I am new in my position in our library, and one of my main focuses for the next several years will be the collection. It is outdated. Authors and subjects are largely white, and those that are not can be...problematic to say the least. I have pulled several books out of the collection that contain troubling racialized or sexist messages or images. LGBTQ+ representation is almost non-existent, as is disabled representation. And outside of representation, I find that the creators of the works that I do have are largely white. Without doing a full diversity audit (something that I plan on doing in the next few years), it would be hard to give hard numbers, but even my attempts to create displays representing authors of color have shown me that we are lacking in this department.
It is my goal for my classroom/library to be a safe place to explore ideas and express identities in peace and without judgement. I feel very strongly about it. It occurs to me that this likely stems out of my own marginalization and empathy for others who are marginalized. It is my goal to help students who are marginalized by giving them a safe space, but also making those students who might marginalize or oppress others build their skills in empathy and understanding. This is especially important in districts like mine, where the student body is majority white but also rural and lower SES. There is a lot of power and privilege in whiteness, but low SES can make people feel disenfranchised, powerless. It is a balancing act to helping students understand that simply being benefactors of some kinds of privilege does not automatically mean that their lives are easy and thus, since their lives are not easy they must not benefit from any sort of privilege.
It is my goal for my classroom/library to be a safe place to explore ideas and express identities in peace and without judgement. I feel very strongly about it. It occurs to me that this likely stems out of my own marginalization and empathy for others who are marginalized. It is my goal to help students who are marginalized by giving them a safe space, but also making those students who might marginalize or oppress others build their skills in empathy and understanding. This is especially important in districts like mine, where the student body is majority white but also rural and lower SES. There is a lot of power and privilege in whiteness, but low SES can make people feel disenfranchised, powerless. It is a balancing act to helping students understand that simply being benefactors of some kinds of privilege does not automatically mean that their lives are easy and thus, since their lives are not easy they must not benefit from any sort of privilege.