At a Library Association luncheon, I sat with a slight acquaintance just hired by a library system as an assistant director. A smaller system hired me.
Ostensibly, our engagements were motivated by impressive resumes. We were competent professionals. But we both agreed our hiring was inspired by an organizational need to show diversity. He was the first African American hired in a senior position. I the first Latino.
He mentioned that his new office was being built custom for him right out in the central circulation area. A principal feature of the office was a glassed-in front. The office design placed him on view continually. I was greeted with an important-sounding title and name for the center I would head. We both snickered.
The typical hamfisted American mode of looking at race and ethnicity had missed the true diversity we represented. He – descended from African Americans, Cherokee, English, and German ancestors. Me- descended from Spanish, Hungarian, British Caribean, and Scotch. Neither of us planned on being in glass cages for long. We snickered again; both sides could play at manipulation. Our organizations took count.; That was tokenism.
The future was recognizing diverse heritages. We were the future.
- I originally published this post in early November of 2020. I’m republishing it now because it seems that there is little room for equity, diversity or even plain fair play in the view of the current administration—sorry jerkwads. WE are not going away. And you are not going to put us down, put us in our place, or shove us back.
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This diversity thing is so — I don’t have words.
Thank you for speaking up and putting your foot down. There is value in saying the obvious out loud. I have great hope in seeing the evidence of regular people and smaller administrations all around me refusing to go backward in social evolution. There is a small town outside of Portland called Hillsboro, that has 26% Latino population. ICE took several parents from schools, after they dropped off their kids, in full view of the children. It was traumatic, especially for the children. The district called an emergency meeting that lasted something like 5 hours. The end result was a community watch program with radios and shifts patrolling the streets around schools, staffed by volunteers. They will watch for ICE and then make sure the feds aren’t allowed anywhere near the children or the parents, by calling in droves of neighbors to block their access. I hate that we need to fight our own government, but this is not the first time in history it has been done. We can be successful if we want to.
I don’t know what else we can do. But I know that when this Terror ends I want to see a full due process of law for those who have trampled on basic human rights .
Let’s hope