WTF is a Radical Librarian, Anyway?

Hello everyone, it’s been a long time. Most of the reasons I’ve been gone are good things— I’ve finished all my classes for my PhD and am now starting on the second half of my program aka writing, writing, writing! I’ve also been working on my book which I hope to finish before fall semester rolls around. So! Much! Writing! And I’ve gotten to watch our baby Chiweenie (half chihuahua half dachshund) turn 2 years old! Here’s a photo of Chloe, our baby 🙂

But some of the reasons I’ve been MIA are not so good— my MIL had a major health setback and is living with Elena and me. And the baseline for the two of us has somewhat dramatically decreased in the past year. Things I could do (with difficulty) have become seemingly impossible, and my hemoglobin baseline has never been lower. And my surgeon has decided that they won’t even put me on the kidney list now, because they don’t know how to proceed considering my sickle cell! It’s a mess and a half.

So. As my health and baseline have decreased I’ve tipped my toes deeper and deeper into the COVID-conscious/disabled community. And in many ways, it’s been refreshing! I’ve learned a lot of ways to make life more accessible for myself and my needs as well as meeting cool new people. But then it happens…what is it you ask? Well, my fellow POC will understand but let’s see if y’all catch it. What is wrong with the following picture?

Did you catch it? For those who didn’t, let me explain. In this picture (which is a still from a longer video), the lady is complaining about the unprofessional atmosphere of the facility she went to get lab work done. Through her words she paints a picture of this unpleasant facility— the smell of stale cigarettes, the grimy atmosphere, the music blasting, and the lack of staffing all make for a visceral image and feeling of discomfort and disgust. But wait. Let’s go back to that first descriptive phrase… “the facility is blasting hip hop and r&b.” A fairly innocuous phrase until you realize that the music, and more importantly, the genre of music is meant to be part of the unprofessional atmosphere she’s describing. Not only that, but in the list of facts used to describe the facility, she mentions the genre of music first. Grammatically, people tend to list facts and/or opinions in either chronological order or order of importance. Which, in this case, means that when she was creating the image of an unprofessional atmosphere in her head she either noticed the genres of music first (chronological order), or felt that the music was the most egregious of all the things going on in the facility (order of importance). Either way, why was the fact that hip hop and r&b were being played in the facility mentioned at all? And why was it mentioned in the context of unprofessional behavior?

Because hip hop and r&b are associated with the Black community. And Black bodies and anything Black bodies create are seen as inherently inferior— in this case, unprofessional. Whether it be the way our hair grows out of our head, or the way our languages are mocked and reduced to slang or how our very presence in a space is simultaneously invisible and hyper visible, Black people cannot exist without constant scrutiny and judgment. Would this creator have likened country music to the same judgment? Or Taylor Swift?

So because I believe in calling in (as opposed to calling out), I reached out to them in a comment. And well…

I stopped replying because it was obvious the conversation was not going to be productive. I wish I could say I was surprised by the dismissal of the critique and the subsequent doubling down, but instances like this happen all the time. All. The. Time.

Disabled communities, whether it be online or IRL, have a race problem. It’s such a problem that in 2016, Vilissa Thompson created the hashtag #DisabilitySoWhite to shed a light on the various ways POC are consistently marginalized and silenced in these spaces. Why? Well, like their able-bodied counterparts, many white disabled people are not equipped to handle these discussions. And why would they be? After all, the bulk of nonprofits that focus on any type of disability are primarily led by white people, and many of the bigger disability accounts and influencers on social media are also white. So, while they may abstractly know and understand that they need more diversity in these spaces, many haven’t done the work to figure out why POC feel uncomfortable in their spaces. And that it’s their choices and policies that prevent accessibility to disabled POC. Yes, for communities so adamant about increasing accessibility in personal and professional spaces, white disabled people and communities can be completely ignorant to the ways they are inaccessible to people of color. And as Sara Ahmed so aptly said, “when you expose a problem, you pose a problem.” And in that exchange, I became the problem.

So, what is a girl to do? There’s seeking out more disabled POC to follow, which I have definitely done. There’s continuing the work of trying to interject intersectional thinking into these movements and spaces. But honestly, I’m tired. I’m always down to fight the good fight, don’t get me wrong. But with everything happening in the world, and in my personal life, I am being more intentional about where I place my energy. Basically, I am trying to take the advice that I give everyone else! To understand that rest is important. That recharging is healthy. That not every thing in life is worthy of your whole self. And that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. It’s never easy to listen to your own advice, but you just gotta take it one day at a time.

All this to say, hi! I’m still here. I’m still fighting the good fight. I’m just taking my time, and choosing my battles. And that’s good enough for me.