My dad recently shared with me a book, written by a distant cousin who is a professor in Israel, about her grandmother’s immigrant experience and her relatives. Her grandmother just happened to be my grandmother’s first cousin, so my grandmother, great-grand-parents, and great-great-grandmother figure in the book. Given that I knew next to nothing about my great-grandfather (who died before my dad was born), this book is like a revelation to me. There’s a picture in the book with our whole extended family in the 1930s, both relatives who had already emigrated to the United States from Bukovina (modern day Ukraine, but it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and then Romania and then the Soviet Union when my family lived there) and those who were visiting from there. Later in the book, we learn what happened to those relatives who stayed on their farms in Bukovina when the Nazis came, how few of them survived, and how they couldn’t go back to their homes even after because many in that area had taken Jewish homes and were killing the Jews who came back. Knowing that people who shared your blood experienced this is a weight you feel deep inside of you that never goes away.
This, and what happened in Charlottesville, were potent reminders for me that I belong to a group that has only had conditional whiteness bestowed upon us for a short period of time and that it could be taken away from us at any time. It’s a reminder that there is something innate in me (something I can’t even see or understand) that leads people to hate me. The Holocaust is only one example of the massacres and oppressions my relatives have suffered throughout history. Over the years, I’ve experienced microaggressions, overt racism, and harassment because of my Jewish heritage, so the existence of anti-semitism wasn’t a big surprise to me, but it still causes a visceral hurt every time I’m reminded of it. I think I was more hurt by the fact that so few of my non-Jewish friends expressed any support for the Jewish community after Charlottesville. This essay describes perfectly how I’ve been feeling, both recognizing my privilege and recognizing that few seem to think Jews are deserving of support. It always makes you wonder, deep down, if your non-Jewish friends hate that part of you that is Jewish.
I write this to illustrate that what is happening with this new emboldening of neo-Nazis and other hate groups is very personal for me and not just academic. So when David King published his post Ugly Beliefs, Free Speech, and Libraries, I read it both as a librarian who believes in library values and as a Jew who is hated by the groups he thinks should be allowed to speak in the library. I’m not so quick to write off what he wrote because he’s a white, male, Christian administrator and only cited other white men in his post (I saw many tweets that touched on these things). I don’t believe in writing anyone’s ideas off because they belong to certain groups, because that logic could just as easily be applied against oppressed groups. I didn’t even write him off when he compared atheists to neo-Nazis (since both groups are, according to him, “bigoted”) and then apologized not to me, but to a male colleague (and mutual friend) who called him on it after I did (I’m guessing he doesn’t even realize how offensive and hurtful to me that was). I might have written him off personally after all that, but his ideas around the Library Bill of Rights are ones that many share in our profession and deserve a rational response.
I was a card-carrying ACLU member long before I ever became a librarian. I have always believed in free speech, even when it means giving people who want me put in an oven the right to spew their hate. I am a huge supporter of intellectual freedom. I had a intellectual battle last year with a respected colleague who wanted to either withdraw Jonah Lehrer’s books (he’d just learned about the author’s fraud) or to put a warning note on them about the fabrications. I argued that we can’t guarantee the intellectual purity of our collection and putting a note on one book or withdrawing it suggests that everything else has gone through a similar process. We have books by climate change deniers, books on alternative therapies that are not supported empirically, and other books that have been shown to include plagiarism or fraud. I will go to the mat for crappy books I don’t even care about when doing so is in line with our professional values.
However, I struggle with the idea that libraries should give hate groups a platform to spew their hate if those groups request to use library space. The Library Bill of Rights says both that “a person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views” and that “libraries which make exhibit spaces and meeting rooms available to the public they serve should make such facilities available on an equitable basis, regardless of the beliefs or affiliations of individuals or groups requesting their use.” What if by letting one group have a platform in the Library, other members of the community do not feel safe using the Library because the former group is arguing for the extermination of the latter? Is fear of being hurt or killed not an abridgment of their right to use the library?
David King argues for a neutrality that has never really existed in libraries. Libraries have never really been neutral. The Library Bill of Rights has existed since 1939, yet most libraries were segregated in the Jim Crow South. It wasn’t librarians, but black activists who got libraries integrated in the South. Yes, friends, in spite of whatever “vocational awe” you may have, libraries have not always been hotbeds of freedom and civil rights unless it was the civil rights of white people. Their so-called “neutrality” often reflected the racism and oppression existing in the larger society. Look at how Library of Congress subject headings have changed as they went from terms that matched racist (miscegenation, mixed blood, mammies), sexist (delinquent women, wife-beating), anti-immigrant (illegal alien, Yellow Peril), homophobic (sexual perversion) and ableist (idiocy) thinking of a time to the terms we use more commonly today. Some still reflect the whitewashing of racist injustices (Japanese Americans–Evacuation and relocation, 1942-1945 anyone?). True neutrality would have meant using terms that were neutral, but libraries have long reflected the same oppressive conditions we see in the rest of civil society.
Now, many librarians are arguing that libraries must not be neutral if they want to truly provide equal access to everyone and to properly serve their diverse communities. This means making a special effort to buy diverse books to ensure that everyone in their communities has materials that are of interest to them and reflect their lives. It means focusing library hiring toward having a diverse staff that looks like the communities they serve. It also means not giving hate groups a platform to spread hate in our libraries when doing so would make the majority of our patrons feel unwelcome and unsafe. We can’t promise that libraries will be completely safe spaces — we provide access to materials that might challenge or alarm people — but we can prevent people who encourage violence against others from having a platform in our libraries. There are limits to free speech and incitement to violence and “forms of intimidation that are most likely to inspire fear of bodily harm” are included. The dividing line of what is and isn’t incitement to violence and what is and isn’t a form of intimidation that inspires fear of bodily harm have changed over time, but I think we as libraries owe it to our communities to not give a platform to any group that preaches violence and harm against another group in our community. As Barbara Fister suggests, our tolerance should stop where others’ intolerance begins.
And ALA seems to be moving towards supporting this thinking if this “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights is any indication:
Libraries should not merely be neutral places for people to share information, but should actively encourage socially excluded, marginalized, and underrepresented people to fully participate in community debates and discussions.
However, the ALA website also contains this narrower interpretation of the meeting room aspect of the Library Bill of Rights which says “if meeting rooms in libraries supported by public funds are made available to the general public for non-library sponsored events, the library may not exclude any group based on the subject matter to be discussed or based on the ideas that the group advocates.” It seems like the ideas of encouraging oppressed groups to fully participate in the library and allowing hate groups to speak in the library are in direct conflict. And I struggle with this, as a long-time civil libertarian and as a librarian who does not believe in the so-called neutrality of libraries. But, in the end, I choose to support the members of our community whose very existence is threatened by these individuals and groups.
This is not an intellectual argument for many non-white, non-Christian, non-cis-gendered, or not straight individuals; this is an existential threat. It is to me. And, in the end, I struggle to excuse the behavior of a colleague who doesn’t even seem to at least agonize over this question and what it means for members of his community who lack his privilege. Even if you come out on the other side of this question, at least recognize what it means to people who are not you to allow hate groups to spew hate in your library. I was defending David’s character on Twitter yesterday and by the end of the day I wondered why I felt the need to do this when he couldn’t even be bothered to express support for the groups targeted by hate groups in Charlottesville, which included people like me who he’s known for more than a decade.
I’d rather be on the right side of history than hide behind a neutrality that has been used to oppress and exclude marginalized groups throughout the history of libraries.
Photo credit: Jewschool
One thing that struck me and that came of all this was a comment (by KB) left on DLK’s blog that gave me, at least, some good wording to use for library meeting room space policies. This person wrote:
“All members of the community are welcome, thus any group that excludes based on race, sex, [etc.] may not use the facilities.”
I like that and am stealing it for tweaking and suggesting to libraries I work with.
I don’t know that I was specific and clear about supporting my Jewish friends after Charlottesville and I apologize if I was one of the silent people you mentioned. I need to do better and I can just promise to try, every day! Thanks for writing this, Meredith!
Thanks for the kind words Robin! I think that policy wording suggestion is brilliant. I think policies are important, but sometimes they need to change with the times and this is a good idea of how to do so.
Meredith – first, thanks for the rebuttal. I appreciate your position on it. I also think that if we were discussing this over drinks, there would be a bit more room for clarification, etc and we’d both probably understand the other side a bit more.
I do want to address three things:
1. I never compared atheists to neo-nazis. You got in on the tail end of that conversation. I was comparing written speech to spoken speech as two examples of free speech. The other person said I was doing false equivelancy, which I disagreed with. Then she said something about never having groups meet at the library who say bad things about another group. That’s when I brought up the example of an athiest group meeting in the library. Like we discussed earlier, that was a poor comparison. But again – I was not doing what you said I did.
2. When I apologized, I meant it to both you and Jason. I thought that was clear – I’m sorry if it was not. I certainly meant no disrespect to you!
3. “behavior” – I stated in my post and elsewhere that hate & racism are evil, repugnant, etc. I thought that would be clear, since I put it in the very first paragraph of my post. In the discussions in the comments, I have said that I was not talking about illegal forms of speech – ie., threats against other people, incitement, etc. The only “behavior” I think I’m doing is trying to wrap my head around ALA policy, individual library policies, and other national orgs like the ACLU and the EFF, and compare that to what some librarians have been saying. They seem to be different.
Hope that helps clarify something, at least.
Thanks for your response, David. I feel like I understand your side fairly well because it’s what I believed for a long time. I don’t doubt in the least that you believe hate and racism are repugnant, but I also feel like you have not considered the very human implications of all this in your focus on aligning with the Library Bill of Rights. Also, you did make the argument that atheists were bigoted. Maybe one day someone will change your mind, because I don’t know any atheists personally who don’t respect others’ religious beliefs (though I’m sure some are bigoted like some members of just about every demographic group in existence).
I guess I wish you’d try to understand the other side better and that’s what I’m not seeing in your post or responses. Yes, a lot of groups have these statements around “neutrality,” but think about the impact of providing a platform for hate on members of your community who are targeted by hate groups. Imagine that there are people in your community who hate you and your family for reasons you have no control over. They wish you were dead or at least gone from the place you’ve always called home and they say it all the time on social media and at marches in your community. They chant while holding torches “the Kings will not replace us.” Your children fear them. Then imagine that your local public library lets these people use the meeting room so they can talk about how David King and his family are lesser beings, are engaged in a conspiracy against them, and should be forced from their homes and sent away from the community. How welcome, or even safe, would you and your family feel going into the library ever again knowing that they allowed these people to spread hate about you and perhaps convince others to hurt your family or drive you from your home? How could you ever trust that institution again?
I think you’re right that there is distance between ALA “policy” and what many are saying and I think that’s a problem. As I said on Twitter, this has been “a good reminder that our profession is rooted in values that are at odds with antiracism work.” We as a profession need to determine what is right. The Library Bill of Rights have changed before and they can change again. I feel like hurting our community in service of a “Bill of Rights” that somehow allowed for segregated libraries is not a hill I’d be willing to die on. I choose to stand for the oppressed members of my community. How about you?
Thank you for this, Meredith. It captures well a struggle I share. Having been the object of much more antisemitic hate than misogyny or homophobia over my lifetime and a person with politics far to the left of many, I recognize my own difficulty in balancing a personal fear with a commitment to openness and free speech. Especially as a librarian. Given our often positions of privilege, it may be difficult for people to grasp the level and intensity of that struggle.
It is real, and I think about it all the time. I think about it when white supremacists leaving flyers in my library (and until recently living a few blocks from campus – our friend Mr. Cantwell). When I accepted a copy of Milo Yiannopoulos’ book donated by the college student Republican club. When I sign my name to a statement appearing in the local paper supported by college and civic leaders.
These are really hard conversations happening in different places over long distances. But they are helping me and for that I am grateful.
What I tell my students in my intellectual freedom course is to be careful and thoughtful when they make policy. It is unfortunate, but different communities define “hate group” in different ways. You must know your community when making your policy and consider the mission of your institution. There are many communities around the country where BLM would be considered by majority of community members to be a hate group. Librarians in those communities need to be aware of these dynamics when crafting policies.
I totally agree that the community’s dynamics and makeup absolutely need to be taken into account when developing policies. These are meant to be applied, not to live in a philosophical vacuum.
as shared on Trevor Dawes Facebook thread:
I think this is relevant to the discussion. Excerpts below
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2017/09/01/the-history-theory-and-contradictions-of-antifa/?utm_term=.674b63bb58b9
. . . Anti-fascism is more than opposition to fascist regimes and their supporters. It is also preemptive, Bray explains, seeking to squash any incipient organizational efforts on behalf of white supremacy or class oppression.
Antifa tactics include “no platforming,” i.e., denying their targets the opportunity to speak out in public; obstructing their events and defacing their propaganda; and, when antifa activists deem it necessary, deploying violence to deter them. In this setting, the First Amendment is a second-order concern. “In my opinion, ‘no platforming’ fascists often infringes upon their speech,” Bray admits, “but this infringement is justified for its role in the political struggle against fascism.”
Bray scoffs at what he calls “liberal antifascism,” the faith that America’s marketplace of ideas will defeat fascist arguments, or that our political institutions and law enforcement agencies can forestall fascist politics and actions. “Historically, fascist and fascistic ideas have thrived in open debate,” he notes. “An anti-fascist outlook has no tolerance for ‘intolerance.’ It will not ‘agree to disagree.’ ”
The irony of the debate over antifa violence is that the battleground for white supremacy today is less the streets than social media, talk radio and even polite policy circles. Bray writes of the rise of “pinstripe Nazis,” those who cultivate a veneer of respectability, who recast racism away from crude arguments about biological differences and toward seemingly reasoned policy debates over security and scarcity, immigration and assimilation. Also, it’s harder to punch a Nazi when he’s spouting off on Reddit and 4chan instead of on the quad or a Washington street corner. Bray interviews a French anti-fascist complaining about how the strategy of the far-right National Front “is no longer for [party] militants to occupy the streets, but for spokespeople to occupy television screens.”
This is reminiscent of the argument in Carol Anderson’s 2016 book “White Rage,” in which the Emory University historian posits that white supremacy undermines racial progress not just through violence but via courts, legislatures, policies and bureaucracies. As Bray puts it, “Historically fascism has gained entrance to the halls of power not by smashing down the gates, but by convincing the gatekeepers to politely swing them open.”
Will America swing those gates wide? Bray’s justifications for antifa violence are premised on the belief that the our democratic traditions of open debate and of institutions channeling popular passions are hopelessly inadequate, if not entirely obsolete.
The inherent contradiction of antifa is that, if America is indeed so irredeemable and hypocritical that violence is the answer, then what exactly are you fighting to preserve?
https://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/2017/09/when-someone-claims-right-to-terrorize.html
Thanks for sharing this here, Max. I hope others will read it too.
Thank you so much, Meredith, for your response to King’s article. Libraries, historically, have been exclusive and racists. Still today, although not consciously, many librarians and libraries are embedded in a dominant culture (that is, white) which doesn’t allow them to see beyond their immediate world.
The bill of rights is a piece of paper that can be used by racists to protect their hatred. The so called alt-right is now using the first amendment for their own ends. The first amendment cannot protect the right to hate (and kill).
Again, thank you so much for writing a needed letter for all of us.
Your kind words mean a lot (coming from you and the amazing work you’ve done in Oregon)! Thank you Martin! I agree completely with what you’re saying here and feel that we need to find ways to get out of the dominant culture mindset (and see things through others lenses) in order to provide the best services to our communities.
Great essay, Meredith. Thanks for writing and sharing. It helped me clarify my own thoughts. Brian