Members of the Diversity Committee and facilitators/attendees of the Antiracist Reading Group for the UNCG Libraries will be presenting an ASERL workshop titled, (Not) Another Anti-Racist Reading Group: From Disucssion to Action, on February 1, 2021, at 2 p.m. EST.
The panel will include Deborah Yun Caldwell, Juanita Thacker, Melody Rood, and Suzanne Sawyer. Discussions will revolve around methods and outcomes of the group since its founding last June.
Register Here:
https://register.gotowebinar.com/register/2764838948404042766
Author and professor, Ibram X. Kendi wrote, “The only way to undo racism is to consistently identify and describe it — and then dismantle it.”
In the months since the Black Lives Matter uprisings in the summer of 2020, much has been written about the use of reading lists and book clubs to educate and facilitate difficult conversations about racism, and much more has been said in the years leading up to these events. Reading groups are often proposed as a means of introducing people to new or challenging topics, and just as often criticized as an inadequate, feel-good band-aid that can be applied with little effort and little impact beyond individuals’ possible personal growth.
This panel shares the methods and outcomes of an antiracist reading group established by the UNC Greensboro University Libraries’ Diversity Committee. By focusing on connecting concepts to the readers’ work in librarianship and addressing the issues within our workplace, our reading group sought to not just identify and describe racism but also identify the means by which we may work towards dismantling it within our own institution.
Over the course of six months, this group produced a number of actionable/measurable goals based on conversations in each session, which resulted in the creation of a mentoring circles group, hiring practices committee, and antiracist resource library. This panel will describe our goal setting, facilitation methods, organization and activation strategies, as well as considerations for the future.
Panelists:
- Student Success Librarian and Assistant Professor Melody Lee Rood, University Libraries
- Preservation Services Specialist Suzanne Sawyer, University Libraries
- Diversity Resident Librarian Deborah Yun Caldwell, University Libraries
- Informaton Literacy Lecturer Juanita Thacker, University Libraries
An ASERL workshop.
