conspiracy theories and rote indignation, we’re told that the prevalence of books by pale-skinned authors in a majority-white country “indicates that we… don’t think people of colour are… as important as white people.” The exact line of reasoning here is somewhat unclear and obscured by the inevitable in-group incantations, including “sites of whiteness.” A term deployed to describe public libraries, which, we’re to believe, somehow crush the very breath out of the heroically brown.
Having dismissed as tiresome the entire breadth and history of “white men ideas” – from Ptolemy to Babbage, Tesla to Solzhenitsyn, Turing to Shakespeare – these “white dudes” and their “so-called ‘knowledge’” – Ms Leung then makes clear the kinds of feedback she is willing to entertain:
I still have some thinking to do around this topic, but curious to hear what others think. I’m less interested in hearing that you don’t buy it, so don’t bother with those types of comments.
Ms Leung’s Twitter account is, alas, now in shutdown mode, thereby depriving us of further elaboration. Or at least depriving us of further racial chastisement and smug philistine posturing. We do, however, learn that our academic librarian is fond of “cats, whiskey, intersectional feminism, social justice” and “critical race theory,” the stupefying effects of which have been noted previously.
Update, via the comments:
Bgates quotes Ms Leung,
white dudes writing about white ideas
And adds,
I hadn’t thought it was possible to write six words that encapsulate the collected works of Socrates, Plato, St Paul, St Augustine, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, Shakespeare, Moliere, Newton…
Well, quite. But as we’ve seen many times, wokeness is a kind of rapid-onset morony.
And the fact that Ms Leung’s overt racial animus and eye-widening ignorance haven’t been mocked out of her or resulted in any kind of censure or career impediment – indeed, quite the opposite – suggests that she’s not entirely without the “privilege” she denounces in others, based solely on their melanin levels. I’m now trying to imagine a white librarian, employed by MIT, mouthing comparable noises about the history and literature of non-white people, and their obviously malign inclinations, and surviving the day with the approval of their employer, and their peers, and their job, intact.
Which is how not-at-all-racist academic librarians convey their thoughts, apparently.
They don’t even try to hide it now.
They don’t even try to hide it now.
Yes, there’s a boldness to it. Evidently, some kinds of overt and sweeping racial hostility are more acceptable than others and won’t jeopardise one’s employment, or one’s standing in certain academic circles.
Yes, there’s a boldness to it. Evidently, some kinds of overt and sweeping racial hostility are more acceptable than others and won’t jeopardise one’s employment, or one’s standing in certain academic circles.
Well of course; in a world of identity politics, the only thing that will hold the lefts coalition of competing groups is a uniting hatred of white people.
Which leads to the clown world scenario of “your words are violence, my violence is therefore self defence.”
I hereby resolve to be even more pro-active in acquiring books and other materials for my library written by, for, and about White authors (preferably male and Christian), while weeding from the collection any and all materials by Authors of Color.
Yes, I’m a librarian. Garbage like Miss Leung’s extrusion above inclines me more and more towards White Supremacy, or at least White Nationalism. As I’m going to be hated on anyway, I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb, right? And if all politics is trending towards the racialist, what kind of idiot would side with those who want to destroy the race of which he is a member? As I’m being…encouraged…to choose my loyalties, I’ll choose the side which doesn’t want to kill me and erase my heritage.
How amusingly vapid this person is. White men and their ideas have given us this modern world we live in. The science and technology age. The modern country of the USA where you live and the advanced Europe where I live (UK).
I don’t generally find race an interesting topic – it’s not a subject I care to fixate on, not least because those who do are reliably obnoxious. I tend to think of race (or sexuality or whatever) as one of the least interesting aspects of a person. And if it isn’t one of the least interesting aspects of your personality, then there’s probably something wrong with your personality.
But this is the Mao-lings’ favoured front, the button they can’t stop pushing. As if pushing it, repeatedly – racialising almost everything, making it fractious and tribal – could have anything but unhappy consequences for pretty much everyone, including those they pretend to care about.
[ Edited. ]
…white dudes writing about white ideas, white things,….
Hmmm….
This ‘criticism” is not new. Leung just repeats decades-old garbage from 1970s dorm-room ‘rap’ sessions. Been there, heard that.
– Yes, but that’s all because of WHITENESS. Didn’t you READ?
Even the ones in China. And Japan. I don’t know how the whites got over there – they just DID.
– Besides, the Nobel Committee – aren’t they white?
/sarc
And of course she lists her pronouns.
Here’s a summary of a panel discussion at the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color. I can’t work out if the panel featured insights from Ms Leung but she was certainly in attendance and it’s an enjoyable read anyway.
The session began with 60 seconds of silence to ‘acknowledge the land’, after which the panel talk about the work [they] do to decenter whiteness…
It’s fun to read between the lines. For example, Fobazi Ettarah tells us that she is aggressively herself at work; always outspoken but currently learning to choose her battles … “If white people aren’t uncomfortable, maybe you are not doing your job”. Very often, they don’t want your whole self at work.
Ms Ettarah happens to be the creator of this thrilling online game, which I’m sure you’ll all enjoy:
Killing Me Softly: A Game About Microaggressions
Enjoy, but remember: when the fun stops, stop.
And of course she lists her pronouns.
Ms Leung does seem to have internalised most of the tics and pretensions expected of our self-imagined betters. She conforms very well. And yet, I’m still taken aback by the arrogance of the pose, the shamelessness. For instance,
In other words, ‘I’m not interested in errors or corrections so don’t bother to point them out to me.’ Not the most obvious sign of intellectual probity or unassailable righteousness. And from the woman who elsewhere says, with a toothy smile, “Talk to me about diversity and inclusion in libraries.”
Just don’t dare to disagree, presumably.
Fobazi Ettarah tells us that she is aggressively herself at work… “If white people aren’t uncomfortable, maybe you are not doing your job”. Very often, they don’t want your whole self at work.
It occurs to me that if your “whole self” entails being gratuitously combative with colleagues based on their skin colour, such that their discomfort is a professed ideal, then there’s something fundamentally wrong with your personality. Again, it’s worth noting just how often woke posturing entails the kinds of attitudes that in almost any other context would be deemed narcissistic, detestable, even somewhat sociopathic.
[ Edited. ]
Wow. I wasn’t expecting this when I posted that link to the Twitter post last night. I think this is the first thing I’ve posted (not including a couple of Friday Ephemera oddments) that’s made its way above the line for a good old-fashioned demolition. And you’ve done a better job than I could. The paragraph which jumps out from her article, at least to me, was the following:
Yes, I am thinking about it. Specifically, what people like you with a position of power over these collections might do to them in order to remedy this. Public burnings, perhaps? Mass pulpings? Or maybe you’ll just quietly throw them out, to make sure they’re not “taking up all the space“? Some time ago on Youtube, I watched a talk by a well-known conservative writer (whose name currently escapes me – sorry), who happened to mention that he had heard from a friend that some of our leading universities were throwing valuable antiquarian books into skips. If that story is true, (the speaker himself was unsure of the veracity of it, FWIW) then I don’t hold out much hope for the long-term survival of our library collections.
Wow. I wasn’t expecting this when I posted that link to the Twitter post last night.
Oh, we’re very modern here. It’s a fully interactive joint.
She’s just another *&^%$#g drip that dribbles on and on. I’m sorry that this response contributes in a small way to the recognition she desperately craves.
As Jon Gabriel described it, “Librarians for Book Burning”.
“Our library collections, because they are written mostly by straight white men”
Yes, there’s a reason for that. Because like the Chinese, the Greeks and Romans had a written culture, while many of the other cultures that Ms Leung so adores simply do not.
throwing valuable antiquarian books into skips
Weeding a collection is always a dicey proposition. Searching for market values of old books isn’t something that most librarians are likely to do for every item being weeded, and not all institutions have a lot of alternative weeding options (like giveaway, book sales, auctions, etc). My own institution (a community college) just throws out the weeded materials. Painful, but there’s only so much shelf space available. Getting the policy changed would be nice, but that would require lobbying the Board of Regents, and no one has mustered the energy to bother. The current Board is pretty thoroughly gelded by the current Chancellor anyway.
At least if we *know* something is valuable, we don’t weed it.
And from the woman who elsewhere says, with a toothy smile,…
I find it amazing to think that she must have had multiple photos taken and yet still chose that one.
…that some of our leading universities were throwing valuable antiquarian books into skips.
I’ve heard the same thing myself and experienced it at work when our library was being extended. As they were increasing the size they obviously wanted to get rid of books, for all the computer labs, breakout rooms, and study areas. Like you do.
However, I don’t believe we pitched out an antiquarian books although I wouldn’t put it past a library staffed with Leung-clones.
Well in 2017 most of U.S revenue came from personal income tax (48%), payroll tax (35%), corporate income tax (9%), excise tax (2.5%), and other (5.6%). So I guess the “They are paid for using money that was usually ill-gotten and at the cost of black and brown lives via the prison industrial complex, the spoils of war, etc.” doesn’t actually raise that much revenue. Damn, “spoils of war” sounded so cool.
Which leads to the clown world scenario of “your words are violence, my violence is therefore self defence.”
Which then leads one to seriously wonder when that scenario is amended to be “your very existence is violence; therefore, my initiated acts of violence are merely self-defense.”
Which then leads one to seriously wonder when that scenario is amended to be “your very existence is violence; therefore, my initiated acts of violence are merely self-defense.”
Likely sooner rather than later I suspect.
On a possibly related note: http://tennesseestar.com/2019/04/17/cincinnati-councilwoman-calls-reaction-to-notre-dame-fire-a-prime-example-of-privilege/
Why are we stopping at skin color? Shouldn’t we have a majority of the books from foreign countries? We are only a minority of the world after all. Why should they be in English? Wouldn’t it be more inclusive to include all languages? So what if no on around can read them. We would have our space properly diverse. At least according to the god who is this woman.
“…inclines me more and more towards…”
I think that’s the intent, if you consider that all these types of people prefer to have more division, chaos, friction, etc. between groups.
And you thought it was all Trump and the Russians (band name?) causing the tears in the fabric of civil society.
On a possibly related note
Presumably, we’re expected to pretend that there’s no conceivable distinction to be made between, on the one hand, the graphic destruction of a world-famous historic monument of great importance to millions of Catholics, historians, architects, art lovers, etc – and, on the other, local news. I’ve often said that woke identity politics is stupefying stuff, the moral analogue of bone cancer; but the rate at which it progresses is still quite surprising.
I think that’s the intent
Doubtless on the part of some. Most, I think, are just dupes. Followers who’ve actually bought into the whole “White Privilege” Marxist flapdoodle. Which, unfortunately, doesn’t make them any less dangerous. Possibly moreso, and there’s no one so zealous as a True Believer.
I found an image recently which I think sums up the reasons for escalating white consciousness nowadays.
Which is how not-at-all-racist academic librarians…
Point of order: Only Wypipo Can Be Racist™.
Just thought I’d clear that up. Regardless, it is interesting that someone with a Chinese name and doesn’t appear very pigmented chooses to have a very brown cartoon of herself on the twitters, and has a Wypipo first name. Both are highly problematic and she should be sent for regrooving. On the “Medium” site it lists “Claps from Sofia Leung”. In the old days we would just administer penicillin for that, not advertise on the internet.
However, I digress. All this SJW arglebargle is rather like romance novels, two or three plots, change the names of the players, publish.
Only Wypipo Can Be Racist™.
And it’s remarkable how much bile spills out if you give people free hits.
i chuckled at “sent for regrooving”… is that a firesign theater reference?
… is that a firesign theater reference?
Only after curfew in sectors R or N.
Meanwhile, in related Wypipo Bad news, Rolling Stone (once a popular music magazine) weighs in.
What could possibly go wrong ?
For newcomers, some earlier Don’t Oppress My People posts can be found here, here and here.
From the Joint Conference of Mentalists of Color report:
I’d be more prepared to like these people if they were just shameless Sharpton-style grifters, but they so often disappoint…
And there’s more:
I bet that old white dude has learned his lesson.
I thought that a white “fuck conference” was the thing that happened in Eyes Wide Shut.
In other words, ‘I’m not interested in errors or corrections so don’t bother to point them out to me.’
Of course she isn’t – she’s RIGHT, and she KNOWS IT, and even implying that there MIGHT be another viewpoint in the country much less the room, makes you somebody she dismissively has no time for. Perfect echo-chamber-fodder; and her wanting to “hear what others think” is merely an interest in increasing the comforting white noise in hers.
Hmmm, “white” noise… – Wonder how bad that’d trigger her?
Garbage like Miss Leung’s extrusion above inclines me more and more towards White Supremacy, or at least White Nationalism.
As the dysfunctional define the functional, you mean. Fortunately, as your image at April 17, 2019 at 14:33 reveals, that era has passed.
Instalanche.
https://pjmedia.com/instapundit/327909/
Leung likes whiskey, does she. That’s straight up appropriating my white, Tennessee/Kentucky culture. I am open to repatriations, say in the form of Maker’s.
Meanwhile, in related Wypipo Bad news, Rolling Stone (once a popular music magazine) weighs in [on Notre Dame].
“The building was so overburdened with meaning that its burning feels like an act of liberation.”
Can’t say I technically disagree, although any further analysis by the Rolling Stone of Christendom would surely disappoint.
As an emblem of what culture has devolved into, the cathedral probably is overburdened with, er, meaning. Popular churchiness and loud, advertised virtue certainly is. As western religious participation plummets – more or less as the inverse of Ashley Madison’s subscriber base – religion has instead been given the nice comfortable mantle of national secularism that, a few times in a lifetime, this being one, somehow hearken back to reclaim the fixtures of classic spirituality. Then a few days later it’s back to our national anthems and Hollywood critiques and damn the vegans and electric cars and yelling online at the next unseemly cultural outlier. You know, Christian Americanism.
Just because Rolling Stone is all but utterly unequipped to opine meaningfully on anything spiritual or ascendant doesn’t mean it can’t be a broken clock.
Instalanche.
[ Sounds of document shredder kicking into overdrive. ]
Ms. Leung is free to open her own library and fill it with whatever books she chooses.
In the meantime, Ms. Leung, Ms. Leung. STFU! This is a library. You’ve got three carts of books to re-shelve before your shift is over.
Exhibit A of why I left academic librarianship after 2 years of work at the University of California at….
Library School was worse – the nimrods going through those programs now are evil.
They are all batshit crazy.
Don’t public libraries stock the books people *ask* for?
[ Sounds of document shredder kicking into overdrive. ]
Also Mentioned In Despatches at Ace’s, so you might want to issue bear spray to the henchlesbians.
This is how a certain type of librarian makes friends and keeps her job – she tries to impress other librarians with her cool, ultra-hip “publication.” (Look at me, I got published and I have streaks of unnatural highlights!)
“Library School was worse – the nimrods going through those programs now are evil.”
Anyone who goes for the post-grad. level of librarianship, is not quite right in the head. However, to stay in the college library that’s what they have to do – pretend that they are actual academics.
Fookle me, these books are even printed on white paper! Outraged!
(In other news, I like the books written by Murakami, aka that very white man from that very white country, Japan.)
Illiterates are, as a rule, unproductive authors.
It is likely that Ms Leung considers any money that is not hers ‘ill-gotten’.
Weeding a collection is always a dicey proposition.
True, and I understand that there will be books which will, at some point, be surplus to requirements. It’s inevitable. I also understand that not every institution will have the time or inclination to research the value of each tome. But to dump antiquarian books (which in and of themselves are important historical artifacts) into a skip without inviting book dealers or other institutions to take them off their hands in exchange for either a nominal fee or for nothing, is, I think, a scandal. Add to that the proclivities of the delightful individual above and those in academia of a similar bent, then I think there is a real danger that many of our library collections are, long-term, under threat of destruction from a newly fashionable and societally acceptable philistinism.
Also: Instalanche.
My day just keeps getting better.