Stats for nerds
1recommend
8mentions
4people
2022–2026years
13% recommend75% neutral13% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Fair enough. You do say you're interested in honest inquiry, so I'll give you a few resources.
A first step is considering that difference can be accepted. "The Illusions of Egalitarianism" by John Kekes is a good place to start in understanding where an egalitarian approach falls short. Because many people in the world are religious, and religious belief shapes much action, you might also want to understand differences between religions, so I recommend "God Is Not One" by Stephen Prothero.
The subject of white denigration is itself polarizing among "white people", which demonstrates a certain white fragility, I suppose. One polarizing book which examines white denigration relative to other groups is "White Identity" by Jared Taylor. In my experience, polarizing books usually get at important points without fully arriving at the main conclusion, so I would recommend you read it carefully yet avoid prejudgement one way or the other until the very end. While I've skimmed its content out of curiosity, I haven't given it a careful read myself, so I'm not endorsing all its conclusions. That said, the main points appear well-sourced (over 1200 citations).
Grasping social understanding is important to understand the relationship between stereotypes and accuracy. On this, I recommend "Social Perception and Social Reality" by Lee Jussim. A key quote from that book is: "[According to the social science literature,] When a self-fulfilling prophecy occurs, perceivers’ expectations lead them to treat targets in accord with those expectations, and targets respond to that treatment in ways that confirm the originally erroneous expectation."
Hope this helps.
- I think this includes school libraries, though neither the NPR nor the ALA article it sources mention that. Regardless, I'm always surprised how Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail, or White Identity by Jared Taylor, never make the list. I guess they're just widely accepted and non-controversial?
- Camp of the Saints by Jean Raspail, or White Identity by Jared Taylor, never make these banned book lists. They don't have to be "banned" - libraries simply make them unavailable, so they get to control information, without being the kind of horrible people that would censor or ban a book. How virtuous!
- We have, broadly speaking, two groups deciding which books to make available to children using taxpayer money - the voters/parents/elected officials, and unelected librarians. If one of those groups decides to withhold a book from schoolchildren, it's fine and not a ban. But if another does the same, then it's a ban.
Or am I completely wrong, and Jared Taylor's "White Identity" is available in every school library, explaining its absence from "banned" book lists?
- So Jared Taylor's "White Identity" is available in most school libraries?
- > There is a difference between a professional academic librarians managing a collection and political activists suppressing societal critiques and marginalized identities.
Yes, the difference is the political activism of librarians is institutionalized [0]. You don't view the absence of Jared Taylor's "White Identity", or any similar book, from school libraries, as "suppressing societal critiques", do you? Why, because it's done quietly and tacitly?
It's so funny seeing the same people complaining how every institution is systemically racist or whatever-ist (including math [1,2] - I made sure links are for the US, since apparently that is such a special case that critiques of institutions in even the most closely related countries are completely inapplicable to it), then turn around and claim that "no, this institution that does what I like is beyond politics, driven by pure expertise", even in a field as fuzzy and political as child education.
> The reference you posted is about collection management at libraries London School of Economics in England.
Thank you for this uselessly reductive interpretation. While yes of course libraries in those other, lesser countries are politicized and in need of correction, libraries in the US are objective and beyond reproach - unless [3] that [4] reproach [5] comes [6] from [7] the [8] left [9,10,11].
When activists lobby to change institutions how I like, this is good and necessary - those institutions are systemically racist, colonialist, and biased!
When activists lobby to change institutions how you like [12], this is bad and political - those institutions are dispassionate, apolitical, objective experts!
[0] https://libnews.umn.edu/event/librarians-and-social-justice-...
[1] https://www.clrn.org/why-is-mathematics-racist/
[2] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/modern-mathematic...
[3] What It Means to Decolonize the Library - https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/l...
[4] Interpreting decolonization in academic libraries - https://www.ala.org/news/2021/12/interpreting-decolonization...
[5] Decolonizing the CSW Library - https://library.csw.org/home/decolonize
[6] Taking Steps to Decolonize Library Collections, Policies, and Services - https://serials.atla.com/proceedings/article/download/3336/4...
[7] Over the last decade, there have been increasing calls to “decolonize” the archive. - https://whc.yale.edu/what-colonial-archive
[8] Diversifying the Curriculum & Decolonizing the Collection - https://blogs.library.duke.edu/blog/2022/04/11/diversifying-...
[9] Remembering the Howard University Librarian Who Decolonized the Way Books Were Catalogued - https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/remembering-howard-un...
[10] Diversifying Collections - https://www.wocandlib.org/features/2022/5/11/diversifying-co...
[11] Anti-Racist Collections Workbook: A Tool for Building Inclusive Library Collections - https://www.journals.ala.org/index.php/lrts/article/view/855...
[12] I don't actually like it, I just don't fool myself into thinking what librarians are doing is any different. If anything, it is worse, since it is invisible and unchallenged.
