Libraries Role in Fighting Hypermasculinity: Reflections from A Week of ALA Midwinter and a Mass Shooting

I returned from Denver, Colorado where I attended ALA’s Midwinter 2018, which was my first time. It’s hard to reflect back on the conference now when so much is happening in the world and when it coincides with the Parkland High School mass shooting where 17 people (mostly children) were killed and more were injured. I keep trying to reflect on one but the horror of war machines exploding outside and inside classrooms in our country keeps reverberating.

With both in mind, I’m reminded of Junot Díaz’s words on Saturday on libraries and their importance in our society and specifically on his life. How instead of getting into trouble he would skip school to go and look for books at his local library. “Who the fuck does that,” Díaz punctuated.

It’s stories like these that remind that me what we do is important because somehow we may be the only escape or resource that a young working class, latinx male can find. Someone from the audience later asked what are some of the things librarians can do to help urban young men from the horror that they might see in neighborhoods as per gangs or bullying. Diaz said (and here I’m paraphrasing based on my own tweet) that we have to defeat the hyper-masculinity that exists in our society.

And maybe in discussing the Parkland, Florida High School shooting we need to discuss not just the guns, more security, or mental health issues. But what about the hypermasculinity that permeates so much in our culture online and in real life? Where males feel entitled to feed their anger and frustration and unleash it the only way they’ve been taught.

Nikolas Cruz, the shooter, and killer in Florida, is nineteen years old. He was probably born in 1999, the year of Columbine mass shooting. Two years later 9/11 blew up the skies of New York, DC, and Pennsylvania. The United States has been in continual wars since then. Shooting after shooting, drone strike after drone strike, enhanced surveillance, and fully armored police forces who freely shoot men of color, especially black . . . violence and violent culture have been the solutions to conflicts.

But somehow, when we discuss hypermasculinity we only refer it to Black or Latin men. The gang culture, the machismo, the bullying on the streets ‘in da ‘hood’. And if you look up hypermasculinity in google, you’ll see images of black men pop up quite like the same searches that Safiya Noble produced while researching searching black girls in for Algorithms of Oppression. (IEEE History please don’t, Just Don’t).

Why don’t we talk about hypermasculinity when it’s expressed in White men, white supremacist or not. It’s infected our society that has forgotten to teach kindness, collectivity, love. Instead, it’s everyone’s out for themselves, “I gotta do what I gotta do.” And quietly, drone strike you in the middle of the night for national interests abroad. Hypermasculinity is now celebrated and validated because of the Trump Administration and his tough guy, eat steak with ketchup, sexual predator treatment of women, deporting immigrant ways.

We've seen how the movement of capital has left many without a home, a job, or a sense of being. Advancements in technology have not brought us closer together but have isolated us more by the drive to not make these technologies more social but make them more profitable. Racism and sexism are the cleverest of tools ever created to keep humans apart from recognizing their class solidarities. Shit has intensified.

Can libraries counteract hypermasculinity? Of course, because we in the library world do every day. But we must express our values consciously so that we fight against the violent individualism of the market economy. Fighting imperialist, white-supremacist, capitalist patriarchy is the struggle many of us are engaged in and much more are needed. The opportunities are there at the reference desk, in our collections, online chatting, and in our events. We're here to express hey we're here for you, if you have some questions, we can help and if we don't have answers, let's figure them out.

In “the Are Libraries Neutral” debate, R. David Lankes said, “libraries are about communities trying to find meaning.” That’s what Junot Díaz found in his public library in Old Bridge, New Jersey by finding a librarian who was there to help him find the information he was searching in the shared collection of his community.

It's much too simple to say that a killer like Cruz needed a library but what he did need was a society that cares (mental health or health care, a society that cherishes life over freedom of gun ownership, an anti-racist, anti-sexist society just to start). Luckily, libraries still stand as an expression of that. We're hopefully here to try to find meaning in a mad world.

Using Library Space for Solidarity and Strength

The presidential election of 2016 shook the foundations of everything in our society from our discourse, politics, and democracy. For many librarians, the customary semesters filled with reference shifts, instruction sessions, and workshops were thrown for a loop. Fake news and alternative facts entered our lexicon. The change in political landscape had all of us questioning our knowledge and where we get information from. Librarians were looked upon to fill gaps in knowledge--that we’ve always been filling--but the circumstance made people more conscious about it.

While our roles in educating and leading people to truth & knowledge are crucial, there’s more we can do to facilitate discussions about democracy and social justice. This role isn’t quickly ascribed to us, but we must undertake it especially in this political climate, where corporate interests are ruling out over the interests of working people.

This climate calls into question the kinds of events we have and showcase at our libraries. As evidenced in articles, postings on the internet, and at ACRL 2017 in Baltimore, many chose to have workshops about fake news and evaluating information. Naturally, this is our forte. But we can provide spaces for other types of events.

This past semester seeing the need for broader discussions around race and information, I wanted to organize a gathering to discuss these issues. The Men of Color Event was by far one of the best activities I ever helped coordinate at the library. It was done in coordination with a diversity educator at Stevens. Initially, I was trying to have a film showing for The 13th, Ana Duvernay’s critically acclaimed document about the prison system in the United States, but our dates couldn't coordinate.  Then the diversity educator suggested a Men of Color event because she had previously organized a Women of Color event on campus.

Most of the events I have organized at my library have been workshops or instructional sessions about finding or being critical about the process of how to use, find, and evaluate information, technology, and media. I use bell hooks, Paulo Freire, and Giroux to guide my teaching so students understand their roles in being active social agents in a world filled with injustice. The Men of Color event wasn’t about those issues. First and foremost it was about learning about allyship, that is, meeting people who have similar interests and understanding about the objective world and how it can affect our consciousness.

Fourteen people attended the event: 12 students and 3 staff members (including myself). We discussed the shared experience of the invisibility of people of color on our campus. By being gathered in one place, it was striking to the staff members the number of young African-American men present. The breakdown of Stevens demographics according to Forbes website is Black or African American 2.3%, Hispanic/Latino, 9.1%, Asian 9.6% and race-ethnicity Unknown is 10.3% percent and predominantly male by 71% to 29% female.  All the participants spoke about the importance of people of color finding spaces to speak openly and freely about issues that matter to them especially in today’s political atmosphere.

Beside the library being an active space for students to sit down, talk and feel “safe,” the library should be a place for them to feel strong by the unity and solidarity that they feel in the room. Just as when students use information to fortify an argument or expand their knowledge about a given subject, they should feel strength in numbers in order to continue the discourse and struggle beyond the library doors. These moments could make positive changes on our campus to confront racism, sexism, homophobia, etc and therefore, make our society a better place.

I also proposed that students from the African-American clubs come to the library and research the archives of the university so they could uncover who the people of color at Stevens have been in the past. Furthermore, the library could host an exhibition from the special collections and archives to showcase their research. Thus, the library would provide another space for people of color to express themselves and learn about shared history. Careful consideration about how these collections are used is important and a good model to follow is April Hathcock’s suggestion in her notes about 2016 Untold Histories Unconference. To paraphrase, it should be about the people and not the project.

The Men of Color event brought together the importance of the library and how it should be not only a community’s center for intellectual discourse but also a space for social justice discourse. So much of people of color’s history has either been ignored, obfuscated, or left on dusty shelves that there must be an active drive to shine a light on the total history of the community. Thus, while people of color may feel, and most likely are, a minority at colleges and universities, the library in collaboration with people of color can play a significant role in providing a space for people to engage and for people of color to tell their stories.

Favorite Things about ACRL 2017

Before I get all reflective in a pedagogical and philosophical manner, a recap of my favorite things that happen during ACRL 2017.

1. Baltimore, Maryland. Awesome city with really friendly folks. I got to see a friend I hadn't seen in 14 years. 

2. Critlib Unconference: While it had some strengths and weaknesses, Critlib Unconference V.2 was still important to guide us going into ACRL2017. More on this in the next post.

3. Happy Hour with April Hathcock, Jessica Critten, and Kevin Seeber developing the ACRL 2017 Bingo Card.

4. Nandos! That's some fine chicken. Lunch for 2 days and one of those was mini reunion with colleagues (birthday for Vicky Ludas Orlofsky!) and former students I worked with, Gina Shelton and Ellie Horowitz.

5. Roxane Gay: Lucid and as sharp as a knife. She brought it. Favorite line: "I don't want your shame . . . I want your fight!"

6. Meeting and having a great talk with Peace Ossom Williamson and Marissa Mourer who joined Laurie Bridges and me in finishing a bottle of rye, (well, Peace didn't because she's pregnant).

7. All the think-pair-shares in presentations: way to question the authority of the experts!

The audience at the Feminized Labor panel/Session.

8. Taking the long walk to Fells Point with Haruko Yamauchi and discovering some fine Ramen.

Forgot to take a pic but here's a pic of what I had.
Taken from http://mishvoinmotion.com/weekend-guide-baltimore/

9. Taking a cab to Red Emma Bookstore and Cafe with A. Roberto and Christine Moeller. Amazing collection of books, zines, magazines, and food for sale. AND it looks embedded in its community.

Some finds at Red Emma Bookstore in Baltimore

10. Invited to crash Violet Fox's surprise Bachelorette Emeritus Party and becoming the impromptu videographer. Drinking Colt 45 first out of a champagne glass and then out of a lidded coffee cup on the way to killer karaoke where people were killing it.

Thanks everyone! Hasta Siempre!

A Letter to My Fellow NJ Academic Librarians

I am very fortunate to work in a profession that values compassion, empathy, and education for our communities. I’m always pretty amazed by librarians’ tremendous dedication to help people access information and develop knowledge for a more informed society. Whenever I attend a conference, symposium, or workshop, any kind of cynicism that may have seeped in from our external political world, melts away by a true sense of humanity in our deeds, small or large.

It has been more than a full week of the administration of the 45th president. We’ve seen executive order after order signed and sealed that can have lasting impacts on our communities: from a woman’s right to reproductive health, affordable health care, to immigrant or refugee status in the United States.  We’ve also seen considerable resistance to the administration’s orders through massive rallies not just around the country but around the world. Truly, we are all concerned about our futures.

So the question for us is what do we in this time of fear and insecurity? What does it mean for our institutions and specifically for our libraries? Where do we stand? I believe we need to have a discussion in our state specifically about how we defend our values and members of our community who may come under attack from the new administration’s policies.

Soon after the election the American Library Association through several regretful press releases caught itself in hot water for complacently accepting the current administration without evaluating what kind of policies and values the 45th president’s administration’s policies would have on libraries and education in general. The alarming, and quite frankly abhorrent, choice of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary should have everyone in education shaking in their boots. We cannot follow the “business as usual policy” that the ALA was complying to. I'm glad they've recently released a new statement concerning the executive actions on refugees and bans on people from some Muslim countries.

I hope that this message opens up the discussion for us in the New Jersey academic library community to come together to meet and discuss, define and solidify our values in such an important time. Maybe we can get together this spring for a one-day unconference? I’m sure we can find in our collective powers to muster it up like the thousands who sprang up in airports to protest the ban on immigration from some Muslim countries and refugees.  Also of importance: sharing our stories about how our communities are being affected and how we’re resisting can build communities of solidarity which are essential.

I hope that we can come together as soon as possible to unite across the state!

In Struggle,
Romel Espinel


PS. Please comment below on how we can get started or email me at respinel[at]stevens.edu and I will send you a link to a google doc so we can brainstorm some ideas.

1/100 Poem A Day During the New Presidency: Inauguration Day

Going off on the suggestion of Erin Dorey (@edorney) to commit to writing a poem a day for the first 100 days of the new presidency.

Inauguration Day

Roll out the carpets

Sound out the trumpets

Decorate the walls;

Our time calls to the

Podiums of history,

To the balconies of freedom.

We’ll take many walks,

Double-stepping marches;

Lifting our fists

Raising our voices

Stopping the gears

Shutting off power

Stopping the traffic

Sand in the wheels

To halt the worst.

We’ve not been chosen

But chose to lead;

Drawn from the beaches

Where bodies float

And crash against

The cold shore;

Knees rise

Balances regained

The struggle

Continues.

My Favorite Things of 2016:

Just because . . .

Visual:

Los Punks: We Are All We Have (doc Netflix)
Atlanta (tv)
Stranger Things (netflix)
Orange is the New Black (S.4 Netflix)
Mr. Robot (S2 tv)

Narcos (S2 Netflix)
Straight Outta Compton (HBO-i didn’t see it in theaters)
Kenan Thompson as big papi on SNL
Born to be Blue (movie)

Requiem for The American Dream (Netflix)
Tribe Call Quest on SNL performance (tv)
The 13th (Netflix)
Insecure (HBO)

Audible:

Coloring Book—Chance the Rapper

Untitled Unmastered, Kendrick Lamar
The Hamilton Original Cast Soundtrack
Blood sweat by Plague Vender
Epic by Kamasi Washington
Coloring Book—Chance the Rapper
Formation-Beyonce
Black Star-David Bowie
WTF Podcast
Men In Blazers podcast

Reading:

Counterpunch
Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks (reread)
Jacobin
The Guardian
M Train, Patti Smith
On Critical Pedagogy, Henry Giroux

Teaching & Learning:

Portable dry erase boards for my students
CritLib in Tucson,Arizona
@dropvase throwing down the gauntlet at ACRLNY Symposium
on Money & Power
Naomi Klein @ Stevens
Working with Books Through Bars, NYC

Highlight:

Class Struggle & Resistance:
Black Lives Matter, Election 2016, Bernie Sanders, North Dakota Access Pipeline

The West of Coast of the USA

Evaluating Information in the Age of "Fake News" vs "Real News"

I was all set to write and tweet about how students, and the public in general, should evaluate information sources in an attempt to be able to identify "fake news". This topic has become pretty hot since the November 8th election of Donald Trump with people trying to figure out what went wrong from the democratic side of things.

One of the excuses used was that there was a steady stream of "fake news" that people were being fed through their social media portals. All of us saw many of these articles, posts or memes declaring one thing or another like Hillary Clinton was taking medication for Parkinson's to Trump declaring that he saw thousands of people cheering the attack on 9/11 in Jersey City (no evidence). People reshared them and commented on them as proof to their already established ideology.

I found myself on a daily basis trying to expose the fake news by explaining and pointing out to my "friends" and how much of the information people were posting was either fake or just plain wrong. Remember that there are outlets out there on the internet (and many librarian teaching information literacy and research skills knows) who are just there to make money try to write as much clickable content to draw you into their ad sites.

So the mainstream media has exposed the weakness in people's ability to tell the difference between fake news and "real" news from traditional sources. However, what happens if the mainstream media is exposing this weakness to redefine the category of authority? Matt Taibbi from Rolling Stone exposed how the Washington Post ran a bogus article about "fake news" sites which quoted ProporNot as its source. Their claim is that many of these fake news sources were promoting pro-Russian politics, included many reputable information sources on the left like Counterpunch, Truthdig, etc and clumping them with sites like Infowars (I will not give them traffic; fuck them). Jeffrey St. Clair sees this as a pattern of information manipulation from a long history of the CIA influencing news and information at the New York Times, Washington Post, Miami News, Chatanooga Times etc.

So how do we teach authority in this day in age where it's quite obvious that information is being manipulated by one side or the other? One thing for sure is that our discussions not just in the classroom should push for a more aggressive substantiation of facts and information. We can no longer take a person's word for it or "I heard from somewhere". It's obvious that the ruling elite are trying to win the hearts and minds of working class people through their media and are consolidating power for their capitalist interests, domestically and abroad. They want the media on board to promote their

Librarians must lead the way in the efforts to find truth wherever they may lie. Maybe now is a time to give more validation to news organizations outside the mainstream media especially if they are exposing lies, bias and manipulation.