Refracted Neutrality

A quick update on a recent post, The Antidote of Windows and Mirrors, in which I shared the first ever documentary evidence of a gathering of the avian ruling council of elders known as the CORVID-19: When you google "CORVID-19" you have to dig through the results to find only a tiny handful of websites actually about birds; by far the majority of what comes up is pages about the pandemic with typos and misspellings. So. There is that.

We're now less than a week away from the presidential election. I've already voted, as have many of my friends and family. Way back when the pandemic started we requested ballots by mail so we could vote without being in contact with people. Then, in a plethora of ways I won't go into here, the president weakened the postal service's ability to deliver ballots in a timely manner--along with calling the validity of the election into question in countless ways. So we decided not to wait, and hand delivered our advanced ballots as soon as we could. Records have already been set this election for number of advance voters. And we're still almost a week away.

One of my recent Facebook statuses: I'm currently reading a book set in L.A. during the Rodney King riots and at one point they talk about the Watts Riots. Just has me pondering what the history books are going to say about the 2020 post-election riots.

That's not really hyperbole.

Speaking of that book, I really like the way the author puts this:

"Your parents don't know what she's so sad about. Sadness for them is a cause and effect, not simply a way to be."

It's The Black Kids by Christina Hammonds Reed. My review:

A nuanced, layered story of a significant moment in a young person's life. This is a character-driven book about Ashley, and also about all the people in her life, and what they learn about themselves and each other during the riots after the Rodney King trial. Ashley lives a privileged life in a wealthy part of L.A., about to graduate from an exclusive, wealthy school as the only Black person in her group of friends. Reactions to events in other parts of the city lead her to a series of realizations about those privileges, both ones she has and ones she lacks, as there is no escaping the wide-spread tumult. The story is intimate, grounded, and complex, spending as much time in everyday details and mundane moments as the big, historic one. It is a portrayal of real life, both ordinary and momentous.

I think maybe Reed has also met my kids:

Boys my age can't seem to get enough climbing and jumping on an over things, like their testicles are propellers commanding them always "Up!"

Heather Cox Richardson has become a celebrity this year for her daily updates on current events. I don't follow her, but I regularly see her shared in my feed. I especially like what she had to say yesterday, October 27, 2020. Here's one bit.

The same people who had bitterly and publicly complained about Black Americans participating in society as equal to whites began to argue that their problem with Black voting was not about race, but rather about class. They said that they objected to poor voters being able to elect leaders who promised to deliver services or public improvements, like schools and roads, that could be paid for only by taxes, levied on property holders. 

In the South of the post-Civil War years, almost all property holders were white. They argued that Black voting amounted to a redistribution of wealth from hardworking white men to poor Black people. It was, they insisted, “socialism,” or, after workers in Paris created a Commune in 1871, “communism.” 

This is the origin of the American obsession with “socialism,” more than 40 years before Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution.

Since that time, Americans have cried “socialism” whenever ordinary Americans try to use the government to level the economic playing field by calling for business regulation—which will cost tax dollars by requiring bureaucrats—or for schools and roads, or by asking for a basic social safety net. But the public funding of roads and education and health care is not the same thing as government taking over the means of production. Rather, it is an attempt to prevent a small oligarchy from using the government to gather power to themselves, cutting off the access of ordinary Americans to resources, a chance to rise, and, ultimately, to equality before the law.

That's an absolutely key piece of history that is still playing out in exactly the same way today. Exactly the same.

And while those like me are regularly accused of promoting socialism, we have been worried from the start of this president's candidacy that he was taking our country on a road to fascism.

Fascism is a far-right political ideology born in the early twentieth century. At its heart is the idea of a strong nation, whose people are welded into a unit by militarism abroad and the suppression of opposition at home. While socialism starts from the premise that all members of society are equal, fascists believe that that some people are better than others, and those elites should direct all aspects of society. To promote efficiency, fascists believe, business and government should work together to direct production and labor. To make people loyal to the state, fascists promote the idea of a domestic enemy that threatens the country and which therefore must be vanquished to make the nation great. The idea of a hierarchy of men leads to the defense of a dictatorial leader who comes to embody the nation.

Richardson goes on the list some of the many things he has done that meet that definition. It’s a frightening list, no? Then she concludes with:

But for all that, Trump is an aspiring oligarch, rather than a fascist. He has no driving ideology except money and sees the country as a piggy bank rather than as a juggernaut for national greatness. Still, that his drive for power comes from a different place than fascism makes it no less dangerous to our democracy.

Over the next few years, we are going to have to have hard conversations about the role of government in society. Those conversations will not be possible if any Democratic policy to regulate runaway capitalism is met with howls of "socialism" while Republican policies that increasingly concentrate power in a small group of Americans are not challenged for the dangerous ideologies they mimic.

And he has forces ready to potentially fight for him if the election results aren't what they want.

On a more personal note, a while back I wrote in Send Love about some angry and unproductive emails I wrote as part of a work conversation that got me in a bit of trouble. I had a good idea behind what I was trying to say at the time, but I did a very poor job of communicating it. The conversation was related to my library's response to current racial affairs, how to both support the need for justice and to maintain objectivity, fairness, and neutrality as a community resource. That last is a big word in the library world, neutrality. It's both a fundamental concept and one with a disputed definition. It includes ideas of intellectual freedom, diverse representation and viewpoints, free and open access, and more. It's a value I strongly endorse, with caveats.

You can see some recent debate on the issue from an ALA conference a couple of years ago at Are Libraries Neutral? The site captures remarks by speakers at a prominent discussion featuring leaders in the profession. Also, the abstract for a journal article earlier this year, Neutrality in public libraries: How are we defining one of our core values?, includes an extensive bibliography for more reading. And I played around with some related thoughts in composing the not-quite-poem in Round Is a Beautiful Shape, "I Have No Answers." It's a precursor to what follows, my attempt to find words for the ideas in my head on the topic. I had no answers at the time because I hadn't yet figured out how to articulate those ideas. Last week I succeeded in formulating them. It's more convoluted and muddled than I'd like, not communicating my ideas as effectively as it should, but I finally managed to at least verbalize them in a form I can share with others.

Here is is:

Neutrality is a laudable goal and one we should work towards as much as possible. The problem is that no matter how we strive to achieve neutrality, it will always remain an aspiration. It is an abstract ideal that can never truly be realized. Reality is too messy and contextual. Every person has biases and limited understanding and perspective. Every position inherently promotes values of one kind or another, supports some things and opposes others.

Even the effort to find a balance between extremes promotes the values of openness and fairness, which someone somewhere will find disagreeable. It includes the values of listening to others, of facts being verifiable—of a difference between fact and fiction—of intellectual freedom, and of equal access. And in promoting those values in our aspirations to be neutral, we automatically oppose some of those people and positions we aspire to be open to. Not everyone supports equity and equality. Not everyone believes all sides should be given fair consideration. Advocating neutrality excludes them even as it intends to include them. Even the fundamental idea of libraries being shared community resources supported by taxes is one that many would label (correctly or incorrectly) a type of socialism, so our very existence puts us in opposition to some ways of thinking. We are not and can never be value free.

Add to this the fact that we can only ever achieve these values imperfectly due to our flaws, biases, and limitations. As much as we try to be fair, open, and balanced, we’ll not hit quite dead center, will accidentally marginalize some, and will miss some of the complex dimensions of the issue. So when we try to claim a veneer of perfect neutrality over this nuanced reality, we are dishonest. We would be better served by attempting to acknowledge our imperfections openly alongside our aspirations of neutrality. Instead of pretending our biases and perspectives don’t exist, we should bring them out into the open and make them part of the process.

To be less theoretical, I’m reminded of a discussion among staff at Central about patron complaints about the cable news channel on our TV. None of the channels present a completely neutral, unbiased report on events. So by picking one to have on instead of the others, we are necessarily excluding some points of view. C-SPAN was suggested, but that doesn’t really cover news issues and, like libraries, inherently supports government and government-funded media. A rotation was suggested, but that only gives fair representation for people who are watching during every part of the rotation. There is no perfect answer, no true neutral, and every possibility includes some measure of bias.

Another huge aspect of the issue to consider is intent versus perception. No matter what message we intend to deliver with our decisions, it will get muddled by how people receive and perceive it. We can only offer the message imperfectly and it will only arrive imperfectly, getting distorted at both ends of the process. Some people might find a cable news channel perfectly fair and accurate that others find more propaganda than news. It depends on the viewer.

Another example is the COVID-19 mask mandate. The library intends that to be a purely health-based decision with no political values involved, yet many see it as a political decision regardless. We see it as content-neutral; they see it as taking a very explicit side in opposition to many authorities and political figures.

This doesn’t mean we stop aspiring for the abstract ideal of neutrality, it means we admit the reality is more complicated than that and that despite our best intentions we’re not as neutral as we hope to be—and that that’s a necessary part of the process. If supporting the mask mandate puts us in opposition to some, if it is necessarily a political statement, then it is. We are not neutral and we acknowledge and accept that.

This conversation was spurred at least in part by a discussion about the Movement for Black Lives and whether the library should officially support the phrase “Black Lives Matter.” Like any issue, it is a complicated one, and just what “Black Lives Matter” means depends on who is saying it and who is hearing it. Like masks, many have decided it is a political issue that excludes and opposes them. They have decided it means this regardless of the intent of the speaker. And, I have been told, were the library to endorse Black Lives Matter, in some way it would make that segment of our population feel unwelcome, it would marginalize and exclude them and undermine our values of neutrality and openness. That neutrality demands we remain silent on this issue because anything else chooses a side.

But it’s more complicated than that. Because, again, it’s not just what we say that matters, it’s what others perceive. If we do not endorse Black Lives Matter, many will see us as opposing it. They will see us as supporting a status quo that is not equal or equitable for Black people. Those people see a political issue with two sides; so just as supporting the movement will make some feel marginalized, excluded, and unwelcome, not supporting will do the same to others. In minds on both sides, there is no neutral. No matter what we decide, we make ourselves less open and more hostile to some.

And even though the phrase is just three words, much more is being said when it is uttered than those three words. At its simplest, it is saying that Black Lives Matter as much as all others. Which also says that, in practice, Black lives are not treated as if they matter as much as others. It is an implied critique of the status quo. It is also an intentional critique of police brutality, explicitly naming police treatment as one of the areas that Black lives are valued less than others. And, of course, it is a critique of those who value Black lives less in thought as well as practice, intentional as well as unintentional. There is more, but let’s just consider that for now. So to endorse Black Lives Matter is to critique police brutality, the consciously racist, and structural and systemic racism. It is not, in its intent, a statement about police outside of situations of brutality or about those who do not believe the current racial landscape is unequal and inequitable. If people chose to perceive it as being so, as making a political statement, that is a perception on their part and not a position the library has taken. It is similar to those who see us endorsing the mask mandate as making a political position. It means something in their perception different than what we mean in saying it.

We are willing to make a segment of our population feel marginalized and unwelcome by endorsing the mask mandate because we see it as a health issue. We accept that we are not “neutral” in their eyes on the issue because we feel lives are at stake. Similarly, though it is disputable, there is convincing evidence that racial inequality and systemic racism are health issues. As with the mask mandate, we would be justified in making a segment of our population feel marginalized and unwelcome by endorsing Black Lives Matter because we see it as a health issue. We could accept not being neutral in their eyes on the issue because lives are equally at stake.

Simply by existing, libraries endorse values that are opposed by some. We consciously and openly support many values, such as intellectual freedom, even if it means there are those who disagree. We are intentionally not neutral in many ways and accept alienating some people as a necessary result. In all other areas we must accept that at best we can be imperfectly neutral with unintended biases and limitations, and some will be excluded and marginalized in spite of our best efforts. And there will always be those who choose to see our close-to-neutral positions as biased and unfair because of their beliefs and perspectives, again feeling excluded and marginalized despite our intentions. Neutrality is an abstract ideal to which we should aspire, but in doing so we should always accept that we can never truly be neutral and should not pretend otherwise. 

I've shared it with a few people at work who are interested in continuing the discussion. I haven't heard back yet from them, so I don't know if it actually makes any sense to people who are not me. I'm curious to see what they think and where we go from here.

Related is this from The Atlantic. I'm not excited that it's actually an ad, but I like what it says outside of the advertising.

To Save America, Argue Better

It's not that we need to stop arguing with each other. We just need to find more effective ways to do it.

“The argument between the two halves of our national motto, e pluribus unum, is about focusing on our diversity and multiplicity on one side, and the need for unity on the other,” Liu says. That argument is at the core of the American idea, but it’s in danger of being eroded by the reactionary, self-centered nature of contemporary discourse. . . . 

The Better Arguments framework provides a few guiding principles: one, take winning off the table; two, prioritize relationships and listen passionately; three, pay attention to context; four, embrace vulnerability; and five, make room to transform. According to all three Better Arguments organizations, incorporating those principles into the debates that dominate headlines today, whether they’re about gun control or immigration, will lead to arguments that strengthen our democracy, not divide it.

The three founding organizations are united by their belief that civil discourse and disagreement is not only possible, but necessary, and a fundamental component of the United States. . . . 

With the 2020 elections around the corner, it’s more important than ever that we find a way to talk about our differences, even when it comes to the most contentious topics. That’s where the Better Arguments Project comes in, hosting and facilitating difficult conversations in communities around the country and offering tools for others to do the same. . . . 

Ultimately, Liu, Brooks, and Sharpe don’t want to change an election cycle or statistics about what different political parties feel. They want to change how Americans think about themselves and each other. This includes an emphasis on personal context; that is, the societal and individual histories that make people who they are. “Paying attention to context is understanding what your views are born out of,” Sharpe says. “What are the roots of your opinions and ideas? It’s also about understanding who you’re talking to, what are the roots of their beliefs.” This, Sharpe notes, is the first step to building empathy and compassion.

“The end goal of the project is not another Better Arguments event,” Brooks says. “It’s that we actually shape, at a mass level, the way people think about others in their lives, especially others with whom they disagree.”

There are definitely some ideas there in dialogue with my own.

I'm less discouraged about current events when I remember this from America, Know Thyself (Part 1 of 3):

We've never truly been united in our beliefs and values. We have eleven different sets of ideals that go back to the continent's founding and beyond--sets that often contradict and compete with each other--and our history has been one long process of negotiation, of fighting for influence and power that still carries on to this day. "There isn't and never has been one America," he writes, "but several Americas." And we don't have one set of "founding fathers" and ideals, but many that still inform our competing identities today.

So maybe we'll be able to peacefully negotiate what's about to happen after all. Maybe.

I mentioned a couple of posts ago, The Antidote of Windows and Mirrors, a workshop I'm planning for one of my work initiatives. I shared my planned introduction there. Here is a bit of the supplemental material. We won't have time to do anything directly with this, but I'm providing it as additional ideas to consider in case it helps the participants formulate their thoughts.

My Group Identities

Instructions: 

1. Write your name in the center circle.
2. In outer circles, write the names of 6 groups with which you identify. (examples: family, religion, race/ethnicity, school, activity, club, gender, orientation, hobby/interest, etc.)
3. Using the groups above (primary identities for you) answer the following:
• Consider a time when you have felt proud to be a member of one of these groups.
• Consider a painful experience resulting from membership in one of these groups.

2. 
   

3. ---

4. 
   

My Racial Environment

  

In my environment	Race(s)
I am
My closest friends are
My classmates are
My school is predominantly
My teachers are mostly
Most of those with whom I share a hobby are
My dentist is
My doctor is
Other people who live in my home are
Other adults around me are
My neighbors are

Consider:

How does the race of those around you impact you?

How do you feel when most of those around you look like you?

How do you feel when most of those around you look different than you?

Do you act differently depending on the race of those you are with?

Do you relate more to adults and role models who share your race? 

---

Exploring Race

1. On a scale of 1-5, how comfortable are you talking about race/racism? Explain.

2. 
   

2. How would you define race? What does it mean to you? 

3. 
   

3. How would you define racism?

4. 
   

4. How many races do you think there are? What are they? How do you decide which race someone belongs to?

5. 
   

5. Where do think ideas about race come from? What are the sources of that information?

6. 
   

6. Describe your most recent positive experience of race? Describe your most recent negative experience of race?

7.  

Take a couple of minutes to write 3 characteristics of a: 

• Black person
• Middle Eastern person
• White person
• South or East Asian person
• Latinx person
• Indigenous person

Where did your ideas come from? 

---

Ideas for Consideration 

 

From Be Anti-Racist: A Journal for Awareness, Reflection, and Action by Ibram X. Kendi 

 

pg. 11+ - “Racist ideas make people of color think less of themselves, which makes them more vulnerable to racist ideas. Racist ideas make White people think more of themselves, which further attracts them to racist ideas.” 

• Reflect on a time when you thought too highly of yourself as a result of racist ideas about your own racial group. 

• Reflect on a time when you thought too little of yourself as a result of racist ideas about the inferiority of your own racial group. 

 

 

pg. 59 – What is your relationship to your racial identity? Do you feel connected to or separated from your racial identity? Why? 

 

 

pg. 86+ 

• How would you define culture? 

• What constitutes an American to you? 

• When you think of American culture, what religion, language, philosophy, art forms, food, and clothing do you think about? Is this accurate? 

• What are the negative effects of ascribing specific behaviors to specific racial groups? 

 

 

pg. 98+ – How should we disentangle identity, culture, behavior, and race? 

• Describe a time when you did not treat an individual as an individual or when you chalked up someone’s behavior to someone’s race. 

• What work needs to be done to treat people as individuals? Is that hard to do? Why? 

• “Racial group behavior is a figment of the racist’s imagination. Individual behaviors can shape the success of individuals. But policies determine the success of groups. And it is racist power that creates the policies that cause racial inequities.” (pg. 92) 

 

 

Pg. 111 – How does our focus on White people as the problem—instead of racist power and policy—lead to the strengthening of racist power and policy? 

 

 

Pg. 175 – What is the source of racism? 

 

Pg. 11

Pg. 77

Pg. 78

If I'm asked at work my thoughts about the election I have no comment, officially, on the record with library patrons. Outside of that context? I'm not so neutral.