White Nationalism in Libraries

I recently attended a workshop titled Confronting White Nationalism & Anti-Democracy in Libraries. In the workshop, I received some great information on dealing with white nationalism & anti-democratic activities in public libraries. These include: Anonymous Use of Hate Symbols or Speech, Meeting Room Bookings to Organize or Antagonize and Protest of Programs that Promote Inclusion. As a takeaway, we were given copies of the Confronting White Nationalism in Libraries Toolkit created by the Western States Center in Portland, Oregon. Although this has been created with an American library audience in mind, the toolkit is very applicable to similar issues that many Canadian libraries face.

The toolkit is free to download as a PDF from the Western States Center website: https://www.westernstatescenter.org/libraries

I highly recommend downloading / printing out a copy for reference. Included are Proactive Steps, Scenarios with suggested approaches, and responses to Five Common Defenses of White Nationalist Ideology.

Even if you think that these resources in this toolkit are not applicable to you and your library, I still encourage you to take a look. There are actions we can take to prevent these movements from showing up on our doorstep.

Steps Libraries can Take

(taken from Confronting White Nationalism in Libraries by Western States Center, 2022)

• Increase visibility of symbols that embrace difference in your community, such as signage and material displays of diversity and commitment to racial and gender justice throughout your spaces
• Strengthen relationships with community groups, elected officials, and other local institutions. Discuss issues libraries face with organized bigotry so that the library will have vocal political support already in place if it needs to have a strong response to white nationalist activity.
• Review marketing and privacy policies to make sure that library social media accounts and bulletin boards can’t be exploited by white nationalists to publicize their ideologies and events
• Explore restorative justice models and de-escalation training for your library to equip staff to handle incidents safely so that police aren’t your sole go-to response for disturbances.

And more…!

Duncan Lotoski
Consultant Librarian