Microaggressions in Librarianship

Why not just take it easy for a year?

I’m a white woman. Long story but was in a tenure-track position at an academic library. Supervisor, mentor, and several others recommended that I go up for tenure a year early, due to my experience, time in the field, etc. (my tenure “clock” was skewed due to some technicalities about the position I was originally hired into). The Associate Dean told me that it “wasn’t done” and although he admitted I had the qualifications and likely everything I needed to be successful, I should just “take it easy” for another year, rather than try to go up early. Later found out he had counseled a male colleague in the same situation exactly the opposite. What was there to lose? Well, a year’s worth of a significant pay raise for starters.  

Middle Age, White and Egocentric

Early on in my position at a university archives, I presented ideas to my boss, a white man who is head of my department. My ambition and enthusiasm to make changes for the betterment of our department were met with malice. “You are not the director of this archive. I do not plan to leave here for a long while.” This was just the start of many other microagressions.

Bigotry in LIS Education

I am a Jewish faculty member teaching in a School of Library and Information Studies in the American South. Early in my career, over the course of two academic years, I received anonymous anti-Semitic threats in my work mailbox. All were reported to my immediate supervisors; all were covered up by administrators. The perpetrators were protected, and I was threatened with physical violence if I attempted to go to HR [I was threatened while walking home from work by an administrative staff member and a knife was left in my mailbox]. My institution is very public in its commitments to social justice. While the intentions of many individuals in my School are genuine, I have trouble reconciling the institutional posturing with the actual institutional conduct.

My goal is to remain at the institution for the duration of my career [I have decades left to work]. I enjoy working with my students, and though I miss my Northern home state, think I am doing a lot of good here. However, I do not forget that I am dedicated to an institution that tolerated the viewpoint that people like me [Jewish people] should be exterminated. My heart breaks, and I feel guilty for my cowardice. Other Jewish students, staff, and faculty might have been harmed because I was afraid.  

Early in my first librarian job after grad school, a coworker (older cishet white woman) came into my office and shut the door. She had noticed that, in an online announcement about library services to students, I had mentioned that I was Safe Zone-trained (and thus supportive of all gender identities and sexual orientations). She was concerned that if I “put diversity in everything,” some students wouldn’t feel comfortable talking to me. I’m transgender and not closeted, so “some students” definitely came across as “transphobic people.” In the same conversation, she said that she knew that she didn’t know the right words and carried on to use the ones she did: “transvestites, transsexuals, whatever.” She also made sure to tell me that she had gay friends, though, so it’s probably all fine.

Fortunately, this person has retired and we are all extremely happy about it. Some of her other contributions to Microaggression Bingo:

-Telling an autistic student that she (the student) was very high-functioning and she (the librarian) would never have known.

-“I always have trouble with weird names. I’m sorry, I should have said international names.”

-Various and sundry comments about the (entirely black) housekeeping staff and some of the waiters (also black) at her favorite restaurant.

It’s not that hard

I’m a part an IT team that has only 3 women, all of us Asian. One has been there for 15 years, another for 5 years, and I for 2 years. Most of our white colleagues have mistakenly referred to us 3 by one another’s name. Our team has 11 men (most of whom are white and middle aged) and I’ve never mistaken them for another white man. It’s not that hard to get it right; they’ve been working with us for years.

A former colleague (a white women) at a previous workplace made a joke about all Asian women being the same. That was the last straw for me. I called her out. We’re not interchangeable. We have our own skills, experiences, and aspirations.

I resent that POC are expected to be the educators, while white people can’t be bothered to smarten up on their own. POC have to endure so much rage, sorrow, and fear before we speak up. Part of the reason why I called that coworker out was because I was a contractor and she wasn’t in a position of authority; there was little loss for me.

I’m a cis white queer female who has unseen/invisible disabilities. I entered an LIT program last fall. I quickly became aware that nobody in the department cared about disability accommodation, and that instructors were actively hostile to disabled students.

I continually witnessed accommodation denials – usually communicated angrily – and was denied an accommodation (one that had NO cost and is very easy to implement) that I have found integral to my success in education. The head of the program supported the instructors in denying me access. The disability services office basically just went ‘Well, they don’t want to do it, so that’s that’. 

I dropped out of the LIT program and will not return to the library profession, despite being asked to do research for family and friends on a regular basis. I do literature searches in databases at my current job. Finding and sharing information is my hobby. I had hoped to make it a profession but cannot deal with such hostility. And I’m more privileged than others in numerous ways…

Librarian

White male librarian, corrected my grammar and told me I should speak proper English because we are in America.

He apologized right away.

Yesterday while waiting to go into our bosses office, he and our bosses white female assistant joked about being microaggressed, and micooppressed.

Floored by insensitive leadership : subliminal messages of “quit”.

Living in an area where the largest minority population are Hispanic people, many of whom self identify as white. Dean of the library unabashedly calls these Hispanic people illegals.

Tells lgbtq person the least interesting thing about a person is them being gay.
…sigh.

No hats or hoods

My colleagues at my college library (who supervise student workers) have a “no hats or hoods” rule.  This article, although it deals more with high schoolers, supports my position about this microagression.

It’s exhausting

Overheard 3 middle-aged white male colleagues complaining about gender equality being a major topic at the recent G7 Summit. 

I, a young WOC, was the only person within earshot of them. I was tempted to say something, but it would’ve been 3 against 1, and I don’t have the time or energy to explain to them why gender equality is a big issue. It’s exhausting, whether I speak up or not.