Episode 582: Critical Race Theory in Libraries

DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: And I am Dr. Monica Colon-Aguirre, and I am an assistant professor at the School of Information Science, at the University of South Carolina, currently, on my third year.

So they just see the three words critical, race, and theory together, and they make up their minds about what it is. In reality, a critical race theory is a framework for understanding the power relationship, especially those power relationships surrounding race in especially large systems, so social system. Racism is part of our systems, and it's not aberrational. So racism is everyday, an everyday occurrence. It's not something that is the actions of a few bad actors.

Another principle of critical race theory is the manifestations of racism in society are so deeply ingrained into our systems that we don't even see them, unless we actually take a critical approach to the systems and start analyzing them carefully. FRED RASCOE: Education, obviously, is one of the systems that you're talking about. DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: Exactly. And so that's what your work has been focused on is applying that framework. Well, I'll let you talk about that.

Dr. Cooke, can you talk a little bit about how that framework is applied to your area? DR. NICOLE COOKE: Yeah, absolutely, and thinking about it, it really is a way of applying what people of color and otherwise marginalized groups, what we live every day and being able to apply that and being able to have the language to have these conversations and to explain to other people.

So for example, as a college professor that teaches graduate students, even in 2023, I still have students say, I have never had a person of color in the front of the classroom. Right? And so it really gets down to that phrase "Out of sight, out of mind." If this is something that you don't think about, because it's not a disadvantage or something that you have to think about every day, you don't necessarily understand it.

Whereas for me, whereas for Monica, whereas for our other colleagues, we think about this all day every day. Right? Because it even comes down to general safety. Can I drive in this area of South Carolina. Right? Monica and I have both lived in very different places, and it's the same thing everywhere. So it's not specifically to South Carolina. Can I eat in this restaurant? Should I go to this side of town? Do I need to be out of this part of town before the sun goes down?

So critical race theory is giving us a way to have these conversations and a way to be able to tell our stories to people for whom this is brand new or that it's foreign. And in terms of what we do in education, we are in a predominantly White field, White, female field, 85% to 90%, depending on what data you're looking at what year.

And how do we talk about what that looks like, and how do we talk about that our profession, that our workforce does not adequately reflect the communities that we serve? Right? We serve such diverse communities, yet we don't have a diverse workforce. Right? And there's so much to talk about in terms of how we serve our communities, but also, how do we deal with the profession? Right?

I always joke and say, the call is coming from inside the house, and we need to deal with what's inside the house, before we can deal on the outside.

And I left when I was 28, and obviously, up to the age of 28, I was the majority. So I was in Puerto Rico surrounded by Puerto Ricans, but the it really became a different experience, once I started working as a college professor. And I started noticing especially the way the system was working to-- I always mention, this is my third academic appointment as an assistant faculty member, and I've never applied for tenure anywhere. Every single midpoint, the moving of the goalpost starts.

So what was good enough for everyone, no, you need to do more. Once when I notice these things and I leave, then I notice people who had equal or similar backgrounds, they get tenure fine. But to me, it was always like questioning even my fit in the profession. A lot of people would be like, it's like, no, I don't think you're built for this. It's in your best interest to look for something else.

So up to that point-- and my mom would tell me, it's like, Monica, they're being racist, and I'm like, no, I really should have done more. It wasn't until I started working more with diversity topics-- because up until that point, I was working more in academic librarianship and instruction, and those were like a little bit more removed, I would say, management of libraries, things like that. But when I started delving into diversity, equity, and inclusion topics, it was an aha moment.

I was already on my second job, doing a good job, but being told always that I needed to do more to the point that nobody else before me was being asked to do as much as I was but coming short always. The comments, the little comments about, oh, you're Latina. I was expecting you to be here late. I'm never late. So it was always a lot of stereotypes trying to be applied to me, and that's when I started reading about critical race theory. And I was like, wow, there's so much in here.

Especially in my case, I always mention also, I identify racially as White for lack of a better option. Because I'm Latina, I'm Puerto Rican, and I am White looking. Most likely, I am mixed race, but I don't know my background enough. I don't have my family history, but I always say I am-- I define myself as a White-passing Latina. And once I moved to the United States, I started noticing how I was treated and how my colleagues were treated.

And that is when it really started feeling there's something off, but I couldn't place it. So I was like, it wasn't racist, but it made me feel uncomfortable. And it wasn't until I delved into critical race theory that I started noticing things and learning more about colorblindness. The fact that we say, oh, I don't see color, that's actually quite racist. Like we should be seeing color.

Things like microaggressions, it's not people calling you racial slurs to your face, it's even the way people look at when you enter a room. And trust me, I've entered rooms when I feel that people are scanning me from head to toe. It's being in a group with my colleagues in faculty and having a tag that says Monica Colon-Aguirre, assistant professor, and have people look at and it's like, so what do you do?

And I'm like, I'm an assistant professor, and it's like, oh, so you're a faculty member, as if that is so unthinkable. So you start placing all of those experiences that before felt uncomfortable, but you didn't have wording for it. And that accumulation of years of experiences, all of a sudden, it was like, oh, this is what is going on. And that helped me verbalize a lot of my experiences, and that's when I became really aware of what was really happening.

DR. NICOLE COOKE: It's not surprising that Monica and I have a lot in common. So I worked as an academic librarian for maybe about 13 years, before I became a faculty member, but I was working in New Jersey. It's a very diverse place. So there were things. There were microaggressions. There was always this talk about when I worked in a library, oh, are you the only one? Oh, wait, there might be two here. Right? So you deal with it on that level.

And then when I became a faculty member, my first faculty job was in the Midwest in a very non-diverse area. And again, like I mentioned earlier, that's when the students started telling me I've never had a Black professor. Like I don't even know what to do with this. Right? And I think for the most part, most of them were fine with it. They looked at it as an opportunity. It was an opportunity to expand and to learn, but I really did have a couple of racist students my first year.

And in one class, I had an older, White woman. The PhD in the graduate degree in the school that I was in, this was her retirement project. And so we're talking about human information behavior, and that's what I got my PhD in. Right? So that's my expertise. And so I'm going through the lecture, I'm going through these examples, and she asked me a question. I answered her, and she sat back after I answered her. And she just kind of looked at me, and she said, well, that was a really good answer.

I'm surprised. Right? So I'm looking at her like, I'm sorry, what?

But my rationale was, not only is this not right, but I would actually be, in effect, committing malpractice if I didn't better prepare these students. Right? Because if they can't deal with me in the classroom, and they would say something like that to me, I can imagine what they would say to young people of color or to our LGBTQ friends, anyone who's different from them. And I just I felt like it was an obligation on my part.

My research really went into microaggressions first, and then it built out from there. And really, it just it gave a lot of validation. It, again, gave language, and it gave this epiphany as if to say, well, damn, it's not just me. And then another key moment, which really took me-- it took me into warp speed into really doing this work. I was going up for tenure.

I was going up with another colleague who was a White woman, international scholar, and the administration at the time said, well, we think you're traveling too much. And you're never here, and you're not present. And none of that was true, and I said to them, I'm traveling because it is my job to disseminate my work. Right? This is what you tell me that I have to do in order to get tenure. I said, but I'll tell you what.

If you tell me that, as a Black woman, I don't have to do three times the amount of work as my White colleague, I'll cancel the rest of my trips. And I had a had a flight the next day. So the administrators response was, OK, well, have a safe flight. And I did get tenure. I have been promoted since then, but it's always-- it is always a struggle. It is always a consideration. It is always strategizing how to move and how to react. Right? We can't be angry. We can't be sensitive.

We can't call things out. The gaslighting is real. I want to make sure that we get to in this conversation LIS crit, which is something that you've written about, presented about. The thing about critical race theory that-- and I think I'm going to use a direct quote from your article that you wrote, racism, systematic racism, is mundane and ordinary, rather than spectacular and outright.

And obviously, there are very egregious front-forward cases, when you have a student that directly questions you. But the mundanity I think is in the students to say, hey, I've never had a professor of color before. Well, why is that? What led-- what series of events in history led to that situation? You talk about bringing critical race theory into library instruction for library schools, which is what you do is teaching up-and-coming librarians.

So how do you-- you've talked about teaching things like microaggressions, but also there's cataloging class. There's information seeking class. How do you bring CRT into the curriculum like from all sides? DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: Well, one of the things that I'll say that quote is from the brilliant Khiara Bridges, who has one of the best books about-- it's a very accessible volume on topics.

It's called, actually, Critical Race Theory: a Primer by Khiara Bridges, and one of those things that when I read it, it just clicked. And one of the quotes that I always tell my students when I try to explain what a problem is when a bad practice becomes systemic and systematic is that I quote Marshall McLuhan. When asked about why study communication, he said something akin to, I'm not sure who discovered water, but I'm sure it wasn't a fish.

Meaning that the closer we are to a phenomenon, the less we tend to see it. And one thing that has been brought in rarely in library science education, and I think it's important to talk more about it, is based-- I'm going to use the wording from Ettarh, brilliant article, which is the occupational awe. So it's like where library is beyond questioning. It's all about good. It's all-American, I think. It's the quote has been all-American, like mama's love and apple pie.

It is not perfect, and it's not beyond questioning. We've had a lot of very questionable practices throughout the history of the profession, and we have to really come to terms with that, before we can move on and make systems that are better. We have been complicit as librarians in excluding racialized and ethnic minorities from our services. Yes, like Boston Public Library started one of the first public libraries in the United States.

Its beautiful logo, it says "Free to all," but it meant all White people. So the idea-- and I think Wayne Wiegand has written about this, was actually to inculturate poor Irish and Eastern European and Western European migrants who were coming to the United States into the ways it worked. But it was never to incorporate others who they saw as inferior to them based on race. So even to the origins of our profession.

We have a lot of issues, and if we don't start questioning them, and if we don't start coming to terms with those uncomfortable truths about complicity and exclusion, our history of complicity and exclusion, we're never going to make things better. DR. NICOLE COOKE: I've said, particularly since CRT has become the boogeyman, I feel like I've always taught CRT, since that example that I gave you. I just don't call it CRT. Right?

And it wasn't-- we're talking maybe over 10 years ago now that I've been a faculty member, and I just didn't need to use CRT. But I would talk about colorblindness. We would talk about microaggressions. We would talk about different things. And the students may not have known what we were doing, but we were using that frame to have conversations about the profession and how we can make the profession better. Right?

So one example that I would always use is, in cataloging and metadata, in the Library of Congress subject headings that some of them are, frankly, racist. Right? And so now, in 2023, we're doing reparative cataloging. Right? But Emily Drabinski, our current ALA president, has been talking about querying the catalog and doing other things with subject headings for over a decade. Now, I can't speak for Emily.

I don't know that Emily would call it CRT, but Emily is shining a light on those historic systems that Monica is mentioning that are so pervasive in our profession and keep us from moving forward.

We have a colleague, here at the University of South Carolina, who teaches culturally responsive teaching, and that just happens to have the same three letters. So she's currently being-- she's currently being, essentially, harassed by--

DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: Yeah, and I always say, after all of my experiences in the profession-- and I think Nicole and I have had this conversation, and we have the rolling joke. At a panel one time, somebody asked me, it's like why do you keep doing this, if it's so hard, if it takes so much from you? Because trust me, it takes a lot from you.

And I've never faced-- to this point, and I hope I never do-- but I'm not as visible as Nicole, and I've never had such aggressive personal attacks on my person. But mine has been behind closed doors, so a lot of to me and a lot of exclusion, et cetera. So somebody asked me like, why do you keep doing this? And I said because this is my profession, and I love it. And to be honest with you, at this point, I stay out of sheer spite, because there's been so many people trying to get me out.

But at this point, it just like, whenever I feel down, and I feel like I cannot write this paper, I'm like, wait a minute. And so there's a T-shirt that says "Surviving out of sheer spite," and Nicole sends the link to me every time. It's like, hey, here you go, your favorite motto, "Surviving out of sheer spite." So yeah, there's a good sense of I know who I am, and no, I will leave this profession when I am good and ready, if I am good and ready.

DR. NICOLE COOKE: Yes. Absolutely, and also, I think I can speak for Monica and say, we're going to leave the profession better than we found it. DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: Yes. DR. NICOLE COOKE: And you in addition to spite, which I've certainly thrived on that, playing the game of particularly higher ed, when we're talking about tenure and promotion and job security and things of that nature, I've written about folks.

I don't name names, but I think there is a certain necessity for this idea of shining the light on the infection. You have to shed the light on the infection, so people actually know the infection exists. Now, we may not have a vaccine for it-- we certainly don't, but this is the work that we're trying to do. There are very few faculty of color in Library and Information Science, and yes, we all know each other, and we've all had similar experiences, in one way or another.

And I would say, in the last maybe, what, six, seven years, we've been writing more about our experiences. And not only is it cathartic, but I think it's a way to have the conversation in a different way. And again, let people know that some of the calls are coming from inside the house, and what are we doing about this? And we had a special issue of a journal, in 2019, where I think at least eight of us wrote these stories.

And we've done panels at Elise, we've done panels at various conferences, and we do them every year. And these panels and these conference presentations are standing-room only. We've got great questions, great participation. And then inevitably, they all check the box, and they go home, and they don't do anything. Right? And then we're asked next year, can you do that panel? What if we did this panel?

I have done this panel every year for the last four years, and you've been there, because I saw you there. Right? So it is a lot of, sometimes, you really do feel like a hamster on the wheel. But we do the work, because this is what we live, and this is I think what we've been called to do.

To use one of your examples, moving toward an ethical and equitable critical race theory approach to social justice in library and information science, which is fine. That's what it is, and that's how it should be described. But if there was a get-real conference or a get-real journal, what would you title your article? DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: One thing that I will say, I'm not like sure about titles. It's like I usually give very descriptive titles, because that's how my brain works.

So I basically give you an abstract of what I'm talking about in the title. But one thing I will say is I'm doing another research project in which we are interviewing BIPOC librarians-- Black, Indigenous, People Of Color, for those who are not familiar with the acronym. And we are trying to get a lot of people who are either leaving the profession, thinking about leaving it, or have left. And I will tell you, I am astounded by the number of people who have opened up.

There's been a lot of tears in a research project, because the moment they start talking about they did this, this, this, this, and I just couldn't take it anymore. I've heard my story as a faculty member told by so many of my colleagues in library and information science who are BIPOCs. Who have either been forced out, are thinking about resigning, or have been actually terminated because of day-to-day things, standing up for themselves, doing things like that.

So I just keep going to there's a scholar called Marion Gasman, and a few years ago, she wrote an article that was later published in The Washington Post, I think it was, one of the newspapers, big national newspapers. And she titled her article, why are there not that many-- or there's so few people, faculty of color. And the answer in the title, it was like, because we don't want them, and she wrote it from the point of view of a White academic.

And she goes on to explain all the things she has seen through research and through her experience as a senior academic in hiring committees. And I am at this point that I think I would say, if I have to give you a title, "Here, even if I'm not wanted." That would be mine. DR. NICOLE COOKE: Yeah. Yeah.

I did already-- I was fortunate to have an article published about some library students of color from the 1970s, and the article was called "Guests in Someone Else's House" and really just talking about how these systems, how particularly these institutions of, quote, unquote, "Higher learning" are not built for BIPOC. They don't want us there, and we're treated as guests. Sometimes, we are unwelcome guests. So I think that would be the title.

And there's so many situations that I would like to have additional titles, perhaps, with some profanity. We haven't gotten to the point where we can publish those titles yet, but soon, and I'll be happy. DR. MONICA COLON-AGUIRRE: When you become Emerita. DR. NICOLE COOKE: Yeah.