{"id":3834,"date":"2019-11-04T08:36:02","date_gmt":"2019-11-04T13:36:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meredith.wolfwater.com\/wordpress\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2019-11-04T10:26:44","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T15:26:44","slug":"when-libraries-and-librarians-pretend-to-be-neutral-they-often-cause-harm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meredith.wolfwater.com\/wordpress\/2019\/11\/04\/when-libraries-and-librarians-pretend-to-be-neutral-they-often-cause-harm\/","title":{"rendered":"When libraries and librarians pretend to be neutral, they often cause harm"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two recent events made me think (again) about the toxic nature of “library neutrality” and the fact that, more often than not, neutrality is whiteness\/patriarchy\/cis-heteronormativity\/ableism\/etc. parading around as neutrality and causing harm to folks from historically marginalized groups. The insidious thing about whiteness and these other dominant paradigms is that they are largely invisible to people in the dominant groups. It’s depressing to say this, but I\u00a0sometimes feel grateful for the antisemitic macroaggressions and microaggressions I’ve been a victim of over the years because they opened my eyes to what it feels like to be othered and bullied and made me more sensitive\u00a0to when it happens to others. That doesn’t mean I don’t get things wrong\u00a0plenty of the time and cause harm unintentionally (we all<\/em> do), but I am trying to be better because I don’t want anyone to feel the way I did when I was a target.<\/p>\n

The first event that got me thinking about this is the fact that the Toronto Public Library, against a flurry of opposition, allowed the feminist and transphobic Megan Murphy to give a talk in one of their meeting rooms entitled\u00a0“Gender Identity: What does It Mean for Society, the Law and Women?” Murphy is on a crusade to “protect” women and children from transwomen who seek to use women-only facilities like bathrooms or locker rooms. She has been banned on Twitter for her transphobia and misgendering in the past. TPL already has a pretty robust room booking policy<\/a> that says —<\/p>\n

Contracting Party’s event will not promote, or have the effect of promoting, discrimination, contempt or hatred for any group or person on the basis of race, ethnic origin, place of origin, citizenship, colour, ancestry, language, creed (religion), age, sex, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, disability, political affiliation, membership in a union or staff association, receipt of public assistance, level of literacy or any other similar factor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But TPL didn’t see this event as something that promoted discrimination, contempt, or hatred.\u00a0According to the City Librarian of TPL, Vickery Bowles,<\/a> their stated purpose was\u00a0\u201cto have an educational and open discussion on the concept of gender identity and its legislation ramifications on women in Canada.\u201d Now,\u00a0let’s imagine that we could go in a time machine to the past. Can you imagine some of these titles being discussed in libraries?<\/p>\n

\u201cto have an educational and open discussion on the concept of\u00a0blacks living in white neighborhoods\u00a0and its ramifications on the safety of white women in the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cto have an educational and open discussion on the concept of\u00a0Jews as teachers\u00a0and its ramifications on our impressionable children in Germany.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clearly I’m dense because I can’t see a difference between any of these lecture topics. It is treating the existence and\/or civil rights of one group as something that is 1) up for debate and 2) a danger to others. I’m baffled how anyone could not see such a talk as something “promoting,\u00a0discrimination, contempt or hatred,”\u00a0and yet\u00a0Vickery Bowles is being treated like a hero for standing up against censorship in a number of publications (see Kris Joseph’s excellent blog post<\/a> for links to a few of them). For more on the TPL controversy, other excellent blog posts you may want to consult are authored by —<\/p>\n