Library blog

REPOST from June 2020: Awareness, Education and Action: Steps to Equity

Today, May 25, 2021, is the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd, who was murdered (according to a court of law) by a police officer during an arrest.  The death of George Floyd sparked riots and protests both in the United States and across the world.  Unfortunately, many of the issues that contributed to Floyd's death--including institutional racism such as racial profiling and bias in the criminal justice system--are still problems in 2021.  Too many black and brown people--men, women, and even children--are still being killed during encounters with law enforcement, especially when compared to the statistics for the deaths of white people at the hands of police. 

While we still struggle in this country to have all of us treated equally in all aspects and spheres of life, I wanted to re-post our library blog post from June 2020.  We still have many steps to go to achieve widespread awareness, education, and action--read on to learn what you might not know about these topics and find out what you could do to help move our world closer to equity.

Awareness, Education and Action: Steps to Equity

I’ve written and re-written this month’s [June 2020] blog post in my head multiple times, trying to find appropriate words to speak to the current situation of ongoing protests to demand an end to ongoing racial discrimination and inequality in this country. However, since I am white, there is so much that I cannot say. I cannot say that “I understand,” because I don’t. I didn’t grow up in a country where I faced obstacles in various places in our society simply because of the color of my skin (or the texture of my hair). I feel lucky that my parents raised me not to judge people based on anything other than their words and actions.

I will say that I did not learn until I was older (high school, maybe even college) that many other parents taught their children to be judgmental for many different reasons, including skin color. Although I learned about the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King in history classes, I did not learn until a few months ago that even though official segregation and racial discrimination became illegal, decades of discriminatory policies such as redlining have led to the largely racially-homogenized neighborhoods—and low percentage of home ownership by people of color—that we see in most towns and cities today. According to John Taylor, president and chief executive of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, “Homeownership is the number-one method of accumulating wealth, but the effect of these policies that create more hurdles for the poor is a permanent underclass that’s disproportionately minority.” Historic redlining is one of several practices that contributed to the systemic racism in this country.

There is a great text description of systemic racism on a page of the Ben & Jerry’s website (yes, the ice cream brand), where it states: “racism that infects the very structure of our society, is called systemic racism.” Please watch the video below for a short and instructive lesson on what systemic racism means, comparing the different advantages for the white youth and barriers for the black youth growing up together.

Awareness of the continuation of racial inequality and systemic racism in the United States is one small step that hopefully most Americans have taken now. To begin to achieve equity will require much more, not only from individuals but from legislators and other policy makers in positions of power. As a librarian, supporting and encouraging education is one of the actions I am taking. Many people don’t understand the difference between “equality” and “equity,” and I believe this misunderstanding is part of the problem we white people have in comprehending the true nature and extent of racially-related problems in our society.

In the cartoon above, you can see that in the left frame, all three of the spectators have equal support to see over the fence. However, the three spectators are not in equal situations, in respect to their current attempt to see over the fence. In the right frame, the supports have been rearranged to be equitable—the person who doesn’t need help to see over the fence doesn’t get a box, and the two others get one or two boxes based on how much support they need to have the same opportunity to see over the fence.

The phrase “Black Lives Matter” and the response from some of “All Lives Matter” also is an example of the misunderstanding of equality vs. equity. As shown in the cartoon below, saying “Black Lives Matter” does not mean that other lives don’t matter—it means that in today’s society, black lives need awareness of and attention paid to their situation that other lives do not. In our currently highly-polarized climate, too many people see almost all situations as us or them—that for one person to succeed, another person must lose something. While that is true in some situations, improving the lives of African-Americans and other people of color does not mean white people’s lives will suffer. For example, positive relationships between police and all groups of people in a city/town will improve the lives of everyone by reducing overall crime.

Ibram X. Kendi, professor and director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University, is the National Book Award-winning author of “Stamped From the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” and the New York Times Bestseller “How to Be an Antiracist.” He compiled an antiracist reading list addressing: biology, ethnicity, body, culture, behavior, color, whiteness, blackness, class, spaces, gender and sexuality.

Once we have educated ourselves, especially those of us who are not black or a member of another minority group, then we can be better prepared to take actions that will help make our world a better place for all people.