Breaking Below the Surface of Racism, Whiteness, and Implicit Bias - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Breaking Below the Surface of Racism, Whiteness, and Implicit Bias

April M. Hathcock, JD, LLM, MLIS ACLCP Spring 2016 @AprilHathcock

Todd and Jamilah

WHITENESS

“Whiteness-berg”

Image Credit: Uwe Kils, photomontage, Wikipedia, CC BY- SA

Niceness, politeness vs. Overt racist acts, racial slurs Microaggressions Implicit bias

Whiteness = Colorblindness, Neutrality

Image Credit: “Iceland” by Kamil Porembiński via Flickr, CC BY-SA

“To acknowledge Whiteness is not to perpetuate it, but it is the first step in uprooting it.” ~Gusa (2010)

Call instances of whiteness out for what they are.

Name Question

Identify the underlying assumptions or stereotypes at play. Reframe thinking and develop alternative ways

• f acting.

Challenge

Antiracist Practice

You have a new colleague in the library names Xieyun Huang. You’re having a lot

• f trouble remembering and pronouncing her name and so have asked her if she has

a “more American” nickname you can use, like Susan or Joan.

Antiracist Practice

While searching for a resource near the reference desk, you overhear a faculty member ask your African-American colleague, who is staffing the reference desk, if your colleague could please “go get a real librarian” to help the faculty member with

• research. When your colleague insists that he is a real librarian, the faculty member

still insists on working with someone who “looks like they know what they’re doing.”

Antiracist Practice

You and your Latinx colleague are standing outside the restrooms in the library, when a student directly approaches your colleague and says, “The restroom is out of toilet paper. You better go in and refill it.” When your colleague responds that they will let facilities know, the student replies, “Oh, I thought you worked for facilities.”

Thanks! Questions?