Library Meeting Rooms Redux
Jun. 24th, 2020 11:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
writerkitI'm at Virtual ALA this week, along with most of the rest of my profession. Hate speech really seems to be the discussion of the day, which I find intensely frustrating because most of it centers around libraries needing to STAND UP FOR MORALITY and completely ignoring the part of the conversation where every time libraries have actually *done* that it's resulted in libraries going after the marginalized.
It started with a speech from ALA's new Executive Director that I actually have no problems with; she was very justice-focused but she wasn't focusing on any of the areas of justice I'm finding to have problematic rhetoric. Her three major calls to action were universal broadband, diversifying the profession, and investment in libraries. Which are all definitely good things. A lot of people on Twitter seem to have taken the explicit call for racial justice in the profession to mean she's going to do something about the Office of Intellectual Freedom guidance being "you have to let hate groups use your meeting rooms."
What's interesting is I can't find any evidence our new executive director has ever taken a public position on this! There seem to be a lot of people who think that ALA can only be heading towards justice if it changes its position on meeting rooms.
I was also at the intellectual freedom session and then on the conference Twitter hashtag, and there are a lot of people saying that the intellectual freedom session was a one-sided travesty. The intellectual freedom session was completely honest about what the law is, and also about what has happened every other time there's been a government push to step on hate speech. (There apparently used to be something called the bad tendency test, which prohibited speech if it had a tendency to harm public welfare, and it resulted in exactly what you'd think it would result in-- the criminalization of war protests. I really, honestly want to hear an actual answer from someone on the "ban harmful speech" side about what measures they propose to prevent that happening.)
A number of people want OIF to have resources for libraries that choose to risk getting sued-- but the thing is, those resources can't exist. The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously and recently to uphold the content-neutral speech thing. There are no resources to offer! "You're going to get sued and we have recent evidence there's no justification you can make that the courts will accept and meanwhile the organization suing you is going to get a lot of news coverage and attention and eventually a lot of money from your budget"? What kind of resources do you *want*? Do you want the Office of Intellectual Freedom to be lobbying for a Constitutional Amendment? Because that's what it would take.
There was also a *lot* of rhetoric condemning her for talking about how the way hearts and minds are changed is through speech, and citing the various memoirs of people who've left terrible organizations about why they left, to such a degree that I'm really starting to wonder if a lot of this wing of the profession is in the "I want someone who is acceptable to punch" group-- because no one seems to have any answer to "how do you make sure it doesn't end like the last time someone tried to lead this charge" beyond "but WE'RE leading the charge this time," and that's not an articulated position; it's "I like the feeling of power I get from canceling people on Twitter."
(And just as a sidenote, if your response to the child of a Holocaust survivor saying this stuff about neo-Nazi rallies is to condemn her for being a white person out of her lane... well, you're wrong, fullstop, and you should stop and think about what you're saying *really hard*. This was thankfully not the bulk of the responses but it was definitely there.)
It started with a speech from ALA's new Executive Director that I actually have no problems with; she was very justice-focused but she wasn't focusing on any of the areas of justice I'm finding to have problematic rhetoric. Her three major calls to action were universal broadband, diversifying the profession, and investment in libraries. Which are all definitely good things. A lot of people on Twitter seem to have taken the explicit call for racial justice in the profession to mean she's going to do something about the Office of Intellectual Freedom guidance being "you have to let hate groups use your meeting rooms."
What's interesting is I can't find any evidence our new executive director has ever taken a public position on this! There seem to be a lot of people who think that ALA can only be heading towards justice if it changes its position on meeting rooms.
I was also at the intellectual freedom session and then on the conference Twitter hashtag, and there are a lot of people saying that the intellectual freedom session was a one-sided travesty. The intellectual freedom session was completely honest about what the law is, and also about what has happened every other time there's been a government push to step on hate speech. (There apparently used to be something called the bad tendency test, which prohibited speech if it had a tendency to harm public welfare, and it resulted in exactly what you'd think it would result in-- the criminalization of war protests. I really, honestly want to hear an actual answer from someone on the "ban harmful speech" side about what measures they propose to prevent that happening.)
A number of people want OIF to have resources for libraries that choose to risk getting sued-- but the thing is, those resources can't exist. The Supreme Court has ruled unanimously and recently to uphold the content-neutral speech thing. There are no resources to offer! "You're going to get sued and we have recent evidence there's no justification you can make that the courts will accept and meanwhile the organization suing you is going to get a lot of news coverage and attention and eventually a lot of money from your budget"? What kind of resources do you *want*? Do you want the Office of Intellectual Freedom to be lobbying for a Constitutional Amendment? Because that's what it would take.
There was also a *lot* of rhetoric condemning her for talking about how the way hearts and minds are changed is through speech, and citing the various memoirs of people who've left terrible organizations about why they left, to such a degree that I'm really starting to wonder if a lot of this wing of the profession is in the "I want someone who is acceptable to punch" group-- because no one seems to have any answer to "how do you make sure it doesn't end like the last time someone tried to lead this charge" beyond "but WE'RE leading the charge this time," and that's not an articulated position; it's "I like the feeling of power I get from canceling people on Twitter."
(And just as a sidenote, if your response to the child of a Holocaust survivor saying this stuff about neo-Nazi rallies is to condemn her for being a white person out of her lane... well, you're wrong, fullstop, and you should stop and think about what you're saying *really hard*. This was thankfully not the bulk of the responses but it was definitely there.)
no subject
Date: 2020-06-24 11:30 pm (UTC)